Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Its 2007, and you want to upgrade all your PCs operating systems after the infamous March 2007 XP Meltdown. You know, the virus attack that actually melted computers running XP, but couldnt touch machines running any other OS? Never heard of it? Well, play along with me, OK? Lets say that you have a small […]

In a surprise move, Linspire is now offering its Click N Run software service at no charge to its Linspire and Freespire Linux distribution customers. In addition, the company will soon be open-sourcing the CNR Client. CNR, previously a fee-based service offered at annual subscription rates of $20 for basic and $50 for premium (“Gold”) […]

So you want a Linux thats set up with just the applications you want—no more, no less. What do you do? Well, an expert Linux user does it himself. But not everyones a Linux legend. For the rest of us, there are two good choices. Theres a low-end personal option: Instalinux.coms free service, SystemDesigner. Theres […]

The results of DesktopLinux.coms 2006 Desktop Linux Market survey are in, and the votes are all tallied. This first article of a series offers a perspective on how the various desktop Linux distributions fared, and why. Before jumping into what the survey of almost 15,000 Linux users revealed, though, I should point out a few […]

Ubuntus star shines a little less brightly since a recently released patch knocked out its users graphical user interface. Affected users saw—the horror, the horror—a blue screen of death. While this screen had more useful information than the Microsoft blue screen, it still wasnt useful to confused users. Ubuntu 6.06 LTS users who installed updates […]

Every now and again, someone will loudly proclaim that Slackware is dead. Wrong. While its not as popular as young whipper-snapper Ubuntu, its longtime competitor the Debians, or the solid SUSE family, Slackware is still alive and well with a healthy user community. Slackware is also still improving and evolving. Its supporters hope, with some […]

Eric S. Raymond is one of the founders of open source, and a good deal of Linuxs early popularity came from his nonstop beating of the drum for the free software operating system. Then, a few years ago, he bowed out of the limelight to live his own life. Recently, however, Raymond has showed signs […]

The headlines read: “Google releasing an office suite”; “Updated: Google takes aim at Microsoft with apps bundle”; and “Google expands into business software market.” Oh, please. Google Apps for Your Domain is none of the above. Beneath all the hype, beneath an incredibly awkward name, theres just a set of long-existing, perpetually beta, Internet programs. […]

For years, the Linux Professional Institute has offered the most important basic Linux worker certification, the LPIC. On Aug. 16 at LinuxWorld in San Francisco, the organization launched a new employment and contract matching service for open-source workers who are registered on LPIs internal exam candidate database. The new program will match qualified open-source workers […]

A virtual war is brewing between Red Hat and Novell on how ready Xen is for business use. In the latest development, Novell Chief Technology Officer Jeff Jaffe has accused Red Hat of flip-flopping in its support for the popular Linux virtualization software. Red Hat CTO Brian Stevens recently accused Novell of “being cavalier [with […]

Analysis—Were you to walk around LinuxWorld in San Francisco this week, for almost every person youd see sitting, youd see a laptop in front of them. And, if youre a snoopy person, like me, youd also see that about half of those laptops were running Linux. That doesnt sound like that much? Think again. Even […]

One hole in Linuxs business offerings has been a drop-in, simple to use Linux back-end services server for SMBs (Small to Medium Businesses). Collax Inc. is trying to fill that hole. The Bedford Mass.-based company is doing this with the U.S. launch of its Collax Business Server. Collax, with very experienced officers such as CTO […]