Hulu Labs launches Hulu Desktop for Linux, Oct 13, 2009

The Hulu Labs developers have announced the availability of a Linux version of their downloadable native client.

For a brief time in 2008, Linux actually owned a segment of the desktop industry: netbooks. When netbooks first showed up, they ran Linux and nothing but Linux. Microsoft panicked and brought XP back from the dead, offering it for next to nothing to netbook vendors and thus successfully fighting off the Linux challenge.

Linux versus Windows has been the subject of debate for quite some time, but will it (Linux) ever achieve the status of a popular desktop product that we’ll have to support? Share your opinion and take the poll.

Will desktop Linux ever grow up? I ask because, after years of monitoring this wannabe Windows-killer's progress, I've yet to see it emerge from its awkward adolescent stage.

This year, a new dimension is appearing on the Linux desktop. It's geolocation: the capability to detect and record where you and other people are, and to use the information to enhance the desktop.

How do you choose which GNU/Linux desktop to use? No easy answer exists, because the choice is so full of difficulties.

For the last eighteen months, the GNU/Linux desktop has been in a period of radical innovation. KDE 4 introduced new features and workflows. Mark Shuttleworth launched Ubuntu on a unilateral redesign campaign, starting with notifications. GNOME announced a new desktop that, so far as anyone can tell, will profoundly change the user-experience.

The starting point for the argument to use Linux on a desktop is typically that Windows is completely broken and the only reason people carry on using it is because they are lazy or have been brainwashed by the Redmond evil empire. Linux is then positioned as the answer to everyone's problems based on technical superiority and the righteousness of open source.

I spent the weekend using Ubuntu 9.04 almost exclusively. Blame it on Apple.

Can Intel compete with its long-time partner Microsoft in the operating system game?

Researchers interviewed 1,275 IT professionals from the UK, US and other countries, 90 per cent of whom use Linux on their company desktops.

Implementing Linux desktops is easier than IT staff expect, a new study concludes. You just need to pick the right users.

Linux desktops are easier to implement than IT staff expected if they targeted the right groups of users.

IBM put out a study datelined one minute past midnight this Thursday morning commenting on the fact that outside of netbooks, the recession has largely put the kibosh on PC growth. There is according to IBM, however, an area of PC investment that actually saves money for a company: the Linux desktop.

This article will walk you, the Windows power user, through the Ubuntu installation process from downloading the CD image to finding help online.

Recently, the Web site analytics company Net Applications came out with figures that showed that in April, the percentage of "client devices" used to surf the Web that were running Linux crossed the 1% level for the first time ever -- 1.02%, to be exact. The firm enthusiastically noted that "Linux has reached this important milestone on the client as Linux-based systems have become more functional, easier to use, and pre-installed on computers from vendors like Dell."

It was back in 2002, according to Sam Trenholme, the creator of the secure DNS server software MaraDNS. That was the year that forces conspired to make sure Linux on the desktop would never become a reality. Linux as a server was another matter entirely, but to him the "Linux desktop" is as dead as the Amiga.

Three weeks ago, I switched my main desktop from GNOME to KDE. The switch was not a rejection of GNOME, nor an unreasoning enthusiasm for KDE.

Unlike Windows or Mac OS X, each of which is the product of a single vendor, Linux comes in many different distributions that target the desktop, and each has its own look and feel. Some are based on the Gnome desktop environment, while others use KDE, and still others let the user choose between both.

The question has never been a easy one to answer. The answer has always depended on what you were looking for.

Linux has achieved success on servers, but can it make a go of it on the desktop? Panelists at a technical conference Tuesday evening debated the question, with a Red Hat official wondering whether the issue is even relevant anymore.

For over a decade, columnists and bloggers have been explaining how GNU/Linux isn't ready for the desktop -- and, despite all the progress in the operating system over the last ten years, the arguments haven't changed much.

A few years ago, Xfce had a reputation as a lightweight desktop that made few concessions to inexperienced users. However, the Xfce 4 series of releases have shown steady improvements in usability, and version 4.6 is no exception.

A new battle is playing out in the Linux desktop arena. This new battle? GNOME vs. KDE.

It's not news that Microsoft will get Windows 7 out as fast as possible this year. Vista has been a complete dog, so Microsoft will rush to deliver what is essentially a cleaned-up, lightweight version. What is news is that Google will have its own contender for desktop operating system king: Android.

While evangelists of Linux distributions built for personal computers (i.e., "Linux desktops") point to Netbooks as an indication of renewed life in their chances to compete for consumers, new data suggests that this may be a fool's hope.

Here’s some guidance to the most common Linux desktops.

Bob Sutor, IBM’s VP of open source and standards, recently declared at the Black Hat Security Conference in Las Vegas that the open source world needs to create new and innovative user interfaces distinctive to Linux desktops if they want to pose a greater challenge in the desktop space.

The free Linux operating system handles big tasks such as running supercomputers and ATMs. Now, Linux has a chance to loosen Microsoft Corp.'s hold on computing's most visible domain — mainstream PCs — because of the rise of innovative, inexpensive machines.

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