Fedora LogoThe code name for Fedora 9 Linux has been chosen, and it’s going to be Sulphur. Because a foul-smelling rock associated with rotten eggs and depictions of Hell is just what we want to identify an operating system. (Actually, it might not be too far off for Windows Vista.)

Bathysphere was only 8 votes behind. Weird, but considerably cooler.

Oh, well. At least it’s not Mayonnaise or Chupacabra. And some of the other names on that list are considerably worse.

In the decade I’ve been using Linux, it’s gone from something that required lots of technical know-how just to set up, to something that (in its major flavors) can auto-detect most hardware and provides friendly GUIs for most configuration tasks. But every once in a while, I have the kind of experience that would turn a new user off of Linux. Usually because Fedora has decided to change something during an update.

In this case, it was a digital camera problem. Since we bought our Canon PowerShot SD600 last December, I’ve used KDE’s digiKam to transfer and manage the photos. DigiKam detected the camera and accessed the photos right out of the box, no configuration needed beyond telling it to remember the model. But something changed in the last two weeks, and last night I started getting an error message: Failed to connect to the camera. Oddly enough, it could still detect the camera when it was connected. But it couldn’t display or download the images.

I searched all over, hitting dead end after dead end, until I got a hint that it was a permissions problem. Continue reading

Fedora LogoFedora 8 has just been released, code-named “Werewolf.” As is tradition for this particular Linux distribution, the official release announcement is accompanied by an alternative, humorous announcement playing off the code name.

This time, the joke announcement is a song parody of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” And unlike a lot of really bad filk I’ve seen (online and otherwise), it’s surprisingly not bad (for all the subject matter is a bit odd. At least, from what I remember of the original song, it scans.

White LightningA question over at the Comic Bloc Forums reminded me that I hadn’t gotten around to writing a full profile of the Impulse villain, White Lightning. Fortunately I had a full list of appearances already, so I was able to look up the answer to the question, but it felt like being caught totally unprepared. So yesterday I re-read all her appearances, and tonight I wrote up a profile of White Lightning.

Just for fun, I did some searches for her name. Mostly I came up with cars, horses, wax and, of course, booze. And an alpaca. Back to the booze, there was one point at which the character was mistakenly identified as as Moonshine (later explained away as an in-world mix-up, which would have made more sense if she hadn’t been the one calling herself the wrong name!)

Fedora LogoNow the funny thing: the “…in pop culture” section in Wikipedia’s article on Moonshine reminded me that Fedora 7, which just came out last week and which I installed at work a few days ago, is codenamed Moonshine.

The only way the timing could have been more appropriate would be if I’d written the character bio the same day as the Linux release.

This is good news: Mozilla will be working more closely with various Linux distributors including Red Hat, Novell, Ubuntu, and yes, even Debian, to coordinate Firefox updates, configuration, etc.

There are two main issues: making Mozilla’s Firefox installer work everywhere (it mostly does, but on some systems you need to install some compatibility libraries first), and keeping the distributions’ versions in sync with the official one.

After the Debian IceWeasel debacle, and Fedora deciding to skip Firefox 2 and wait for Firefox 3, it’s good to know that Mozilla has recognized the problem and is working on it. One key piece of information: Red Hat and Novell will both be providing extended support for Firefox 1.5 past its official EOL next April.

(via Fedora Weekly News)