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While users are pleading with Dell to sell systems with Linux pre-installed, smaller vendors have been offering Linux on OEM hardware for some time. One of the more recent arrivals in the OEM Linux market is System 76, which sells a decent selection of desktop, workstation, and notebook systems with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed. I test-drove the company's Ubuntu-certified Darter laptop recently, and found that it has a few flaws, but overall provides a decent system for Linux users clamoring for a Linux-friendly vendor.

"If we protect ones freedom to speak against the freedom of another to do the same, we are protecting the complete opposite of freedom. We are protecting oppression. Administrators who don't understand this are in fact condoning oppression on their sites."

HP, Duke University, The University of Minnesota, and Qwaq, Inc. have jointly announced the formation of The Croquet Consortium, Inc., a 501(3)c non-profit foundation dedicated to promoting the continued development and widespread adoption of open source Croquet technologies for use in education, research, and industry. The launch of The Croquet Consortium coincides with the Consortium’s release the open source Croquet Software Developer’s Kit 1.0 -- as free software under the Croquet Open Source License.

Dell is starting to get serious about selling their computers to the Linux crowd. Aside from all the talk on the ideas blog, Dell has started running Google ads for the XPS gaming PCs to gain placement under Linux related keywords. Talk is nice, but when ad budgets are being committed we might actually see some action!

Preloaded Linux for home users? I'm not holding my breath, but Dell's making all the right noises.

Yesterday in the forums I created a thread called Hello Catalyst Control Center Linux Edition! with the AMD 8.35.5 Linux drivers, but will Hello AIGLX! be the next big announcement?

Comments about the third draft of the GNU General Public License (GPLv3), which was released yesterday, are still coming in. So far, we've spoken with Free Software Foundation founder Richard M. Stallman, Linux creator Linus Torvalds, and Bruce Lowry, director of global public relations for Novell. Their reactions offer some new perspectives and at least one possible sign of movement toward consensus. Together, they also highlight the issues that are likely to dominate discussion of the draft in the days to come.

Distributed computing, volounteer computing, call it what you will but it has huge potential to improve the resources available to African researchers. For this purpose applications have opened for a free (and paid for!) workshop near Cape Town in July.

The OpenOffice.org team today released version 2.2 of the popular office suite which is intended to make it easier for Microsoft users to migrate away from Office. Security, Vista integration and good looks are top of the agenda this time around.

This tutorial provides step-by-step instructions on how to install VMware Server on a Mandriva Free 2007 desktop system. With VMware Server you can create and run guest operating systems (virtual machines) such as Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, etc. under a host operating system. This has the benefit that you can run multiple operating systems on the same hardware which saves a lot of money, and you can move virtual machines from one VMware Server to the next one (or to a system that has the VMware Player which is also free).

For a software programmer, one of the ultimate projects that you could ever be involved with is an operating system. We're so used to building applications for the OS that the idea of actually working on the mother ship itself can seem like something that could never happen.

A list of things to do before connecting your Linux computer to the Internet.

[Not exactly what I would do but its not bad advice. - Scott]

Linux supercomputer maker plans to use funding to improve cluster management software.

With Novell, SuSE and Ubuntu rocking the headlines lately, for sometime, locating news about Red Hat meant that you had to really dig for it. I don't believe it was because they stopped trying or even ignored making new developments available to the press as a whole.

The original plans had called for the third draft of the GNU General Public License update to come out late last year. Needless to say, things didn't happen that way. Between trying to address concerns raised from various directions and responding to the Microsoft/Novell deal, the Free Software Foundation ended up having to slip its schedule; as a result, eight months have passed since the second draft was released. One could well argue that a major license update should not be made in a hurry, and thus the delays are not problematic. In any case, the wait is over: the new GPLv3 draft is available. In many ways, the draft resembles its predecessors; in others, it has changed significantly. This article will focus on the differences.

We are here today to talk about the developers of the KDE-Edu Project. The purpose of this interview is to feature and present their work and motivation, which is often not as well-known or regarded as other, more prominent work within the KDE project. The KDE-Edu developers are developing high-quality educational software for the K Desktop Environment. Their primary focus is on school children aged 3 to 18, and the specialised user interface needs of young users. However, they are also have programs to aid teachers in planning lessons, and others that are of interest to university students and anyone else with a desire to learn!

The idea that Linux is primarily a community-based project based on the work of thousands of independent, idealist hackers died a quiet death at home on March 27.

Chipmaker AMD has thrown its financial clout behind a non-profit organization setting up Linux-based computing and communication centers in East Africa. Inveneo initially used Wyse thin clients, but the organization has now switched over to MiniPCs based on AMD's recently-launched Ultra-value client reference design.

Dell contacted DesktopLinux.com on March 28 to let us know that the company will be releasing select desktop and notebook systems with pre-installed Linux as an option in the coming weeks. Dell, however, is still playing its Linux cards close to its vest. For example, we do not know at this time which Linux distribution -- or distributions -- it will be supporting, or what Dell desktop and laptop machines will have pre-installed Linux as an option.

Software behemoth Microsoft could be one of the biggest losers from proposed license changes to the Linux operating system unveiled Wednesday. That’s a possible outcome of updates to the license pushed by the Free Software Foundation. The FSF wants to make mutually exclusive pacts such as the Novell-Microsoft open-source agreement (see Exit Interview: Jeremy Allison, Strange Bedfellows) a violation of the next iteration of the GNU GPL (General Public License), the license that governs Linux use.