Showing all newswire headlines

OK. Step one in spending 30 Days With...Ubuntu Linux is to get Ubuntu Linux installed so I can use it. I have already narrowed it down to Ubuntu, so I don't have to bother with the question of which Linux, but the first question I need to address at this point is how to install it.

As you have probably heard, Oracle has followed through with their earlier promise to “move OpenOffice.org to a purely community-based open source project.” OpenOffice is moving to Apache. I’d like to offer you my own thoughts on this new opportunity and what it means. I recommend also the insights of my colleagues Ed Brill and Bob Sutor.

(Note: Rob Weir works for IBM as an "ODF Architect"; all the action in this post is in the comments)

This morning, Oracle announced that they are submitting the OpenOffice.org codebase to the Apache Software Foundation Incubator. At IBM, we see this as a strong validation of open source, open document formats, and market choice and flexibility in the office productivity arena. Since we launched Lotus Symphony in 2007, IBM has been an active participant in the OpenOffice.org community, and with the move to Apache, we plan to increase our efforts through human and code contribution.

(Note: Ed Brill is Director, Messaging and Collaboration, IBM Lotus software)

LibreOffice 3.4, the second major release form The document Foundation, has been released today with many new features and fixes. Most notable of which are improved integration with GTK+ themes and improved text rendering.

LibreOffice 3.4.0 is released! This is the second major release of the suite since the announcement of The Document Foundation in September 2010, this new release comes with many new features and improvements.

In a grand concession, Microsoft is now borrowing a page from Apple's iOS and Google's Android. Windows 8 takes the colorful tiles and finger-swipe gestures from the Windows Phone operating system and expands them to a larger screen -- in this demo, 10.6 inches diagonally.

Earlier today, Oracle announced that they would be donating source code for OpenOffice to the Apache Software Foundation to start a new incubator project. It’s been an interesting road to get to this point over the decades, with well and not-so-well publicized twists and turns, but I’m glad we got here.

(Note: Bob Sutor is Vice President, Open Systems and Linux, IBM Software Group)

If you can stand another OpenOffice.org/Apache story, this is a good one. Apache Software Foundation (ASF) president Jim Jagielski gives details into the organization's plans for the office suit if Apache votes to accept it, including how IBM will be roped into providing engineering resources (since Oracle won't) and licensing.

It sounds nice, it looks beautiful, and on the surface it appears to be a way for Microsoft to keep Windows relevant... But analysts say there is a major hole in Microsoft's Windows-on-any-device approach: Microsoft is misguided in its continued belief that consumers want every device they're using to function like a PC.

Gnome developers continue its work to have a consistent behaviour across the entire desktop. With its next incarnation, the team also escalates this behaviour towards individual applications. Meet Gnome contacts, the contacts application that you will see in the 3.2 version of your awesome desktop.

The response we got for our feature on rarely known commercial applications for Linux was simply overwhelming and some of those who enjoyed the article wanted us to do a similar feature on commercial games available for Linux. So here is it, a very neat collection of paid games for Linux worth exploring.

We are proud to announce today, June 2nd, that the first Alpha version of the upcoming Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) operating system is now available for download. As usual, we've grabbed a copy of it in order to keep you up-to-date with the latest changes in the Ubuntu 11.10 development.

Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot alpha 1 has been released today and it comes with GNOME 3 (the GNOME application stack such as Gedit 3, Nautilus 3, etc. - but it doesn't come with GNOME Shell by default; however, GNOME Shell is available in the official Ubuntu 11.10 repositories) and of course, Unity by default.

Oracle is to propose that OpenOffice.org becomes an Apache Software Foundation (ASF) project and enters the Apache incubation process. The proposal comes six weeks after Oracle abandoned commercial development of OpenOffice and said it was looking for a way to have the office suite managed by the community.

Believe it or not, third parties always determine a candidate’s success or failure in the race to the data center.

Aupeo, a Pandora-like music streaming service, has just rolled a redesigned website along with its first smartphone app for Android and iOS devices. Although its wide range of music, genres, subgenres, and preference-tuning features are impressive, Aupeo’s eye-candy-rich Android/iOS app is frustrating to use. The service is also usable via web access on Linux, Windows, and iOS desktops.

The PCLinuxOS Magazine staff is pleased to announce the release of the June 2011 issue of the PCLinuxOS Magazine.

Ubuntu 11.04 'Oneiric Ocelot' Alpha 1 has been released today. The major focus for this release has been bringing in full Gnome 3 stack and porting required applications to GTK3/PyGI. Unity and Unity 2D has been updated with bug fix releases. Almost all of the Gnome 3 stack has landed except few packages. Ubuntu 11.10 features Linux kernel 2.6.39 and gcc 4.6 compiler.

Few months ago I promised to dump Mandriva Linux. I was not happy with it and did not want to return to it. But later I came back to it, because I had an opportunity to try another flavour, new release. This time I almost broke my promise again. Today's specie is Mageia...

With the extensive Linux power consumption tests that I've been carrying out to solve some nasty Linux kernel power regressions and find other areas for optimization, one of the requests that has come in frequently is to compare the power consumption of the KDE, GNOME, Unity, Xfce, and LXDE desktops. After the article earlier this week to look at how the desktop environments / compositing window managers affect OpenGL performance, I carried out a quick desktop power test. In this article are battery power consumption results for Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and Lubuntu.