Putting Linux on Parental Control, Oct 01, 2009

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Virtualization is a key technology for Linux vendor Red Hat which earlier this year outlined a broad new virtualization roadmap including new products and technologies.

There is such a wealth of great Free and Open Source software applications it's almost an embarrassment of riches.

Options for building and deploying Web-based applications to the "cloud" are abundant.

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.

With all of the excellent Linux distributions to choose from I am going to focus on Ubuntu Linux. It is a very good Linux, it has vendor support available, and it is showing up on a lot of OEM computers. What you learn on Ubuntu applies to many other Linux distributions as well.

Imagine a trailer hooked on to the back of an Indy car - the effect on performance would be similar to what happens when you hook up hard drives to a server. That's because a hard drive is a slow, delicate, mechanical component attached to a computer system that is otherwise made up of solid-state electronics built for speed.

Recently there has been tremendous buzz surrounding a method of running a full Ubuntu Linux installation within Windows. Unlike similar alternatives for Windows, however, the user is not installing Linux only to have to reboot out of Windows to enjoy their new Linux install.

Ask any Linux aficionado why the desktop hasn't seen more converts, and you'll probably get a blank stare. The answer depends on your perspective.

Perhaps one of the most common myths surrounding desktop Linux is the belief that modern distributions do not provide decent hardware support.

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

If you look at the enterprise server operating system market, there's Microsoft's Windows server platform, there's the UNIX platform and there's Linux.

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.