Netgear RangeMax WNR3500L Wireless-N router runs Linux, Oct 06, 2009

Netgear has announced the release of its WNR3500L Wireless-N router that comes pre-loaded with Linux-based firmware.

Forget the netbook or the net-top PC: How about a net-server? A Japanese vendor is touting a lilliputian Linux Web server that weighs 8 ounces and consumes just 8 watts.

Over the years I’ve witnessed desktop Linux distros evolve dramatically – change the very core of the way we look at how an operating system interacts with its users. However, I still find plenty of forum posts on the Web stating that Linux as a platform still lacks suitable parental controls.

Asked last week about the fact that Linux has been getting increasingly slow over the past 10 years or so, Linux-daddy Linus Torvalds replied "We're getting bloated and huge. Yes, it's a problem."

Microsoft has been distributing literature to American retailers with the intention of training staff to steer customers away from a Linux based operating system towards Windows.

Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin issued a scathing condemnation of Microsoft's recent attempts to unload Linux-related patents to patent trolls. He calls for the company to "stop secretly attacking Linux" and compete on the basis of quality rather than FUD.

Does it surprise anyone that Microsoft is allegedly helping to train BestBuy employees to sell Windows 7 against Linux? It shouldn't. This is a marvelous thing for Linux fans everywhere.

Don’t see what all the Windows 7 fuss is about and thinking of jumping ship to Linux? The experience of switching to Linux needn’t be a traumatic one.

Don't see what all the Windows 7 fuss is about and thinking of jumping ship to Linux? The experience of switching to Linux needn't be a traumatic one.

To be a good administrator, you have to know the command line. Why? Well, with Windows there are times when the command line is the only thing that can save your skin. With Linux, the command line is vast, reliable, flexible, fast … I could go on and on.

As Linux squeezes itself into all facets of technology, more people are being forced to use it who have little knowledge of the foreign Unix land.

A complaint you hear quite often is that the Linux desktop environments, which mostly refers to KDE and GNOME, are trying too hard to be like Windows and Mac OS X.

In its "Windows 7 Sins" campaign, the Free Software Foundation has labeled Windows 7 as "treacherous computing," and accuses Microsoft of such acts as "poisoning education." This is just the latest in a long line of attacks by open source lovers against Microsoft. But Apple is arguably even more closed than Microsoft, yet always gets a free ride from vociferous open source proponents.

In a time when Microsoft is feeling the full impact of the global economic downturn, the open-source Linux operating system is flourishing.

Why is Linux still not as user friendly as the two other main OSes with all the people developing for Linux? Is it because it is mainly developed by geeks?

Commercials take products and make them desirable. No matter what the product. Think about how many bad products have been sold by good commercials. The right commercial can get the public to buy a steaming pile of poo and think they have purchased gold.

It was with much joy that the Linux community saw two harmful myths about open source get put in their places recently.

IM (Instant Messaging) clients have become invisible. We use them all the time to 'talk' with co-workers, chat with friends, and 'text' with family members on their phone.

Even as the recession continues to cool CIO appetites for software purchases, Linux is bucking the trend, according to a new IDC report.

Windows 7 is here, and unlike Windows Vista, it will probably run on your diminutive netbook PC. However, there is an alternative. Here is why you ought to give Linux a shot.

IDC is out with a new report, forecasting Linux revenue from 2009-2013. At least one Linux vendor has already posted on some of the detailed information.

When Windows 7 hits the scene on October millions of people will be immersed in the word 7 for the foreseeable future. How do you make something perfect even better? You learn from your competitors.

Recently I argued that running Firefox off a bootable copy of Linux on a CD or USB flash drive was an excellent approach for online banking. Windows users face a torrent of malware and, for many people, maintaining and using a Windows system securely requires too much time, effort and technical expertise.

I've read countless Microsoft-funded "studies" trying to persuade me that Windows is already dominating the netbook space. According to these studies, Linux might as well just take a curtain call because its act is over in the world of netbooks. That is simply not true. If it were, Asus wouldn't be selling netbooks with Linux pre-installed.

The Linux From Scratch project has released version 6.5 of its step-by-step instructions on how to create your own Linux system from scratch.

