LXer Weekly Roundup for 08-Mar-2009

LXer Feature: 08-Mar-2009 In this week's LXWR we have more news coming to light on the Microsoft vs. TomTom suit, fat free XFCE, going back to dial-up to save some cash, news and opinions on netbooks, Flock ditches Firefox for Chrome, Linux gets put to the Mom test and much much more.

It seems that even with the sever market in contraction mode, Oracle's Unbreakable Linux is not making a dent in Red Hat sales. TuxRadar attempts lift the veil on the 'mysterious' Linux boot process and how fix problems that can arise. It seems that with everyone looking to lighten their load, that dial-up is making a comeback of sorts and Flock that up until now was a version of Firefox, has decided to move to Google's Chrome as a base for their browser instead.

There was a fair amount of netbook related news this week, starting off with our Tracy Ann Barlow taking the BENQ netbook with EeeBuntu on it for a test drive. Linux Loop asks what their pixel density is on a 10 inch 1024x600 screen. Tech Radar compares a samsung netbook to a Macbook pro in their "Netbooks: proof the tech industry has gone nuts" and like Wayan Vota of the OLPC, I don't think that just because netbooks are small that it means they are a good fit for children in developing countries.

Glyn Moody tells us the real reason for Microsoft's TomTom lawsuit and Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols tells why Microsoft likes those patent protection pacts it signs. Ryan Paul of ars technica has a great hands-on with Xfce 4.6 and reviews some of it's new features. Make Tech Easier has a guide for managing your audio/video files in Linux, Rikki Kite puts Open Source to the Mom test and Steven Rosenberg doubles the amount of RAM on his Ubuntu machine and rants on Java too.

Now I usually save the FUD stuff for last but I am starting with an article on how Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier fights FOSS license FUD and then we are on too a good piece of non-research on Governments and Open Source. This next piece isn't exactly FUD, its just really bad. Anyone who does a review of Linux networking with a Windows 98 machine and then complains about it, needs to start using Operating Systems that were made in this millennium. Windows 98' was never meant to be networked in the first place so the fact that it is hard to get on a network shouldn't come as any surprise. I end this week with Rob Enderle's entertaining take on the Microsoft vs. Tom Tom suit, enjoy!