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Dell has told DesktopLinux.com that it will be announcing later today, Dec. 19, that it will be releasing PCs with Ubuntu 7.10 (aka Gutsy Gibbon) as part of its Dell Consumer Linux lineup along with the ability to legally play DVDs.

The Open Source Consortium has welcomed the BBC's move to make its iPlayer online on-demand TV service available for streaming on operating systems other than Microsoft Windows.

Choice is an important element of free software, so it's perhaps no surprise that even at the level of the desktop environment there is more than one offering. But the main alternatives – KDE and GNOME – represent more than just a way of placing icons on a screen. Nowhere is that more evident than in their respective views on Microsoft's OOXML document standard, which are very far apart – perhaps dangerously so.

I was unable to attend the KDE release party at Google headquarters. I was thrilled to get the invite, but I just couldn't make it. And to be honest, that's a shame because the latest release has impressed me, despite me being seen as a crusty GNOME fan. I guess in the end we are all Linux users at heart.

How to Install Source Files in Ubuntu

XTN will offer advanced support subscriptions for open source ERP users

As part of my year-end planning I look at what charities to donate to, since charitable contributions are tax-deductible. Here's a list of charities with ties to free software, open source, and information technology. Debian is my favorite Linux distribution. You can make donations to it through Software in the Public Interest -- make sure to explicitly set your donation to go to Debian. Debian uses donations to cover things like bandwidth and travel expenses for appearing at conferences.

Lighting up the AMIA os-wg and OpenHealth e-mail discussion lists comes news that the Proteus 'intelligent clinical guidelines' tools are going to be open sourced with an as yet to be announced Free/Open Source license: "...I am on the verge of making Proteus related tools available under an open source license. I need the advice of this community of open source champions on how to go about it and the choice of open source license. I know this has been discussed time and again on this list but I am still unclear about several things.

Jack heard about Linux through one of his employees. I had installed a Komputers4Kids machine next door to the employee ... Of course, the employee then told Jack just why it was Linux that should run his business.

When you rent a dedicated server nowadays, almost all providers give you FTP backup space for your server on one of the provider's backup systems. This tutorial shows how you can use duplicity and ftplicity to create encrypted (so that nobody with access to the backup server can read sensitive data in your backups) backups on the provider's remote backup server over http://FTP. ftplicity is a duplicity wrapper script (provided by the German computer magazine c't) that allows us to use duplicity without interaction (i.e., you do not have to type in any passwords).

There will be a BRM (Ballot resolution meeting) in Geneva on 25-29 February 2008 to answer the comments by National Standard Boards on OOXML and to resolve issues. Microsoft has set up a situation where many of the shortcomings and thousands of comments which need to be resolved at the BRN will not be addressed. They have closed this process as much as possible and have delayed National Boards from having adequate time to review proposed changes.

FreeNX Server and Client Installation in Debian Etch

LinuxSecurity.com: There are already tons of written Snort rules, but there just might be a time where you need to write one yourself. You can think of writing Snort rules as writing a program. They can include variables, keywords and functions. Why do we need to write rules? The reason is, without rules Snort will never detect someone trying to hack your machine. This HOWTO will give you confidence to write your own rules.

This book has just come out in its fourth edition so it must be doing something right. It's huge, so at first glance, you'd assume that it's the mother of all Perl tomes. It includes a CD with all of the code examples contained in the book so you don't have to struggle with fat fingering your Perl scripts by trying to copy them from the book's pages. Now that the obvious is out of the way, what is this book's goal and does it achieve its mission?

If you run Linux networks, you need a copy of Linux Networking Cookbook. Even before I picked up Unix, I worked on networks. While networking has gotten simpler, it's almost all TCP/IP now instead of Arcnet, Token-Ring and a half dozen dusty wiring and protocol schemes. The services that use networking have gotten ever more powerful and more complicated. That's why a book like Carla Schroder's Linux Networking Cookbook is so valuable.

In my previous articles, I have talked about the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project, how it works, what the software looks like and the version of Linux it runs. Well, it seems that since last month, we have the opportunity to not only purchase a little green notebook for a child overseas, but we will even be able to finally get one of these green monsters for ourselves, too.

Even people who don't live and die by their mobile phones sometimes need to send SMS messages. Did you know you can do that from your computer? Likewise, it's easier to clean your mobile phone of all the numbers you've not been dialing in the last few years using a mouse, rather than navigating repeatedly through the phone's menu system. Here are some Linux tools that can help you manage your cell phone.

The Linux Foundation (LF), the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced an agreement with the Chinese OSS Promotion Union (COPU), to jointly host the Linux Developer Symposium in Beijing, China, February 19 – 20, 2008. The Symposium will address desktop, server and embedded Linux opportunities and will include well-known speakers such as Jonathan Corbet, Coly Li, Matt Mackall, Andrew Morton, Dave Neary and Jim Zemlin.

Admittedly, this is not an issue for me, since I know better than to put anything Ubuntu puts out right off the bat on my daily use machine. I use Feisty (only recently upgraded) on my PC and then Gutsy on my notebook. Unfortunately, while this did not affect me personally, it seems that ipv6 issues are at it again. Yes, I realize this excuse is getting really old, so I will not argue any points regarding the fact that Ubuntu continues to deal with problems related to ipv6 and refuses to make the issue extremely clear in its release documentation.

Red Hat (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that the Italian Ministry of Economics and Finance has selected Red Hat solutions to power the organization's mission-critical applications. The Ministry selected Red Hat Enterprise Linux for reliability and heightened performance, and is utilizing the solution as the main platform for many of its critical applications, including its "Service Personale Tesoro" (SPT) application, which runs on one of the most popular Italian government websites.