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There are many dots to connect and many past discussions to combine, so this post will contain many pointers and hints, essentially leaving interpretation to the reader. Whatever you make of this, it seems safe to conclude that we find patterns here.

While the mobile Linux community has reacted positively to Google's Android, the new platform has also given it some cause for concern. The arrival of a giant player area with very clear ideas of role it wants mobile Linux to fill was bound to ruffle a few feathers and, despite public proclamations of "welcome" and "support", the Linux establishment is showing a few cracks.

I followed the story from the very first announcement of the SCO lawsuits against GNU/Linux users(who also happen to be their customers). After reading the latest sound bite from this companies CEO that ruined itself with a flawed (understatement) business model. I realized that this story parallels another one so perfectly it is almost frightening. It can truly be said that if you ever doubted that history repeats itself doubt no more...

In this Thanksgiving Day issue of the Nouveau Companion, the Nouveau team goes over what's left to do for a 2D stable driver release, the current work being done on the driver, and an assortment of Gallium3D and RandR 1.2 work. The stable 2D Nouveau driver wasn't announced in this issue, but it's coming soon.

Immediately after the release of KDE 4.0 RC1, the KDE office suite KOffice today announced the release of version 2.0 Alpha 5. As with the previous alpha versions of 2.0, this is a technology preview more than a version for users to test out. Nonetheless there are some exciting new features and developments here. Read on for more information.

People are a funny lot. One person’s trash is another person’s treasure. And one person’s primary means of instructing a computer is met with disdain by another. There’s a perennial battle between mousers and keyboard jockeys, and “what’s in” appears to go in cycles.

This past weekend, November 16th through the 18th, Zaragoza Spain was the home of Akademy-es 2007. The conference began early Saturday morning and finished Monday with a Hackathon. Akademy-es 2007, hosted by Hispalinux, Wireless Zaragoza, and the Zaragoza council, was a conference specifically for KDE developers and users from around Spain.

For the past month we had been running the 2007 Linux Graphics Survey at Phoronix where we polled users to find out what display hardware they use, what their driver choice(s) are, and their other preferences as it pertains to Linux desktop users on the visual front. We received over 20,000 submissions from this survey and have the results to share with you on this Thanksgiving here in the United States.

What do Linux users want from their desktop? The Linux Foundation's survey has the answers. While the LF's third annual desktop Linux survey doesn't officially end until November 30th, the number of daily respondents have shrunk to a trickle and the Foundation is working on analyzing the results. This is an early look at the raw data.

This tutorial shows how you can set up a Linux Mint 4.0 (Daryna) desktop that is a full-fledged replacement for a Windows desktop, i.e. that has all the software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops. The advantages are clear: you get a secure system without DRM restrictions that works even on old hardware, and the best thing is: all software comes free of charge. Linux Mint 4.0 is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu 7.10 that has lots of packages in its repositories (like multimedia codecs, Adobe Flash, Adobe Reader, Skype, Google Earth, etc.) that are relatively hard to install on other distributions; it therefore provides a user-friendly desktop experience even for Linux newbies.

ETCorp has introduced a new version of its automation controller system for industrial surveillance. Based on a standard PC running Debian Linux, GPAC version 3.0 process management software is said to integrate devices, sensors, cameras, and subsystems to remotely operate device networks and monitor infrastructure.

What do Linux users want from their desktop? The Linux Foundation's survey has the answers. While the LF's third annual desktop Linux survey doesn't officially end until November 30th, the number of daily respondents have shrunk to a trickle and the Foundation is working on analyzing the results. This is an early look at the raw data.

The Macedonia Ministry of Education and Science will deploy more than 180,000 workstations running Canonical’s Edubuntu 7.04 as part of its "Computer for Every Child" project. The Macedonia "Computer for Every Child" project is one of the largest known thin client and desktop Linux deployments ever undertaken. Half of elementary and secondary Macedonia students attend school in the morning, and half attend in the afternoon, so 180,000 workstations will allow for one classroom computing device per student for the entire Republic's public school population. The first 7000 computers pre-installed with Ubuntu were shipped on September 4th 2007

"You know, every so often it is tempting to get wrapped up in minutia and having it obscure the bigger picture. Sometimes its easy to forget we are surrounded by incredible, genuine, inspiring individuals, and this is a privilege and not something we should take for granted." The point being, we often can’t see the wood for the trees, and sometimes lose sight of the incredible people that form our community. Well, I wanted to take this concept and push it a little further.

If you have a fondness for old arcade games and want to play them again, try the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator (MAME), a free emulator that lets you recreate the look and feel of old arcade game systems in software. While it's written for Windows, you can run this open source application under Linux. MAME produces highly accurate video and audio emulation of every component of the original arcade games. Since the emulated games are usually older ones, which originally ran on 8- or 16-bit CPUs at (by today's standards) slow speeds, a 1GHz Pentium is fast enough to run MAME, though you'll want a faster machine for more recent games.

n this week's KDE Commit-Digest: A Calculator and Show Desktop Plasmoid, units conversion and contacts "runners", enhanced composite-based effects, a "dashboard" view and applet hover handles in Plasma. Updated artwork for "about" pages. Support for quick user switching in Kickoff. New imagery for KTuberling and KMahjongg. OSS device hotplugging in KMix. A bandwidth scheduler plugin in KTorrent. Interface work, including per-protocol UI specification in Kopete. Hardware database for an enhanced audio device experience in Phonon. KDE 3.96 tagged, comprising Release Candidate 2 of the development platform (hopefully final), and Beta 5 (or Release Candidate 1) of the Desktop.

Without ado, here's a bunch of screenshots of how KDE 4.0 currently looks like. Please note that this is very recent, and not all of it is part of the just-released KDE 4.0 RC1. It's that fresh.

They need to rapidly develop and deploy new applications. They need to build a flexible infrastructure--one that can rapidly adjust to the needs of the business. There are many key benefits inherent in Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The latest release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, version 5, often coupled with other Red Hat open-source solutions, transforms the economics of IT by eliminating the need to purchase, integrate and maintain the proprietary server software stack.

Based on his experience at a recent scientific convention, Jaron Lanier suggests that the modern scientific community seems to be wanting to model itself after the Open Source software model. Unfortunately, he adopts the position that this progression is ill advised and bases his reasoning on the mistaken belief that the Open Source model is incapable of the level of innovation required by science. Although he builds an interesting case, I believe his conclusions are based on a faulty premise and an overall misunderstanding of the real strength of the Open Source approach as well as the true nature of the proprietary model.

The recent fine levied on Microsoft by the European anti-trust authorities has reminded people just how dominant Microsoft is in the industry. We’re often being told to consider Linux and open-source applications as a viable alternative to what Microsoft and other Windows developers have to offer. But just what’s involved if you do decide to go down the Linux route for some or all of your small-business IT?