My Open Source Journey

Way back, in my late teens, when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, I had created myself a geek’s paradise in my basement. I had a chemistry lab, with equipment sourced through my high school, a microscope, a telescope, and an electronics lab built with equipment from Radio Shack. I was also starting to experiment with various computers and, in time, would have at least three different Commodore computers, a TRS-80, until eventually moving to a state of the art 286 IBM PC clone. Later, I’d expand the memory on that PC’s main board to a staggering 1 MB of RAM. …

Teeny Tiny Linux distros, old DOS games, and more!

It’s Tuesday, and it’s time for Cooking With Linux (without a net) where I do some live Linuxy and open source stuff, live, on camera, and without the benefit of post video editing therefore providing a high probability of falling flat on my face. Today, it’s teeny tiny Linux time where I’ll show you some of the smallest fully graphical distributions out there, play some old abandoned games, DOS emulation, and visit browser based Linux. Basically, a grab bag of Linux and open source goodies. Oh, and wine. DamnSmallLinux (aka DSL): http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/downloa… NonoLinux: https://sourceforge.net/projects/nano… TinyCore Linux: https://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycoreli… DOSBox Website: http://www.dosbox.com/ …

Bunsenlabs Linux, Ubuntu 18.04, WSL X services, and more.

It’s Tuesday, and it’s time for Cooking With Linux (without a net) where I do some live Linuxy and open source stuff, live, on camera, and without the benefit of post video editing therefore providing a high probability of falling flat on my face. Today, we’re going back to WSL and trying to run X Windows, then we’re going to take a Linux distribution most people have never heard of out for a spin (Bunsenlabs Linux), and one you have heard of (Ubuntu 18.04). Bunsenlabs Linux is at https://www.bunsenlabs.org VcXsrv X Window server for Windows is at https://sourceforge.net/projects/vcxsrv/  

How to set up your own IRC server on Linux.

It’s Tuesday and that means it’s time for Cooking With Linux (without a net), sponsored and supported by Linux Journal to whom I am thankful. Also, if you’re seeing this, know that you are watching a recording of what was a live show. Speaking of which . . . You all know about Slack, right? Some of you are tied to it even now, unable to break free because that’s what your company runs. Not that there’s anything wrong with Slack, but long before Slack and others like it, there was another collaborative chat system and it’s still alive, even …

Back To The Commodore Future

Way back a million years ago, there was a small Canadian computer company called "Commodore Business Machines" that changed the way people viewed, saw, and used computers. In 1981, they released a computer for the masses, the Commodore VIC20 and everything changed (as another computer company likes to say). Then, in 1982, things changed forever with the introduction of the Commodore 64, the most revolutionary piece of technology the proverbial average person had ever seen. It was . . . the future. Using your Linux system, come back with me to that future of the early 1980s. http://vice-emu.sourceforge.net/ To find …

Run Full Android on Your Desktkop

If you've ever dreamed of bringing even part of the Android experience to your desktop, say a business application or . . . oh, who am I kidding . . . a game you particularly like, then this is the video you've been looking for. On today's episode, I'm going to show you how to install and run a full Android machine right on your Linux desktop. To do this yourself, you'll need the ISO image available here. ReMix OS for the PC

Build a Minecraft PC Server

My 9 year old son told me that EVERYBODY is playing Minecraft on the PC now, as opposed to the tablet or console versions. What he was really saying was that he wanted me to build him a Minecraft PC server so that he could play with his friends on their own private server. Eventually, I gave in and, using the open Minecraft server from Project Rainbow, I created a very cool server for him, and his friends, to play on. In this video, I'll take you through all the steps so that you can make one for your kids. …

Ripping a DVD with HandBrake

Over on yon Facebook, I was taking part in a discussion about ripping DVDs to video files on your computer using Linux. My friend, being a command line guy, explained how he did it. I countered that, while I was also a command line guy, I do my DVD ripping with HandBrake. He then accused me of really being a desktop guy. Well . . . maybe I am. I will let you, my viewers, readers, and listeners, decide on that one. In the meantime, here's a little video to show you just how easy it is to rip a …

AI Revisited

The tech futurists have made their annual predictions and I hear that 2017 is going to be the year of the AI virtual assistant. You know . . . Alexa, Google Home, and Zuckerberg's Jarvis. Chatbots are also on the agenda, appearing everywhere from messaging apps like Kik or Allo to Google's new Pixel assistant. That's why this episode of "Cooking With Linux" is all about artificial intelligence and how far we've come. This episode is also about a great old movie that lends its heroine's to one of the original chatbots. Shall we talk?

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