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The /etc/fstab file gives you control over what filesystems are mounted at startup on your Linux system, including Windows partitions and network shares. You can also use it to control the mount points of removable storage devices like USB sticks and external hard disks. Akkana Peck shows us how.

"I see it as a loss of control over information you used to have control over," said Kurt Opsahl, senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "I don't see how it's meant to benefit Facebook users. I can see what it will get you is data mining and targeted advertising." - Benny Evangelista, SF Chronicle

This tutorial shows how to set up an Ubuntu Jeos based server as a spamfilter in gateway mode. In the end, you will have a SpamSnake gateway which will relay clean emails to your MTA. You will also be able to view your incoming queue, train your SpamSnake and carry out a few more advanced operations via MailWatch.

Songbird, the popular open source cross platform music player, has decided to dump support for Linux. Such a move could be fatal and here's why.

Futurists talk about the “Singularity”, the time when computational capacity will surpass the capacity of human intelligence. Ray Kurzweil predicts it will happen in 2045. The flaw with any date estimate, other than the fact that they are always prone to extreme error, is that our software today has no learning capacity, because the idea of continuous learning is not yet a part of the foundation. Even the learning capabilities of an ant would be useful.

As noted previously (see Stop the ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement)), this treaty was being negotiated in secret and is an attempt to extend the reach of the west’s horrible and draconian IP (patent and copyright) regimes to other countries.

The New York Times is reporting that Google’s password system was compromised during a targeted attack last December.

Having watched people advocate the Linux desktop for more than 10 years, it's always surprising to see the same people arguing against the things that will help bring Linux (and software freedom) to a larger audience. But like the fanboys who pine for the days before indie bands went to major labels, there's a loud minority in the Linux community protesting the commercial offerings that come along with success.

To most people, boot loaders aren't the most exciting aspect of an operating system, but they are extraordinarily important. Without a functioning boot loader, nothing else works. Currently, a transition from the old Grand Unified Bootloader (GRUB) Legacy tool to the new GRUB 2 is underway. GRUB 2 is the default boot loader in Ubuntu 9.10, and it's an option in most other major Linux distributions. Sooner or later, other distributions will deploy GRUB 2 as the default boot loader.

There are plenty of reasons for wanting a low-resource distro running on your computer. Maybe you have some ancient hardware that you need to breathe new life into. Perhaps you want something that will fit on a modestly sized memory stick. Or it might be that you want to run 200 virtual machines simultaneously on your desktop. The important things that we'll look at here are the amount of space needed, how much processing power is required to get the distro running at an acceptable level, and the effort required to get it to work.

Who can blame Adobe for being ticked off? They wanted a slice of the lucrative Apple iPad/iPhone application business, but Apple won't let Adobe applications, or even Flash, on either platform. First Adobe responded by cussing Apple out, then thinking about suing Apple; now, they're talking about abandoning the iPad/iPhone platforms. That's lame. Apple's already told Adobe that they're not welcome. I have a better idea. Adobe, forget about Apple; go Linux instead. Mike Chambers, the principal product manager for developer relations for Adobe's Flash, has already suggested that Flash developers start working Google's Linux-based Android operating system. "The iPhone isn't the only game in town," said Chambers.

As Ubuntu Lucid is preparing for its grand launch on 29th April 2010, I am sure you should have already known what to expect in this release. The next usual question is: “what should I install after installing Lucid?” We have done plenty of “what to install after installing Ubuntu” articles previously, but this time round, I am going to save you all the trouble and introduce you to a script that can automate plenty of stuffs for you.

We have our hands on the bash launcher used by Valve's Steam client for Mac OS X that was recently announced -- along with the Source Engine for OS X -- and is currently in closed beta. While such scripts are usually insignificant, there is something interesting within it and that is explicit support for Linux.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt shed some light on the company's plans for Chrome OS in tablets and mobile devices at the Atmosphere Cloud Computing Summit. Cloud computing is the cornerstone of Chrome OS, as the platform runs entirely on cloud servers and all user data is automatically backed up to the same remote server network.

Twitter is preparing to launch several impressive new features, including a new streaming API that will give desktop client applications real-time access to the user's message timeline. The new streaming API was announced last week at Twitter's Chirp conference, where it was made available to conference attendees on-site for some preliminary experimentation. Twitter opened it up to the broader third-party developer community on Monday so that programmers can begin testing it to offer informed feedback.

Linux vendor Red Hat today released the first public beta of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (RHEL 6), giving observers a look at what's to come in the next version of its flagship operating system platform. The new release takes advantage of a long list of new Linux kernel improvements for performance and scalability while also providing new technologies for security, management, and virtualization.

T-Mobile and Garmin-Asus announced a navigation-oriented smartphone that will run Android and include multi-touch capabilities. The "Garminfone" includes a 600MHz Qualcomm processor, 4GB of flash storage, a three megapixel camera, and GPS capabilities that work with or without cellular connectivity, according to the companies.

A new cloud-focused Linux flavor launched recently; known as Peppermint, the operating system is currently a small, private beta and will open up to more testers over the next two to four weeks.

Google has released version 4.1.249.1059 of Chrome for Windows, a security update that addresses four high risk vulnerabilities in its WebKit-based browser. These vulnerabilities are; a memory corruption issue in Chrome's V8 JavaScript Engine, type confusion errors with forums, cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities on the Chrome downloads page and HTTP request errors that could lead to possible cross-site request forgeries (XSRF).

PCLinuxOS 2010 Edition is now available for download. Features: Kernel 2.6.32.11-bfs kernel for maximum desktop performance. Full KDE 4.4.2 Desktop. Nvidia and ATI fglrx driver support. Multimedia playback support for many popular formats. Wireless support for many network devices. Printer support for many local and networked printer devices. Addlocale allows you to convert PCLinuxOS into over 60 languages. GetOpenOffice can install Open Office supporting over 100 languages. MyLiveCD allows you to take a snapshot of your installation and burn it to a LiveCD/DVD. Parental Controls to keep your kids away from those naughty websites. PCLinuxOS 2010 Screenshots