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With the formation of the Document Foundation (TDF), we saw the arrival of another office suite based on OpenOffice -- it's called Libre Office. Recently there was some conflict between TDF and OpenOffice.org/Oracle teams. We approached TDF to understand the current situation and the future of Libre Office. Here is an interview with Italo Vignoli of The Document Foundation.

An analysis of the most critical part of the Android smartphone operating system has turned up programming errors, some of which could allow hackers or malicious applications to access users’ e-mail or other sensitive information. The study examined the publicly disclosed version of the Android kernel – heart of Google’s open-source software for phones – that shipped inside the HTC Droid Incredible phones. But the study says it is likely other Android phones have the same programming flaws.

2011 is the Year of the Linux Desktop Hah! Not really. I’ve been reading two posts, the first by Robert Strohmeyer, the second by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols. Both raise arguments about Linux on the Desktop and both point to mobile computing as being the future. Ever since Android has come out I have assumed the growth path of Linux (and the ultimate strategy of Google) will be Android on phones -> Android on desktops. My take on the Netbook episode is that, where customers returned Linux netbooks they returned them because they were unfamiliar. With Android now in everyone’s pocket they won’t bat an eyelid at Android powered tablets (which I doubt were in Google’s game plan, but given that Android is open, others are now able to fill that void), then Android netbooks and laptops and finally desktops. With penetration of Android will come mobile developers and with them will come a large application suite. Those applications will automatically run on an Android desktop.

Last week my mom forwarded an email to me and I started to laugh. The email was to warn me about a virus that is spreading and destroying peoples data.

This tutorial explains how to upgrade to Fedora14 from Fedora 13 &12. Your personal data is the most valuable thing in your computer, before to upgrade it is always a good idea to back up any data that you have on your systems.

This tutorial shows how you can set up an Ubuntu Studio 10.10 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.

Well, here's some interesting weekend news: there's a polarized discussion taking place right now among core KDE developers about merging the KDE libraries into upstream Qt. Cornelius Schumacher, a long-time German KDE developer and currently the KDE e.V. president, has come out yesterday saying, "Let's merge Qt and the KDE development platform. Let's put all KDE libraries, support libraries, platform modules into Qt, remove the redundancies in Qt, and polish it into one nice consistent set of APIs, providing both, the wonderful KDE integration, consistency and convenience, as well as the simplicity and portability of the Qt platform."

Do you remember SplashTop? It's the instant-on Linux environment that was originally embedded into select ASUS motherboards three years ago and from there worked its way to other motherboards and then onto notebooks and other devices from a variety of vendors. We effectively launched SplashTop for DeviceVM, the company behind this instant-on Linux distribution, when we got our hands on SplashTop early and were the first in the world to provide a detailed analysis of SplashTop. It was one of our most popular articles that year and of over the past six and a half years that Phoronix has been around.

This article describes a method how to use a USB memory device as an authentication token to log in into a Linux system instead of traditional password. This can be accomplished by use of Pluggable Authentication Modules ( PAM ) and some sort of USB storage device such as USB memory stick of Mobile phone with SD card attached.

Since the advent of the consumer digital camera, hard disks and memory devices have faced the burden of ever increasing amounts of images to store. This is, in part, due to digital photography being an inexpensive way of taking thousands of images without any image processing costs to bear, thereby encouraging the photographer to snap many pictures of the same thing. The only ongoing expense is recharging the batteries in the camera.

It's going to be Unity all the way for Ubuntu's next major release codenamed Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal". During Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS) at Florida, Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth announced that the Unity shell will become Ubuntu's default interface not just for netbook editions, but also for Ubuntu desktop editions.

While bad Wi-Fi security is my major Firesheep worry, I know it’s already a major pain in the ass for everyone. Even as I wrote this, I see my fellow ZDNet blogger Ed Bott had his Twitter account hijacked by someone else in the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference press room. Fortunately, it was a friend so it all came out well. Since it wasn’t you that might strike you as funny. Just wait until it happens to you though and someone changes your Twitter or Facebook password on you. You won’t be laughing then.

There are around 90 000 apps in the Android marketplace. We suggest 10 worth looking at. Google's Android operating system is gaining popularity fast and its application marketplace is growing at break-neck speed. Already the marketplace lists around 90 000 applications, not as many as the iPhone's 300 000, but still a pretty impressive count.

Inkscape is an open source SVG graphics editor released under GNU General Public License. Inkscape supports many advanced SVG features and great care is taken in designing a streamlined interface. Here are some useful tutorials for creating amazing vector graphics using Inkscape.

Today is the last UDS-N day and a session about the default application selection in the upcoming Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal is ongoing. Here's what has been discussed so far:

Last Friday, I had a heart attack. As I was rushed to the hospital by the superb ambulance crews and through the operating theatre and onwards to the recovery room by the skilled surgeons, one thing stuck in my mind; how badly open source, and software development in general, has let down health care professionals, who I watched handle bundles of notes and forms which contained the crucial patient care information.

Just earlier today we reported that Wayland is becoming compatible with Nouveau so that users of this open-source NVIDIA driver can begin using this alternative, lightweight display server that leverages the latest Linux graphics technologies. About the only caveat right now is the needed Nouveau page-flipping support, which is here for some hardware but not in the mainline Linux kernel yet and the page-flipping hook-up for the newer NVIDIA GPUs is coming soon. Kristian Høgsberg, the creator of Wayland, also made another announcement today.

A quick look at Tiny Core Linux 3.2. I recently wrote a review over on DLR of Ultimate Edition 2.8, a mega-distro that is packed with umpteen amounts of software. This time around, I thought I’d do a quick look of one of its polar opposites: Tiny Core Linux 3.2. Tiny Core is…well…it’s freaking tiny. I mean really, really tiny! It weighs in at an incredibly petite 10 MB download. It’s clearly designed to give you a functional but totally minimalistic distro.

So, my niece was having a few problems with her laptop and I bought her a new one. The eMachine e527 was on sale at the local MicroCenter for 279.99 and seemed to be a good fit for my accident prone niece. I wasn't sure whether to leave Windows on it, put Linux on it, or put OSX on it. After about 30 minutes, it was a hackintosh and running nicely. Here is what you do.

German software giant SAP conceded Thursday that it allowed or even contributed to a subsidiary's effort to pirate software from archrival Oracle, while SAP lawyers renewed their complaint to a judge that Oracle is turning the case into a "sideshow" and "media circus." Redwood City-based Oracle hailed the concession as a significant development, as both sides gear up for a civil trial next week in Oakland federal court. SAP said it was attempting to narrow the focus of the trial, but Oracle attorneys said they will oppose SAP's move to limit testimony about SAP executives' role in the case.