Sony explains PS3 Slim's loss of Linux option, Aug 28, 2009

After Sony's PS3 slim announcement last week, many fans were dismayed the new model would no longer include backwards compatibility and the option to run Linux as an alternative operating system.

A US federal appeals court overturned a judge’s ruling that granted Novell the copyright of the Unix computer OS yesterday.

Google engineers have been beavering away at a 64-bit version of the company’s Chrome browser for the Linux platform.

The IBM mainframe may not have a lot of direct competition when it comes to z/OS-based batch and transactional work, but the story is different when it comes to Linux. There's plenty of competition among Linux platforms, and Big Blue can't ignore the pressure that Moore's Law brings to bear.

With System z mainframe revenues down 39 per cent - and MIPS mainframe capacity shipments off 20 percent in the second quarter - IBM is keen on boosting mainframe sales. And it wants to use Linux as a lever.

A Linux patch has been released to circumvent a Microsoft patent that landed Linux user TomTom in hot water.

Canonical and its partner in clouds, Eucalyptus, have been working to create a stack of software that runs atop the Ubuntu Linux distribution and allows companies to build their own internal compute clouds that are compatible with Amazon's EC2 cloud.

The University of Toronto's SciNet consortium, which provides supercomputing oomph for colleges, universities, and research hospitals across Canada, will today announce that it has selected IBM's iDataPlex servers using Intel's new "Nehalem EP" Xeon 5500 processors to create the most powerful supercomputer in Canada.

Ubuntu creator Mark Shuttleworth is itching for a clean fight with Microsoft on netbooks. Shuttleworth once told The Reg he can't wait for Windows 7 on this sub-laptop class of machines because it'll finally give Ubuntu the opportunity to compete fairly against Microsoft's operating system in this emerging market.

When Microsoft purchased Hotmail in December of 1997 for an estimated $400m, it ran on FreeBSD. But Redmond ripped out the open source OS and replaced it with Windows 2000. Or at least, it tried to.

Open-source and Linux activists are not allowing the FAT patent dispute between Microsoft and TomTom to fade.

Cloud computing - or at least all the talk about it - is causing IT vendors to change their pitches on the off chance that cloud could actually end up generating some money.

With the release of Ubuntu 9.04 - aka Jaunty Jackalope - Canonical has paired its Linux distro with Eucalyptus, an open-source software platform that mimics Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) inside your own data center.

Commercial Linux distributor Novell today announced that the openSUSE Project, which drives the development variant of its Linux, will support the creation and packaging of various Linuxes for ARM processors using the openSUSE Build Service version 1.6.

Microsoft has made a tactical mistake in deciding to compete with Apple on price in its latest, much debated, Laptop Hunters TV ads. That switch of focus in the fight with Apple will rebound in its battle against Linux, because Linux is cheaper than Windows for users and OEMs serving them.

Developers putting Linux on consumer devices aren't weirdos mining a niche, according to the Intel man who last year volunteered to help maintain embedded Linux.

Microsoft and TomTom might have settled over patents, but that's not stopped one Linux advocate from calling on manufacturers to adopt a "FAT-free diet".

This week's poll is about desktop Linux: the challenge is to build a clear picture of where desktop Linux can fit, and if so how to make best use of it.

The Jaunty Jackalope edition of Ubuntu has been released to beta. Ubuntu 9.04 brings a clutch of improvements to the desktop while taking the first step on the server closer to Amazon-style cloud computing. Final code is scheduled for release on April 27.

GPS maker TomTom hit back at Microsoft yesterday by issuing a countersuit against the software giant with a patent claim of its own.