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Planning a migration from Windows PCs to Linux-based desktops is no small task. Here are six issues and strategies to consider before getting started.

Q:I just tried Windows Vista and was soooo impressed that now I'd like to try out Linux. What is the best way to dip my toes into the Linux pond?

A: Wow. I'm sure that wasn't the effect that Microsoft was going for;

Microsoft Windows has the lowest number of vulnerabilities and the fastest turnaround time for patches of all commercial operating systems--but it also has the most serious flaws, according to Symantec.

[How FUDish. Only 2 critical flaws for Red Hat and 12+ for Windows — Sander]

When Scott Thompson left Visa to take the CTO role at PayPal in 2005, the Web company's data center surprised him. "Wait a minute," he recalls saying, "they run a payment system on Linux?" Thompson says he quickly saw the economic, operational and development advantages of open source and Linux technology. He now sees no other way to do it.

The VAR Guy skipped last week’s Novell BrainShare event because of other pressing deadlines, but he got a comprehensive brain dump from a senior IT manager who attended. Here are some hits–and misses–from the event.

For this review, the CRN Test Center evaluated offerings from the four leading Linux enterprise desktop alternatives: Linspire Five-O, Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, the newly released Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5.0 and Xandros 4 Professional.

In this week's KDE Commit-Digest: Final stages of Freedesktop.org naming compliance performed on the Oxygen mimetype icons. IMAP-related crashes targeted in KMail. Many KFilePlugins ported to use Strigi. Better zoom and preview size interaction in Digikam. Optimisations in KSysGuard. Better integration with NEPOMUK-KDE interface elements in Dolphin, NEPOMUK-KDE components move to the kdereview module. Further Kst documentation work. Continued interface experiments and code progress towards Amarok 2.0. "Flame" window destruction effect in the KWin Composite branch. KBackup is renamed "Galmuri" due to naming conflicts.

"...we make sure we know WHO has a computer and internet access at home. This way, when we hand out assignments for homework, we know who to assign "alternative lessons". Asking a child to complete an assignment with a computer she neither has nor can her family afford is a humiliating experience."

Welcome to this year's 13th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! As expected, the developers of the Ubuntu family of Linux distributions announced their beta releases late last week, edging towards that last month of intensive debugging before the final release. Other distributions are also hard at work: Mandriva has announced details about the upcoming Mandriva 2007 "Spring", KNOPPIX has delivered a new CeBIT DVD to the attendees of the popular show in Hannover, and Fedora is expected to publish its third development build, version 7 test3, in just a few days. In other news, Red Hat unveils plans for a new desktop distribution, Ian Murdoch criticises the project he founded for lacking strong leadership, and François Bancilhon is dismayed by the decision of the French Assemblée Nationale to choose Ubuntu over Mandriva for its Windows-to-Linux migration. More details below, so enjoy this week's issue DistroWatch Weekly and don't forget to share your opinions in the forum below!

"The Microsoft / Novell partnership should have included a technical Mono/.NET collaboration" Miguel de Icaza, founder of the Mono-project in an interview about the future of the free .Net-alternative, the Microsoft deal and basing a desktop on C#

If you're still searching for the perfect mate, I would definitely recommend checking out SAM. If you're just new to this alternative operating system world or are trying to turn someone onto Linux, SAM Linux 2007 is terrific for showcasing the awesome possibilities of a desktop. With SAM being available on a LiveCD, there really is no reason not to check it out.

At the end of 2006, ZDnet blogger Paul Murphy made what I thought at the time to be a poor prediction: That 2007 will see Sun's OpenSolaris eclipse Linux in the size and activity of its developer community, and all OS development projects, save Windows, will adopt OpenSolaris' organizational structure and licensing provisions.

A Federal Court has found Qualcomm Corporation guilty of the same type of conduct for which the FTC slammed memory technology maker Rambus: failing to disclose its patents in a standards process, only to assert its "submarine" patents after that standard had been widely adopted.

Linux server provider Pogo Linux has just released its latest network attached storage (NAS) device, calling it the most versatile and advanced Linux-based device to date.

The ERP business is one that has long been dominated by giant enterprise software vendors like SAP and Oracle's PeopleSoft. Microsoft has entered the fray, too, with its Dynamics applications to further make the ERP marketplace even more competitive.

The first thing I want to note is: The merge is NOT ON, it looks incredibly likely, and it's looked incredibly likely for a few weeks now, but there are still some very important things to work out, and a lot of discussion still needs to happen. [...] Some of the final details are being discussed now and once David gets back from brainshare we hope to be able to work out the remaining problems and have some more news within a week or so!

The dull looking toolbar at the bottom of any KDE installation is known officially as the Panel and, like most of Linux, has about a gazillion configuration options.

Shelley the Republican presents a masterly dissection of the lies and falsehoods of the Democ-rat Liberal Satanist Linux agenda. OLPC seems to be an insidious atheist European plot to give American intellectual property to third-world countries. Fortunately, it can't compete against the Christian Windows Vista (TM) laptop.

[You know you're popular when you're being parodied :-) - Sander]

This tutorial shows how you can import Outlook Express emails, contacts, and account settings into Mozilla Thunderbird and Evolution. This is quite useful if you want to switch from Windows to Linux but do not want to lose your mails and address book. The procedure should be similar if you use Outlook instead of Outlook Express.

Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) Beta Preview