This article is the third part of a four-part series that examines some
of the changes in 3D printing that have occurred in the past three
years since my first articles on the subject. Because this is Linux
Journal,
instead of discussing the entire 3D printing world, I'm focusing on the
sections of the topic most relevant to open source and open hardware.
My friend and fellow Linux Journalian Kris Occhipinti recently posted a
reminder on Facebook for everyone to back up regularly in 2016. Although
it's something we already should be doing, if you're not a regular
backer-upper, you should start today!
For the Love of Linux
I love my job. I teach Linux by day and write about Linux at night. It's
easy to fall in love with your work when the things you do align with your
passions.
Linux has seen more than its fair share of controversy through the years.
And,
that's not so surprising. For one thing, the operating system flies in the
teeth of deeply entrenched multinational companies. The fact that it
stands for users instead of vested interests has drawn more than a little
ire as well.
A few days ago, security firm Perception Point released the details of a
zero-day exploit in the Linux kernel, which has sparked a wave of panic as
the report indicated that millions of Android devices are vulnerable.
In December 2015, Mozilla announced that its ambitious new operating system would
not be appearing on any new phones, but the project may still live on as a
platform for smart TVs and IoT devices.
This is the second article in what will be a four-part series on the
current state of 3D printing compared to how things were three years
ago when I wrote my first series on 3D printing. Of course, this
is Linux Journal, so the focus will be on Linux and
open-source-specific aspects in 3D printing. I won't dwell much on
proprietary products.
The Wine team members released version 1.8 of their project this week. The project
has been in constant development since 1993 and reached version 1 only in
2008, so new releases are major events.
The single largest group of users on high-performance computing
clusters has to be the chemists. Their CPU-year count is definitely at the
very top of the list. Because of this heavy use, several
different packages have become standard tools that most computational
chemistry researchers use.