Q&A: What’s in a Linux Name?, Jun 09, 2009

Why does Linux seem to have multiple choices in operating systems, such as Ubuntu or Slackware, and where do the names come from?

My netbook came with SUSE Linux, but I want to use Ubuntu Linux. What’s the easiest way to change?

While PowerPoint — the presentation program in the Microsoft Office suite — is not available for Linux, you have some options.

Cellphones are growing up, and they just might pose a new threat to the Intel-Microsoft based personal computers.

On Tuesday, Google will release a free Web browser called Chrome that the company said would challenge Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, as well as the Firefox browser.

...the Asus Eee is the one machine that has captured the hearts of minicomputer fans. In the United States, it costs $299 to $499. “This is the world’s first disposable notebook,” said Bob O’Donnell, a vice president at IDC, a computer industry research firm.

If you and your friend do not want to spend a lot of money, putting the Linux operating system on the old PC is a much less expensive option. Many versions of Linux have a graphical point-and-click interface these days, but they still may have a learning curve for new users.

Microsoft sees the ultra-low cost PC market as a significant opportunity and plans to pursue it with vigor, according the Kevin Turner, Microsoft's chief operating officer.

European antitrust regulators on Wednesday fined Microsoft $1.3 billion for failing to comply with a 2004 judgment that the company had abused its market dominance.

With an aim at easing the marriage of open source and the mainframe, Novell is teaming with IBM to make it simpler to install SUSE Linux 10 on to System z servers.

Tonium plans to make the Linux-based software on the Pacemaker public, so users can innovate and share their improvements with others

A cerebral computer-scientist-turned-executive, Eric E. Schmidt has spent much of his career competing uphill against Microsoft, quietly watching it outflank, outmaneuver or simply outgun most of its rivals.

Mr. Rubin is one of the primary architects behind another product that also smacks of potential über-coolness — the Google Phone.

Advocates of Linux, the free open-source operating system, like to say that buying a standard-issue computer involves a Microsoft Tax, because you have no choice but to pay for Windows. New versions of Linux and inexpensive hardware like the new Everex gPC TC2502 make that tax avoidable.

Microsoft has given up its nine-year fight against antitrust regulators in Europe, saying yesterday that it would not challenge a court judgment from last month and would share technical information with rivals on terms the software giant had long resisted.

David Pogue's review of the Linux-powered laptop for the developing world.

Linux runs the Google servers that manage billions of searches each day. It also runs the TiVo digital video recorder, the Motorola Razr cellphone and countless other electronic devices.

One Laptop Per Child, an ambitious project to bring computing to the developing world’s children, has considerable momentum. Years of work by engineers and scientists have paid off in a pioneering low-cost machine that is light, rugged and surprisingly versatile. The early reviews have been glowing, and mass production is set to start next month.

In a decision that may finally settle one of the most bitter legal battles surrounding software widely used in corporate data centers, a federal district court judge in Utah ruled Friday afternoon that Novell, not the SCO Group, is the rightful owner of the copyrights covering the Unix operating system.

Virgin America calls their new in-flight entertainment system “Red,” but it is really a gigantic sociological experiment in airborne distributed computing.