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The first alpha release of Ubuntu 8.04 was scheduled to be released today, but the official release has been pushed back until tomorrow. However, a preliminary CD image of this first alpha release for Ubuntu 8.04 LTS has surfaced today on the Internet. While there is still seven more Ubuntu 8.04 test releases planned before the final release of Hardy Heron in April, we have already started exploring this first Hardy Heron LiveCD.

EFF study shows that Comcast does indeed throttle P2P activity.

This week on Open News More BusyBox Lawsuits, Gnome Supports OOXML?, and Flyback.

This guide explains how to set up software RAID1 on an already running Debian Etch system. The GRUB bootloader will be configured in such a way that the system will still be able to boot if one of the hard drives fails (no matter which one).

I have heard a number of people tell me that as much as they love the speed of development and the community, sometimes Ubuntu just gets ahead of itself. And I suppose in a larger sense, this is what makes Linux such a fantastic platform in the first place. If you dislike GNOME, you can use KDE, or instead, pick a slimmer desktop manager like Fluxbox. Wireless woes?

Recent hardware trends are creating an opening for Linux to become a serious competitor to Microsoft Windows. Linux is better suited for cheap, highly portable machines than the bloated and expensive Windows Vista.

Last week Ryan "Icculus" Gordon had confirmed that the Linux client and server ports of Unreal Tournament 3 were caught up in a legal issue regarding some middleware used in this latest PC title from Epic Games. However, what is the middleware that Unreal Tournament 3 is caught up in? There is a strong possibility that it deals with the PhysX licensing from Ageia Technologies.

It’s enough to make you want to scream, having connectivity issues with your favorite Linux distro. And frankly why most people are best off with a Mac Mini, as it sometimes means getting your hands dirty.

Try to describe Hotwire, and you'll eventually wind up saying something that sounds like an oxymoron, like "command-line GUI," "graphical shell" or "GUI xterm." Well, that's pretty much what Hotwire is: something halfway between a text-based shell and a modern graphical user interface. In part, the confusion stems from the fuzzy definition the typical desktop user has of the Unix shell. For the most part, it is transparent to us. We probably know that some commands (like ls and chown) are separate binaries, while others (like cd and umask) are actually internal functions provided by the shell. But unless we do a lot of scripting, it can be hard to remember which is which; we type whichever we need at the prompt and get back to business.

Open source has at its heart a big idea, which some find uncomfortable and others find liberating: it's about collaboration. It's about getting involved. It's all about having lots of people working at making useful things: you pay with your time, and you get paid with the time of thousands of others. If you're happy just using open source, then no problem. But if you want to contribute, because you have a problem that nobody else is fixing — or simply because you want to do your bit in exchange — it can be difficult to know where to start. The following suggestions might just inspire you to join in.

The U.K.-based company Sharp and Tappin Technology (STTech) is readying two PCs based on Via's recently introduced pico-ITX motherboard. The picoPC1 and picoPC2 measure as little as 5 x 3.4 x 1.5 inches, and feature separately available cases fashioned from billet aluminum, according to the company. The systems will be available with STTech's own "customized, optimized version of Gentoo Linux," according to spokesman Ben Sharp. Sharp added, "We are considering/evaluating a few other distros as possibilities to ship with the PicoPC range, including gOS"

Novell is shipping the first real-time SUSE Linux enterprise data center operating system, SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time 10. SLERT is the high-end—and significantly higher-priced—version of Novell's open-source real-time operating system for running high-performance, time-sensitive data center applications. A key difference between SLERT and the regular SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 is that SLERT allows pre-designated mission-critical business applications full I/O priority at all times, something regular SLES can't do.

Now I'm not quite sure what to make of this at the moment but a United States-based Nigerian-owned company has sued OLPC for an alleged patent infringement about multilingual keyboard technology. As MarketWire.com puts it: "The patent infringement lawsuit was filed on November 22nd, 2007 as a result of OLPC's willful infringement of LANCOR's Nigeria Registered Design Patent # RD8489 and illegal reverse engineering of its keyboard driver source codes for use in the XO Laptops."

With Windows Vista turning fewer heads than XP SP3, and Apple's Leopard exhibiting spotty security, companies and individuals would do well to ask themselves whether 'tis the season of desktop Linux. With the fall release of three of the most popular leading-edge Linux-based operating systems—OpenSUSE 10.3, Ubuntu 7.10 and Fedora 8—behind us, the case for running Linux on mainstream desktops is stronger than ever. However, plenty of integration work remains to be done.

For Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software to be accepted by IT, it needs to be very stable and reliable -- after all, in a very literal sense, ERP software runs businesses. After eight years of development and over a million downloads, the open source Compiere ERP has proven that it fits the bill for many. Next week, Compiere is set to release a major update to its namesake ERP software as well as a reorganization of its commercial support offerings. All told, the effort amounts to a new push from the open source vendor to capture a bigger slice of the multi-billion dollar ERP market.

For nearly a year, Fresno Unified school officials searched for a laptop that wouldn't clutter a student's desk. Thursday, school officials said they purchased 1,000 wireless laptops that fit on a desk alongside textbooks and notebooks, as well as give students the opportunity to build a digital portfolio of essays, drawings and other creations. Fresno Unified hopes the laptops will help students increase test scores through the ability to research information on the Internet, as well as halt five years of declining enrollment by enticing parents to send their children to the district's schools.

Compellent has been shipping its SAN appliances to small to medium-sized companies for three years, growing from $4 million in annual sales to more than $23 million last year. Part of the reason for that growth, says cofounder John Guider, is that Compellent executives have recognized the value of making an open source operating system one of the building blocks of the company's SAN offerings.

It's been at least a week since the last bout of Microsoft FUD hit the wires, so I guess it was time for a new wave. Today's FUD comes from an article Microsoft released on how its security compares with that of Linux. It should come as no surprise that Windows comes off as the Second Coming while Linux is left on the wrong side of Acheron. It's amusing to watch Microsoft attempt to claim the moral high ground with security.

Two highly touted, kid-friendly, low-priced laptops slug it out to become king of the ultraportables. While it's not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison (the XO and the Eee PC are intended for two different markets, after all), there's enough similarities between the two to merit a head-to-head comparison. Here's how these two cheap but innovative portables stack up in seven categories.

Tim Bray recently posted the results of his Developer Tool Survey (although, I think it was really an editor/IDE survey). He asked Ruby and Rails developers about what kind of development they do (primarily Ruby or primarily Rails), and which editor/IDE they use.