Ubuntu 9.10 Beta Released, Oct 01, 2009

The Ubuntu team has pushed out the beta release for Ubuntu 9.10.

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.

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?

As everybody had been more or less anticipating for months now, Sony has released the Playstation 3 Slim, a much smaller, lighter, and more energy-efficient variant of the regular Playstation 3. There's good news for people who held out on the PS3 because it was too expensive, and there's bad news for those of us who liked the idea of running Linux on the PS3.

Microsoft often claimed that netbooks running Linux saw higher return rates than those running Windows, but according to Dell, this is utter nonsense.

Hot off the compilation press, Arch Linux comes to its full 2009.08 grandeur with a myriad of new and updated features, including exciting new additions to be utilized in the AIF (Arch Linux Installation Framework) and more, detailed within.

So, Microsoft submits 20000 lines of code to the Linux kernel, all licensed under the GPL. Microsoft, who considers Linux a great threat, and once called the GPL a "cancer". Opinions on this one are flying all around us, but what does Linus Torvalds, Linux' benevolent dictator, think about all this?

Linux Mint 7 "Gloria" is the latest Linux Mint release based off of Ubuntu 9.04, and since I already briefly used Ubuntu 9.04 on this very same netbook, I expected it to perform at least the same, if not better. After all, the boot screen displays the phrase "from freedom came elegace" with the Linux Mint logo above it.

When we look at operating systems, it becomes quite obvious that Linux has taken over the Top 500 list.

The two organizations haven't been what you'd call snuggle-buddies, but they're certainly adamant about certain aspects of software enough to agree and collectively petition a legal group for redress of a document. In a somewhat surprising move, Microsoft and the Linux Foundation have joined forces in writing and signing a letter to the American Law Institute asking for the group to hold off on submitting a document entitled "Principles of the Law of Software Contracts" for adjustments.

Whenever the Conficker worm comes up there are always a number of people who point their fingers towards Redmond, stating that it's their fault Conifcker got out. What if a big security hole pops up in a Linux distribution - who will the Redmond-finger-pointing people hold responsible?

Go on, go around these gadget sites and read all that talk about netbooks and what not. Acer Aspire One this, MSI that, Dell Mini 9 this, Asus that. It feels like the second coming of laptops in this netbook revolution. But truth is, even back in 1999 you could find super-lightweight laptops in the market (for the right price).

Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer had some interesting things to say yesterday about which companies Microsoft sees as its competitors in the client operating system space. You'd think Apple was their number one competitor - and you'd be wrong. Microsoft sees two other competitors as their primary adversaries: piracy and Linux.

The ArchLinux Release Engineering Team announced the official release of the 2009.02 ISO after a long period of intense development.

PureMobile sent us in the brand new Motorola handset, second generation RAZR: the Linux-based V8. One of the most sleek and most-wanted phones in the market, and we take it for a serious spin.

Feisty Fawn was released last week and as it seems so far, it is one of the most (if not the most) successful Linux distro release ever.

So far, I am very happy with Ubuntu because most things just work, the desktop looks fabulous and it does what I want it to do without having to dig where each option is (unlike Vista's new control panel).

What is wrong with KDE 3.x? What is wrong with GNOME 2.8+? These seem to be the two questions arising from the recent revival of Linus vs. GNOME spat.

Our Nokia friends were very generous to send us over their newest Internet Tablet, the N800, for a review

The Linux desktop world will not have any answers ready to Microsoft's and Apple's big releases for at least the coming two years. Has the desktop Linux bubble burst?