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Fedora release heads into cloud with bag-full of developer tools and virtualisation tech. When it comes to Linux distributions one of the best of them is Fedora, the community version of Linux giant Red Hat. Following close on the heels of the release of Ubuntu 10.10 last month, Fedora developers last night released version 14 of the operating system.

Linux is so useful, you don't even need to install it before it gets to work. One of the popular uses of Linux is to create live media that can be used to run desktop systems or to create utility discs for all kinds of administration. Confused about the live CD that's right for you? No worries, we've got the top five live Linux CDs to get you started.

If you’ve never tried desktop screenlets, you’re missing out. We’ve previously discussed how to set up your screenlets, but we’ve never put together a showcase of the best ones. Today we’ve gathered seven of the best from Screenlets.org, and they cover everything from audio eye candy to steampunk system monitors. If you’re finding your desktop lacking in flash or functionality, look no further.

If you love the aroma of network packets, you’ll love capturing a snifter full of your favorite network-scented morsels with Wireshark, the world’s most popular network protocol analyzer.

While we are still waiting for Unigine Corp (or their partners) to actually release a game based upon the Unigine Engine (Primal Carnage backed out and so their own OilRush game should be the first when it ships this quarter or next), the advanced multi-platform engine continues marching forward. The Unigine Engine already supports OpenGL 3/4 and has amazing graphics as shown by their tech demos like Unigine Heaven and many other features, but they have just made another huge update to this Linux-friendly game engine.

The remastered "Ubuntu after a week of customizations" Pinguy OS 10.10 beta 2 has just been released. For those of you who are not familiar with Pinguy: it's an Ubuntu remaster with a lot of useful default applications "built to have eye candy (Gloobus Preview, GNOME Do, Docky, Elementary*) and for every part of it to be user-friendly".

Governments are increasingly interested in promoting open source software. Yet policymakers have seldom laid out any clear theoretical or empirical justification for these policies. This column explores recent studies suggesting that open source and proprietary software strengthen each other and should co-exist – too much open source could actually be a bad thing.

[Found this on Groklaw, I agree with PJ's take. Linux is not a cartel. - Scott]

This tutorial shows how you can set up a Linux Mint Debian 201009 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. While the "normal" Linux Mint editions are based on Ubuntu, Linux Mint Debian 201009 is a Linux distribution based on Debian Squeeze (testing); its aim is to look identical to the main edition and to provide the same functionality while using Debian as a base.

MyPaint is an easy to use paint program. It supports several the popular image formats, comes with a load of brushes, and is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. After 5 years of development, version 0.9.0 was released on November 2 with some nice new features.

The recent PostgreSQL 9.0 release offers several significant improvements to PostgreSQL's built-in replication solution. Ready to add replication to your PostgreSQL install? It's easier than you might think. Replication is a key technology for any database offering, because databases are typically mission-critical systems. Downtime — or, worse yet, data loss — can result not only in inconvenience to employees and customers but also in lost productivity and lost revenue. By replicating from a primary server, or master, to one or more secondary servers, sometimes called standbys, the probability of data loss or extended downtime can be greatly reduced.

Permissions are important for keeping your data safe and secure. Utilizing permission settings in Linux can benefit you and those you want to give access to your files and you don’t need to open up everything just to share one file or directory (something Windows sharing often does). You can group individual users together and change permissions on folders (called directories in Linux) and files and you don’t have to be in the same OU or workgroup or be part of a domain for them to access those files. You can change permissions on one file and share that out to a single group or multiple groups. Fine grained security over your files places you in the driver seat in control of your own data.

Google has published an updated breakdown of the number of active devices running a given version of its Android mobile operating system. According to the Platform Versions device dashboard on the Android Developer portal, more than three out of four Android devices are now running version 2.1 (Eclair) or later – an increase of 3% compared to early October and nearly 13% over early August of this year. Android 1.5 and 1.6 devices now make up 7.9% and 15% of devices respectively, a decrease from 9.7% and 16.4% at the beginning of last month.

One tends to think of "the NASDAQ" as a single exchange based in the US, but, in fact, NASDAQ OMX operates exchanges all over the world - and they run on Linux. In the US for instance, that includes markets like the NASDAQ Stock Market, The NASDAQ Options Market, and NASDAQ OMX PSX, its newest market that launched on October 8. At a brief presentation at the Linux Foundation's invitation-only End User Summit in Jersey City, NASDAQ OMX vice president Bob Evans talked about the ups and downs of using Linux in a seriously mission-critical environment.

Pinta 0.5 has been released and with it come some new tools and several bug fixes. Pinta emerged in February and garnered lots of enthusiastic attention for its user-friendly interface. It was compared and contrasted to The GIMP, but consensus at the time seemed to be that it needed more time to simmer. Will today's update bring it closer to prime time?

Remember those insane arcade games that kept you up all night, blasting away at ship after ship, leading up to a showdown with a massive star destroyer that relentlessly hurled various dangerous objects at you? More than likely, the game you remember offered a 2D top-down or side-scrolling view of space. But now take a moment to imagine all of that in 3D. Sun Blast is a cross-platform, independent game from OBLONE Software that offers you exactly that experience. With it, you will feel like you are immersed in the arcade action, as space debris, enemy vessels, and menacing star ships all take aim at you.

Google has open sourced an Apache server module designed to speed website performance. Presumably, the module is based on the mystery Google Web Server the company uses to serve its own pages.

So starting a week from today, The Blog of helios will publish Teh Geek of Teh Week - Your Name Here... And stop it...I've already cycled through all the jokes mentally. None of them end well. If you have something insightful, interesting or moderately pertinent to say, let me know and I will submit it on the following Tuesday. That's the day for Teh Geek of Teh Week.

It’s the official HTML5 test that praises IE9's HTML5 features. The W3C has spoken, the IE9 is the best HTML5 browser. But my question is: How credible can the test be, if you discredit it yourself and if you quietly change the results?

If you are running Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick and own a copy of the Photoshop CS 5 installer, you will find that you won’t be able to install it under wine. Photoshop CS5 on Ubuntu 10.4 works fine, but not 10.10. Here’s what I did to get it running on my Ubuntu Maverick machine.

Realtime Sunlight Wallpaper is an application which sets your wallpaper to an image of the Earth's sunglight/darkness - updated every 30 minutes. The wallpaper also displays clouds which are updated every 3 hours with the current weather satellite imagery.