Having thrown in my nice sensible 9-to-5 job, I was supporting myself by freelancing, so going offline altogether wasn't an option. I needed to be able to check my email, keep an eye on my bank accounts, send in articles... And so I became GeekWriterType On The Road.

A steady stream of manufacturers are requesting Linux drivers for their hardware, suggesting growing adoption of Linux operating systems among enterprises.

Businesses today support Windows. Many also support Mac OS X. Should businesses also support Linux?

Some users believe that Windows is the best netbook OS. But others - such as Jack Wallen - think Linux is a much better fit. Check out his reasons and see if you agree.

One of the first things I hear from people attempting trying to make the switch to Linux distributions such as Ubuntu is that they are finding the sudden shift in how they use their computers to be relatively overwhelming.

Panasonic and NEC announced nine new cell phone on Tuesday that use the open-source, Linux-based mobile operating system called LiMo.

At the end of July, Sun posted a screenshot from "Project Renaissance," an effort aimed at creating a new user interface (UI) for OpenOffice. The prototype includes a "ribbon" UI in the vein of the one that Microsoft introduced for Office 2007.

If you had to pick just one area that Linux could improve on and get the most bang for the buck, so to speak, what would it be? What would really get people’s attention or persuade someone to take a closer look at migrating to Linux?

This year Microsoft has been making changes to the way it approaches Linux and open source in ways I had never expected. Some of the areas that Microsoft made changes in are significant, while other aspects of their changes are, to be honest, predictable.

What would it take to create a “definitive manual” for new Linux users migrating from Windows? There is one issue at the heart of the creation of any single “definitive manual” for the Linux operating system. That issue? Too many choices.

The show will feature several great sessions that focus on the realities of Linux and open source, beyond the hype.

Alternate operating systems can blow it almost in the first instance if a person comes along and cannot find quickly how to perform some of their most common tasks. If there is no immediate sense of being in control then there will usually be little incentive to persevere. This is where playing DVDs comes in. I’ve had friends call me and ask just why it is so hard to play DVDs under Linux. They reasonably expect to simply insert a disc and have the movie play.

Linus Torvalds and the developers who originally built Linux certainly didn't come from a background of heavy-duty Unix experience, yet they disrupted all of the incumbents. Heck, IBM couldn't figure out how to compete with Microsoft, yet a university kid out of Helsinki created the fastest-growing server platform ever.

Microsoft's Vista is a classic case of an OS so bloated and unwieldy it barely crawled along on machines that could run Linux like a bat out of hell. So here's one for you. How come Linux (or UNIX for that matter) doesn't suffer from feature creep in the same way? Or does it?

A timeline from 1969 to the present.

I recently upgraded a friend of mine to Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop for his five-year-old Acer laptop with 512 MB of RAM. He immediately fell in love with the GNOME interface, the speed at which the system booted and how snappy it responded to his barrage of clicking. He was in heaven. What came next was a bit of a shock. A few days after the "big transition," I received a frantic phone call.

In Germany, two of the top 10 best-selling laptops currently run Linux. What do these folks know that we don't?

If you are new to Linux, a few common mistakes could land you in hot water.

Microsoft gave rival Red Hat a taste of the real IP world on July 22nd, 2009, arguing that making contributions to open source projects while ensuring that intellectual property rights were respected by rivals were in no way business strategies that excluded one another.

Whatever software and OS you use, whatever you do with the machine, sooner or later you're going to install, update or upgrade something. How does the process compare on the two platforms?

Linux is undoubtedly well placed to be the foundation for a global platform. Not only highly functional and scalable, Linux also has a long, successful history in embedded systems, setting the stage for "cross-platformization" between mobile and other categories such as desktop and consumer electronics.

Instant-on Linux platform vendors Phoenix and DeviceVM have responded to the revelation that Google will soon be releasing its own lightweight Linux platform.

Chilean IT firm Linux Latin America expects sales to the retail banking segment to reach some US$5mn-7mn during fiscal year 2010, starting August 1, and aims for its new category as platinum channel for Suse Linux to drive growth.

Back in the day, Netbooks ran Linux and packed solid-state drives. But Windows XP and big hard disk drives have prevailed.

While acknowledging that Nokia has denied that it is working on Android-based smartphone, sources from Taiwan's handset industry still believe that the world's number one handset vendor will not sit idle and let Android-powered models further erode its market share.

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