Welcome !

Use the drop-down menu to the left to navigate these pages.

This website is under constant construction. Some pages may be incomplete. But there have been requests, so I'm making the material available. What is here is correct, as far as I know, but may be missing supplementary information that will be added as time/energy permits.

---

Current:

WE'RE BACK ON LINE!

Due to a SNAFU of SilverBear's own making, SBLinux.org has been off the web since the end of July. But ownership of the Domain Name has now been reacquired, and so . . .we're back!

In the hiatus, SilverBear has planned a new website, more geared toward an orderly acquisition of GNU/Linux knowledge and skillz. The GnuLinuxUser.net is being designed with serveral topical sections. First, The Basics is for users new to the GNU/Linux family of operating systems. A great starting place for Microsoft Windows refugees, it outlines the essential points you need to know in order to begin taking control of your computer. Topics include practical how-to configurations, as well as Unix/Linux overviews of system design information.

The Sections Sys Admin and How-To take some of the general topics introduced in The Basics and present them in greater depth. These are the Sections that will be more useful to the average person currently using a GNU/Linux OS. Customize covers topics helpful to converting an OS that just runs into an OS that servers all your own specialized needs and your style of personal computing. Troubleshooting covers the initial steps to take when “something” goes wrong.

SITE UPGRADE/REDESIGN IN PROCESS

After a busy 2008, with work in the Mepis Linux community, and with the LinuxTracker.org website, and helping to get the MepisCommunity.org website project up and running, it's now time (finally!) to give SBLinux.org a much-deserved overhaul.

Some of the material that has been on SBLinux.org will be moving to GnuLinuxUser.net, and it remains to be seen what new material will be coming to SBLinux.org. But if you're not intimidated by the glacial pace of change here, come on in and add your snowflake —or snowstorm— to the glacier. Register at the SBLinux.org Forum, or email SilverBear at webmaster@ this website. (to foil spam robots trawling for email addresses, I never print out a full email adress on a website.)

Other projects SilverBearhas been working on:

MEPIS Linux 8.0 User's Manual

LinuxTracker: The Premier Linux BitTorrent Website

The MEPIS Community website

---

Coming changes:

Instead of a time-entry-item style front page, I plan to change the front page of SBLinux.org to a more topic-oriented design. SBLinux.org members are encouraged to suggest what they'd like to see here. If you're not already a member at SBLinux.org, well what's the hold-up? Go to the Forum via the link on the left, and register. It's free, and nothing is cooler than when penguins and polar bears join forces to plot world domination. Or, at least desktop domination!

There's a recently created Forum Section “Who's Who” where new and charter members alike are incouraged to introduce themselves with as much or as little incriminating detail as they like. Of course it isn't obligatory. But if the purpose of SBLinux.org is to help each other become more efficient at configuring our Linux systems, and to explore new FOSS paths, I think it helps to get to know a little about the folks behind the login names. I get a lot of emails & PMs from members, so I have an advantage over some other members. I'm not going to start publishing details about folks that they sent to me, but everybody I know of among the current 40 members on SBLinux.org is a talented and interesting person. SBLinux.org is for all of us, and we can discuss things here that may not be so on-topic in distro-specific Forums like MepisLovers.org, or KubuntuWay.net —although I encourage everyone interested in Mepis or Kubuntu to join those Forums, as they have some great people.

          

Even on great non-distro-specific forums like justlinux.com, linuxquestions.org and usalug.org, you might not feel as free to ask something, suggest something, or share something with hundreds or thousands of people you don't know. But here on SBLinux.org, you're in a truly “1337 ”club where it is still quite possible to get to know all the other members.

So if you have a vision of hope. . . a desire to see positive change. . .

. . . or just want to bat a few ideas around and see what others think before you implement a change (that will maybe crash your system?), here is where you can meet others who are also of an inquiring nature, with whom you might do well to discuss the issue. Join the forum if you haven't already! Post an intro in Who's Who if you haven't already. Absolutely make a suggestion or two about what you'd like to see on the SBLinux.org website.

And if you're a real penguinista, write something for the website. Tutorial? Report/review on a distro that goes into more detail than what you see in the forum? Tips, tricks, hints, pitfalls --and how you overcame them? . . . If you have things to say, here may be the place they can do some good for a number of people like yourself.

Hey: A New Year's Resolution to lose weight, quit smoking, or finally marry the mother of your five children, might be noble. . . and hard to keep. But a New Year's Resolution to experiment more and learn more Linux with comrades on SBLinux will be a lot more fun! And so easy, too. . .

some thoughts:

What is “SilverBear Linux?”

Not a new Distro. It doesn't need to be. All versions of GNU/Linux are adaptable to SilverBear Linux. SilverBear Linux is a style, a plan, a way to approach secure and efficient personal computing. SilverBear Linux is cool. Cool in it's real meaning: do it right the first time. . . and then sit back and enjoy.

You start with a GNU/Linux distro that you like. But be cool: make sure you like it because it works, not because of hype or nostalgia. Then use the features of GNU/Linux to make your personal computing secure, convenient, and [saving the best for last] your style.

Too many Linux users are stultified by years of Microsoftening of the brain, or by holdover concepts that suit Unix on a mainframe but have less relevence to a desktop PC. SilverBear Linux is akin to what Joe Sobran calls Reactionary Utopianism. You make sure of the solid, basic, time-tested principles, and then make the best world you can from that starting point. Chuck all the junk that has grown up over the years. Be loyal to the real thing, and to the real you.

Key concepts

1. Computers are supposed to make life easier, not harder. . . [“Duhh!”]
2. It's your computer!
3. The mind is free, and so is knowledge. Change your habits. Drop your chains.
4. The operating system, your installed applications and your personal data are three different things. So treat each according to its nature.
5. If you do it right the first time, you're done. Work is over, the Weekend starts early. . .and —face it— life is short!
6. Back it up or lose it, idiot. Now.
7. I'm talking to you!
8. The only thing you have to fear is premature ossification. Stetch your body and your mind every day.
9. There is always another aspect to things which is not included in any list you are given. Learn how to figure it out, and you will become happy. At least for a while. . .

---

filename: http://www.sblinux.org/index.html
XHTML and CSS design is Copyleft 2008 by John G. Boice under the GNU General Public License
for the text of the GPL :
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt  or http://sblinux.org/pages/gpl.txt
Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA
Briefly: this means you can freely use the content, specifically this CSS and XHTML layout, or a modified version of it, or incorporate a part of it in another document, but not without including this Copyleft notice in it's entirety at the end of the copy, modified document or other derivative document which includes this Copylefted material. You may not charge a fee or price for this document nor any document that is a modified version of it nor any document which contains a portion of it. This summary is for general information purposes: the Copyleft is governed by the actual text of the GPL, a link to which is included in this notice.

How-to articles and software guides are Copyleft 2007 by John G. Boice under the GNU Free Documentation License. Basically this means the same as above, but this documentation Copyleft is legally governed by the actual text of the FDL, which may be found here, if thou need'st it:
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/fdl.txt  or  http://sblinux.org/pages/fdl.txt

SilverBear Linux and SilverBear's Linux Pages names and logos are protected marks of John G. Boice.

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Tux the Penguin is the Official Linux mascot. Permission to use and/or modify this image is granted provided you acknowledge Larry Ewing: lewing@isc.tamu.edu and The GIMP as the software used to design him.

Microsoft, Internet Explorer, and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.

All other names of Operating Systems are most likely registered trademarks or copyrighted names, too. They are used here to publicize the corresponding legitimate product of their respective companies and organizations.