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Photographer Scott Rowed has penned an excellent essay on his experience making the switch to Linux.

Good looks was never supposed to be a priority for Linux apps. It wasn't so long ago that we seemed to be struggling to get even basic eye-candy such as anti-aliased fonts to work on the Linux desktop, but things have changed almost beyond recognition. It's now fair to say that the Linux desktop is at the forefront of visual effect, a cornucopia of eye-candy overflowing on to your desktop. And with a few tweaks, it can look even better.

On the occasion of its tenth anniversary, IBM's developerWorks site for software developers and IT professionals has compiled a list of the top ten developments in the Linux world. The list leaves out several things that Linux enthusiasts might be inclined to include: no Debian, no KDE or GNOME, no Android, Moblin or other embedded system, no exciting advancements in the Linux kernel – IBM's perspective on Linux is a little different.

In January 2010 Novell will consolidate four business units down to two and eventually say farewell to managers Jeff Jaffee and Roger Levy.

Installing a piece of software recently, the set-up process invited me to become part of some customer improvement programme or other. I’ve no urge to do unpaid work on behalf of big software companies, so I looked to politely decline the offer, yet couldn't…

Among the broad selection of software offered in the KDE Software Compilation is Parley, an application for vocabulary training. Recently people from Vox Humanitatis came in and provided a set of vocabulary data files for Parley for less known languages. This piqued our curiosity, so we did an interview with Sabine Emmy Eller, CCO of Vox Humanitatis.

This tutorial shows how you can install Sun xVM VirtualBox 3.1 on an Ubuntu 9.10 desktop. With VirtualBox you can create and run guest operating systems ("virtual machines") such as Linux and Windows under a host operating system.

ASUS plans to develop an educational robot for kids called the EeeBot that uses software based on Google's Android mobile operating system.

I'm reading one of my very favorite FOSS writers, Ars Technica's Ryan Paul, on the changes afoot for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (codename Lucid ... and I hope so), and this comment leapt right out at me: "I'm looking forward to this release. 9.10 is mostly stable, I could use a good update that breaks my intel video and wireless chips even though they were fine, plus overhauls the USB method so not much works anymore."

Barnes & Noble's Android-based Nook e-reader device was rooted by a site called NookDevs. Meanwhile, Intrinsyc revealed that it led the systems integration of the delayed Nook, which has has suffered from some early negative reviews, and Spring Design's lawsuit against Barnes & Noble over the Nook is moving forward.

OpenLogic, Inc., a provider of enterprise open source software solutions encompassing hundreds of open source packages, today announced Open Source Fulfillment Center, an OpenLogic service that helps companies ensure compliance with open source licenses and avoid lawsuits such as happened with fourteen well known consumer electronics manufacturers this week who are alleged to have violated terms of the GPLv2.

Canonical announced that Mark Shuttleworth will be stepping down as CEO in March to be replaced by Canonical COO Jane Silber, reports eWEEK. Meanwhile, the Ubuntu project has released its first alpha of Ubuntu 10.04 ("Lucid Lynx"), which speeds boot-time while kissing the GIMP editor goodbye.

The initial public release of KaOS (Kernel Attached Operating System) is now available for download. KaOS is an innovative new Linux server platform that embeds the initial base operating system within the kernel image. KaOS can be installed via PXE or by simply upgrading the kernel on an existing Linux system. KaOS has integrated virtualization support with KVM.

The Mono framework compatible with Microsoft's C# .NET is available in version 2.6. Developers also upgraded its associated MonoDevelop environment to version 2.2.

While Google and Apple may both be working the mobile space hard, Google is giving Android away, and even if they sell a Google smart phone, they'll never be hardware company like Apple. Google's ultimate goal is to sell ads, and the more platforms, they have to do that, the better off they will be.

The Novell-backed Moonlight project released the final Moonlight 2, an open source Linux/Unix clone of Microsoft's Silverlight framework that offers improved media streaming. Novell and Microsoft also announced that they will continue their Moonlight collaboration and extend Microsoft's patent covenant to Moonlight distributors other than Novell.

You've made your beautiful custom holiday cards with GIMP, and now you're ready to print them. What's the best way? Your own inkjet printer at home, or farm the work out to someone else?

Thailand-based NorhTec announced a device touted as "the world's most energy-efficient desktop computer," offered for only $99 with the Linux version. Built into a standard-sized keyboard, the "Gecko Surfboard" runs on a 1GHz x86 SoC (system on chip), operates fanlessly, and uses just five Watts, the company says.

Canonical has revealed plans to bring social networking integration and GNOME panel improvements in the next major version of Ubuntu. Notification area icons will be replaced by a new application indicator system. The panel will also feature a new Me Menu for setting messaging status.

The new version of Moonlight is out, and with it, an expanded patent covenant enabling any Linux user to run Novell's open source Silverlight implementation.