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This is the third of four guest posts by software and system engineer, and former maintainer of freeDOS, James Hall.

After learning that Microsoft opened a Win7-themed cafe, it got me wondering what a cafe would like if it ran in the same style of the OS it was named for...

It is hard to describe the difference between what are called markup systems and, say Microsoft Word, OpenOffice.org Writer, or AbiWord to people, especially to some of the newer people who were not initially weaned on ed. And, it is especially hard to explain LyX. But I'll give it a go.

If you think Linux is difficult to install then read this. I've summed up three easy ways to install and try out Linux. I'm talking about: Live Media, WUBI and Virtualbox. So read on, and go try out Linux.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement negotiations continue in a few hours as Seoul, Korea plays host to the latest round of talks. The governments have posted the meeting agenda, which unsurprisingly focuses on the issue of Internet enforcement.

[Michael Geist reveals some of the truly scary and draconian elements of Internet control contained in this proposed draft agreement - Barbara]

There may be no single organization which runs more Linux systems than Google. But the kernel development community knows little about how Google uses Linux and what sort of problems are encountered there. Google's Mike Waychison traveled to Tokyo to help shed some light on this situation; the result was an interesting view on what it takes to run Linux in this extremely demanding setting.

If you ever used Google Chrome - and you must have -, then you might have noticed how much vertical space you can gain by removing the window title bar. Yes Google Chrome has a titlebar, but as an extent of the tabs, so that's not conventional titlebar. This can be very useful for a laptop, netbook and so on as you will gain a lot more usable space, but believe me, you will also notice the extra space on a normal desktop monitor.

After ABI Research projected that Linux will take a 32 percent share of netbooks in 2009 and wo;; overtake Windows in 2013, we spoke with ABI analyst Jeffrey Orr on the findings. Orr notes the rise of international consumers and ARM Cortex-A8-based netbooks, and discusses Ubuntu, Moblin, Android, and Chrome OS.

JavaScript programmers, rejoice! It's been a good week for open source from big companies. Earlier this week Yahoo! released its Traffic Server it acquired from Inktomi, and now Google has unleashed Closure Tools. These are part of the toolset that Google uses to create JavaScript-heavy applications like Google Docs, Gmail, and Google Maps.

You turn on your trusty old Linux box, and things are going well as you pass through the boot loader, until the disk check reveals that your hard drive partition table is corrupt, and you are unable to access your machine. You need a good rescue disk — and the best way to get one is to create your own.

Release 5.0.0 is available for download. "Slax" is updated to version 6.1.2 (customized for better user experience), "System Rescue CD" is updated to version 1.3.1, "Puppy Linux" is updated to version 4.3.1, "Parted Magic" is updated to version 4.5 and "Tiny Core" is updated to version 2.4.1. New feature has been added: "boot.kernel.org" (BKO) is available as boot option. This allows you to boot your PC from remote location (internet). Visit http://boot.kernel.org for more information.

With its open source release Thursday of its Closure JavaScript tools, Google (GOOG) is starting to suggest that it may eventually become a good open source citizen. The newly released tools include a JavaScript compiler, a very broad JavaScript class library, and Java/JavaScript-friendly templates. All are released under the Apache 2.0 license, a very permissive license that essentially lets outsiders do whatever they want (rather than a viral or semi-viral license like EPL or LGPL).

A Boston-based startup named Litl is taking a big risk: they're betting people will go for a netbook that sports a Linux-based OS and focuses on Web-/network-based productivity (Facebook, Twitter, etc.). The risk is in the pricetag: $700 -- almost twice the price of computers that can do twice as much. Is there a market for this?

Android 2.0 (formerly codenamed 'Éclair') is the latest evolution of the mobile OS developed by Google and the Open Handset Alliance. This version is a chunky upgrade, superceding the current Android 1.6 software (dubbed 'Donut'), which was actually considered "a minor platform release". The first phone to feature Android 2.0 will be Motorola's comeback phone, the DROID (aka the dull-sounding Milestone in Europe).

Novell and Microsoft have each filed summary judgment motions in the antitrust litigation about WordPerfect that Novell brought against Microsoft. In addition, we find out what happened regarding the Bill Gates deposition. And neither party can find certain documents that might be in the Comes collection. I wonder if you can?

One Laptop per Child chairman Nicholas Negroponte told Xconomy that OLPC is prepping an ARM-based version 1.75 of its XO netbook while planning to release a "paper-thin" version 3.0 in 2012. Meanwhile, the Internet Archive is providing OLPC users with 1.6 million e-books, says the nonprofit organization.

This column is a bit premature because I haven't had time to set things up and test them yet. But I'm excited about getting started, so here are some preliminary notes on multi-track recording in Linux using a Firewire device. I scored a nice deal on a Focusrite Saffire Pro 26 Firewire recording interface. My studio PC does not have Firewire so I also bought a SIIG PCI Firewire 400 card and a 6-pin to 6-pin cable. Focusrite is a good supporter of the FFADO project, which writes Linux drivers for Firewire recording devices.

Prominent open source personalities presented a host of information about current and future developments in Linux at the Linux-Kongress 2009 conference. This time, filesystems were discussed in several presentations. Among the topics were the advantages of Ext4 and Btrfs, fast Ext4 filesystem checks, and kernel and userspace tricks for minimising the time-consuming movements of read/write heads, all of which can speed up some tasks by several orders of magnitude!

Red Hat execs explain why Linux vendor's Linux virtualization management solution runs only on Microsoft's rival OS. Andy Cathrow, product marketing manager for Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, told InternetNews.com. "We spent a lot of time talking to customers to see what their view was on this and I think with the possible exception of Red Hat, everyone has some Windows in their datacenter."

“Sita Sings The Blues” by self-taught animator Nina Paley, may be the first feature-length animated film released under a free license (the Creative Commons By-SA). Presented through a variety of animation styles and narrative tones, it fuses apparently disparate ideas and sources into a unified whole. An ancient Hindu epic, The Ramayana, is retold largely through the songs of a 1920s American singer, Annette Hanshaw. The mode of storytelling also mirrors aspects of the world-wide collaborative potential of twenty-first century art, reflected also in the film’s real life controversies, including copyright entanglements and censorship concerns. Read the full article at Freesoftware Magazine.