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from the save-a-buck-fire-a-smart-guy dept.
We've previously mentioned Eric Hameleers AKA alienbob AKA Alien BOB and his run-Slackware-from-removable-media project. He even created an account here to comment on our story about that. (His sole activity here, so far.)
He now blogs
I am being laid off by my employer, IBM. Jobs in the Netherlands move to lower-wage countries like Poland and India, while IBM changes course towards a "cognitive" future in which there is less interest in the traditionally skilled technical IT jobs.
Unparalleled (because forced) job cuts in the Netherlands are the result of that change of focus. Almost 10% of the IBMNL work force is sent away in a "re-balancing" operation and I am out of a job per November 1st.
[...] As long as I still work for IBM (seven weeks), I have access to Safari Books Online where I can freely access and use the available course materials which prepare for the RHCE exam. This will of course affect the time I can spend on Slackware. I commonly spend nearly every after-work hour on packaging, scripting, and assisting people online and via email. That stops now.
[...] I also cannot promise that--when I have found a new job--that I will be able to provide the levels of support that you may have gotten used to.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Thursday September 15 2016, @09:51PM
Linux sound has always been a dog's breakfast, of course
In my experience, sound on Linux has been a smooth "just works" experience for well over a decade. The trick has always been to purge the abomination that is pulseaudio from the system, which usually is the source of the problems. Thanks for making that buggy piece of shit, Lennart. PA has gotten better since he left it but it's still usually more trouble than it's worth. In fact, when I had to install it a few months ago it only took a few hours of fighting to get it to act somewhat sane.
Though it did nearly damage my hearing with its insane dynamic volume levels default that allows programs to set the volume to 100% even when you explicitly set it lower. Insane, irresponsible setting only chosen to make it more familiar to windows users. I was wearing headphones when something raised the volume to max from the 25% I had it set to. Ears were ringing for hours thanks to that idiotic design decision.