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When a server environment is created using virtualization software or a cloud service, the number of servers tends to increase rapidly. Software installation and configuration are required every time a server is created. Further, synchronizing server configurations requires additional effort such as writing shell scripts.

In this article, we will describe how to build a server environment automatically using a relatively new software tool called Puppet.

Edward J. Naughton, is out promoting the idea that Android violates the GPL over on Huffington Post. But Naughton seems to be hiding his ties to Microsoft.</p>

When we featured this collection of top 10 most popular icon themes for Ubuntu GNOME some time ago, Ubo Icons was probably one among the most promising set of icons for GNOME in that list, though it was still a project yet to be completed back then. Well, the first alpha release of Ubu Icons is here and it looks quite stunning.

Microsoft has released Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 4 is coming next week. How do the two shape up?

This week a new consortium was launched that may signal who will finally own the last great, unclaimed consumer computing platform – the automobile.

With the brouhaha begun by Canonical's changing of the Banshee affiliate code dying down there are some important lessons to be learned by all sides involved. One of the most important is that protracted in-fighting causes long term harm in the area of good will and public appearances. While Canonical was painted the villain by the community at large, GNOME, who was already battling negativity from controversial moves in its new GNOME 3 Shell, didn't come out of it unscathed. In essence, there were no winners here.

The open source world has been fixated so long on the “Year of the GNU/Linux Desktop” that it runs the risk of failing to notice that the desktop is no longer the key platform. That's been evident for some time in the developing world, where cost and power constraints mean that big, expensive PCs are simply impractical for most people. But with the rise of smartphones like the iPhone and Android devices, many people in western countries are also ditching their desk-bound systems in favour of powerful, more pocketable ones.

This year seems to been continuing where last year left off: Oracle/Sun, OpenOffice/LibreOffice, Ubuntu and Wayland/Xorg. Now, it’s the turn of Nokia and Microsoft. When I heard the news that Nokia was switching from the Symbian OS to Windows 7 for their smartphones my first reaction was: “another Microsoft patents land grab” but this article is not about the proverbial beast of Redmond but about why Nokia chose it over Android and more importantly, given the increasing convergence of laptops, smartphones and tablets, answering the question: just how free is Android and what is the relationship with GNU/Linux?—and I suspect that I’ll be needing my asbestos delicates.

This guide shows how you can upgrade your OpenSUSE 11.3 desktop and server installations to OpenSUSE 11.4.

Do you want to run the newest software like KDE 4.6 and LibreOffice 3.3? OpenSUSE 11.4 has it all on offer, and if you’re really impatient there’s even a rolling updates repository in the form of Tumbleweed. Koen Vervloesem investigates…

OpenSuse 11.4 rolled out with more polish, speed and a new office suite. The OpenSuse developers have issued a new release and version 11.4 of the Linux operating system is as good as ever. The big changes in this release of OpenSuse, the community edition of Suse Enterprise Linux, include a speed boost, the new LibreOffice suite and all the latest KDE and Gnome improvements.

LXer Feature: 18-Mar-2011

IBM's Watson won the Jeopardy Challenge, but what's more important is the place his offspring will win in the not-to-distant future. When IBM's Watson triumphed at the Jeopardy challenge I cheered, along with a great many other people and a good bit of the media, but most of all I started looking forward to something nobody has yet mentioned: Watson's Children.

Indiana LinuxFest 2011, March 25th to the 27th at the Wyndam Indianapolis West, is free to attend and Open for any to attend be it the hobbyist to the professional. So join us as we March to Freedom.

An advanced Nagios class, taught online by Mike Weber of CyberMontana Inc, has been scheduled for April 2011.

Registration is open for Texas Linux Fest, April 2 in Austin - and the full schedule of talks is available. TXLF 2011 will be at the Hilton Austin, downtown. Saturday, April 2 will feature a full day of speakers in four tracks, plus an open expo floor where Linux and open source software companies and community projects will be on hand to give demonstrations and answer questions.

An attorney claims that Android violates Linux’s copyright does, but others dismiss the possibility. Does Google’s Android smartphone and tablet operating system violate Oracle’s patents? Who knows. I’m no software patent lawyer, but I cover intellectual property (IP) lawsuits far too often and I expect it will be years before the courts decide, or, as is more likely Google and Oracle will come to a licensing agreement. But, now one attorney is claiming a much more clear-cut IP law violation: Android violates Linux’s copyrights.

Did I enjoyed my long awaited Tux immediately? Unfortunately, no. I have quite nice feelings about OpenSuSE in general, because it was one of the first Linuxes I have tried and wrote about in my blog. And it was second from the list of non-pocket Linuxes, after Mandriva. That time, back in October 2010, I managed to kill Green Gecko when running it from Live USB. Because of this long acquitaince between me and Green Gecko, news about next version of it were long awaited by me.

A recent meeting of the Open Source Initiative (OSI) in San Francisco saw three new members of the board filling the two empty board seats and the beginning of a reformation for the group's governance. The organisation, which has managed the Open Source Definition and reviewed licences for their compliance with that definition, is looking to expand its role to engage as "a meeting point for global open source communities at large".

With the changes coming to the desktops of some major Linux distributions, it looks like we’re beginning to see some welcome differentiation between how each distro presents itself to users. Fedora and Ubuntu are of course well known as some of the most popular and user-friendly Linux systems, and while they have many similarities, their next major releases are both taking a new approach to the desktop. Ubuntu has decided to drop their Netbook spin and run their homegrown Unity desktop across the board. Fedora however has jumped on board with Gnome 3, confident that it will have all the form and function their users want. While we’ve already discussed both desktops before, Fedora and Ubuntu are both offering more than a makeover, and it’s time to dig deeper.

Otakux Linux 1.0, codename Aniota has been released. Otakux, or Linux for "Otaku", is a desktop distribution based on Ubuntu and Linux Mint. View the Otakux Linux 1.0 Screenshot Tour