For years now, we Linux fans -- yes, myself included -- have been dreaming of the fabled "Year of the Linux Desktop". What does that mean? To have Linux-based operating systems snag a bigger piece of the desktop pie, if not a majority. While a majority share of the desktop is admittedly absurd, a respectable share was always something I considered a possibility.

CD audio grabbers are designed to extract ("rip") the raw digital audio (in a format commonly called CDDA) from a compact disc to a file or other output. This type of software enables a user to encode the digital audio into a variety of formats, and download and upload disc info from freedb, an internet compact disc database.

Google's Android 5.0 Lollipop release has lots of good things going for it -- but like many major OS releases at their start, the software also has its share of sigh-inducing quirks and glitches.

Attic is a deduplicating backup program written in Python. The main goal of Attic is to provide an efficient and secure way to backup data. The data deduplication technique used makes Attic suitable for daily backups since only the changes are stored.

Dying Light, a modern first-person survival horror game set in a world hit by plague, is now available for pre-purchase on Steam and will be available for download on January 27.

This is the release announcement of Netrunner 14.1 Main edition 'Frontier'. The '14.1' indicates an updated and polished release of Netrunner 14 LTS on the same underlying base. Since 14.1 is using the same 'Trusty' base as Netrunner 14, there is no need for users of 14 to migrate; simply updating from the shared backports ppa of the Frontier release cycle should give the same result, while keeping customizations in place. So 14.1 is a fresh starting point for new users who want to install an up-to-date KDE 4-based system from the ISO image. This is the first time we are working on both updating our current LTS base (Frontier), while at the same time preparing the next release, Netrunner 15 (Prometheus), with the upcoming KDE Plasma 5.2.

I wrote a post recently about how Chromebooks were hurting Microsoft, and now Google has made Chromebooks potentially even more appealing by theoretically making it easier for you to run Linux on them. Developer mode in Chrome OS now offers the option of booting from USB, so it might be possible to boot a Linux distro off a USB drive and run it it on your Chromebook.

Dying Light is now confirmed for Linux thanks to the announcement from the developers on the Steam store itself. The Linux icons show up on the store pages, and the game even has a steam coming soon banner on the home-page. Time to get seriously excited.

This is the release announcement of Netrunner 14.1 Main Edition (Frontier) 64bit and 32bit. KDE SC was updated from 4.13 to version 4.14, which improves the new semantic desktop search Baloo which replaced Nepomuk.

Hello, open gaming fans! In this week's edition, we take a look at news from Steam, open source engine ChilliSource, new Linux games, and more! Open gaming roundup Week of January 17 - 23, 2015 read more

Herewith a copy and pastable shell script to try Docker for the first time, with a test Node web app.

It all started at the Linux.conf.au Conference, when Nebula developer (and former colleague) Matthew Garrett kicked off a post-keynote Q&A session with Linux kernel creator Linus Torvalds by asking about his often-abrasive, super-aggressive tone on official mailing lists.

Until now, we thought the days of the Top Ten on FOSS Force were long gone. However, the systemd brouhaha has awakened the inner Top Ten List that has been sleeping within us for all these years. Today, for one day only, the Top Ten List returns for one last encore — or the last one until the next time something tickles us funny.

Ladies and gentlemen, from the home office in Omaha, Nebraska, here is this week’s Top Ten List — the top ten things Linux users say about systemd.

A Linux-based desk with WiFi, Bluetooth, and a 5-inch touchscreen automatically adjusts between sitting and standing, and tells you when it’s time to move. Talk about good timing: Stir announced its second-generation “Stir Kinetic Desk M1″ smart desk the same week the Annals of Internal Medicine published a report on the health dangers of sitting. […]

Two more games entered Early Access on Steam during the past couple of days: Armello, a combination of card and board games with role-playing elements, and Perfect Golf, a realistic golf simulator.

Coming improvements in Chrome OS will enable easily running Linux directly from a USB stick: "Have you ever installed a full desktop Linux system on your Chromebook? It isn’t all the hard, but it is a bit more complex than it should be. New features in the latest version of Chrome OS will make dipping into an alternative operating system easier. For example, you’ll be able to easily boot a full Linux system from a USB drive and use it without any additional hassle!

...the version of Pac Man that was released for the Atari 2600 was horrible. I mean truly, incredibly, mind-blowingly awful. The graphics sucked, the sound was abominable and the entire experience was a let-down of absolutely epic proportions. But a programmer has created a new version of Pac Man for the Atari 2600, and it’s what Pac Man should have been when it was first released all those years ago.

Over 5,000 devices used by gas stations in the U.S. to monitor their fuel tank levels can be manipulated from the Internet by malicious attackers.

In today's open source roundup: Microsoft has some decisions to make about Internet Explorer. Plus: Stream content from your Linux computer to Chromecast, and are Linux graphics apps ready for professional use?

Linus Torvalds is not known to interfere with other projects than the Linux kernel and it must be something really special to get him involved. Well, it looks like the Linux port of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings proved to be interesting enough.

For starters, I thought the proposal — not Red Hat or the Fedora Project — was the product of “first-world thinkers.” Neither Red Hat nor the Fedora Project needs me to explain the length and breadth of their worldwide community and how they fit within the structure of positively promoting FOSS worldwide. Also, to be clear: My commentary appeared after Stephen’s “let-me-explain” blog post, by a matter of minutes incidentally, so there was no cause-and-effect involved on my part.

Every week I bring you the best of what we've published this week. It's always five articles, about five most interesting open source stories from around the globe.

Two open source titans put their rings together and joined forces to announce that Red Hat Enterprise Linux v7.1 beta is now available on the IBM Power Development platform. Last month Red Hat announced that v7.i beta supported IBM Power Systems based on little endian mode.

Paradox Interactive has announced a new DLC for Europa Universalis IV, which will be released in February.

Open-Xchange, which provides on-premise and SaaS, open source software for office productivity, data privacy and communication, has added ExtendASP to its channel partner network.

Atmel and Newark Element 14 have launched a Linux based, Arduino shield-expandable “Xplained” development board for Atmel’s Cortex-A5 based SAMA5D4 SoC.

Surely you've heard of Docker by now. No? This open source containers project has grown enormously in popularity over the past year, leading many of our readers to wonder not just "what is it?" but "is this a good tool for me?" read more

I want to make a rather bold statement here (though that isn't unusual). This morning, I was reading some of my usual tech news sites, which included reports of malware, Windows woes, and the usual litany of issues plaguing various platforms.

The Ubuntu MATE developers have just released the Ubuntu MATE 15.04 Alpha 2 Linux distribution, which is now available for download and testing. It's the first one in the new development cycle and it comes with quite a few improvements.

There was a time not long ago when publishing was difficult and expensive. Thanks to services like Lulu.com and Lulujr.com, that's changing. Open source and Creative Commons licensing has also opened the door for teachers and students to inexpensively and easily find a new and authentic audience for their work. read more