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Google's Android operating system for cell phones, GPS devices and a host of other gadgets yet to be is the topic of much controversy and discussion. Why? Windows CE, Embedded Linux, Android...who cares? When you shop for a phone, or any modern gadget, do you ask which operating system it's running? I don't for two reasons. First, the people working at the store look at me, and each other, like I've just stepped off a ship from Mars. Second, I don't care.

‘I went to a computer class today. How do I use your father’s computer?’ This was Irene on the phone, twice a great grandmother, who had never used a computer before in her life. This came out of the blue, and was the last thing we had expected...

Over the years I have had to harden a great number of LAMP boxes, I have found some methods work for better than others. I will now share with you all my favorite 10 along with methods to implement them on Debian/Ubuntu.

While there are many netbooks on the market from a variety of different vendors, for the most part they are composed of the same hardware. They generally carry an Intel Atom processor with a solid-state drive or hard drive, 1GB or so of memory, and an 8" to 10" screen. One area though where these netbooks can differentiate is with the operating system. While Microsoft's Windows XP continues to be used on a large number of netbook computers, when it comes to those vendors deploying Linux each usually has a slightly different flavor. ASUS prefers a spin of Xandros on their Eee PC, there is Linpus, gOS, and many others are out there. When it comes to Dell with their popular Inspiron Mini 9 netbook, they happen to be using Ubuntu but with a few modifications. In preparations for an article later this week where we will be extensively looking at Ubuntu's netbook performance, in this article we are taking a closer look at Dell's Inspiron Mini 9.

After many broken promises and much procrastination, I finally made it onto Arch Linux, and that’s where I’ve been for the past couple of weeks now. I had a failed attempt at Arch last year when my hard drive died; not Arch’s fault in any way, but since then I haven’t really had a chance to get back to it. It’s a distro that a lot of people tell me about. The Arch fans are always really passionate and enthusiastic in describing it to me; so I figured it was high time I found out for myself just what all this fuss was about…

Google has anounced its upcoming Android 1.5 Linux OS platform, based on the cupcake branch. Some new features are the video recording option & extensive widget support.

The name "SourceForge" has been synonymous with development for years. Yet despite that association, CollabNet, the commercial vendor that owns the SourceForge Enterprise product line, is eliminating the SourceForge name from its product line-up.

The project gNewSense started with the goal of creating a GNU/Linux distribution whose first priority is users’ freedom - even if this limits user comfort and hardware support. As a starting point Ubuntu’s operating system is used. Read the full article at Freesoftware Magazine.

Call it D-day for open source distribution in the IT channel. Synnex, Red Hat and nearly a dozen open source application providers — from Alfresco to Zmanda — have launched the Open Source Channel Alliance. The effort represents a tipping point for open source applications in the channel, reaching a potential 15,000 resellers. Here's the scoop from The VAR Guy.

Three Intel employees are to contribute to the development of the GNU Compiler Collection. So far, corporate contributions to the GCC have been made by AMD and by other processor forges, while Intel focused on the development of its Intel Compiler Collection (ICC).

An interesting concept, that's been around for a while. Neat, but...

xclip is a command line interface to the X11 selections (X11 clipboard). It can also be used for copying files, as an alternative to sftp/scp, thus avoiding password prompts when X11 forwarding has already been setup. xclip reads from Standard Input or from one or more files and copy it to the X11 clipboard making it available to the X applications. xclip can also print the content of the current X clipboard onto the standard output or to a file.

When my faithful Linux machine silently died under my fingers, I knew I had a lot of work to do. I need a lot of different software and installing and configuring it takes quite some time. A job I'm particularly "fond" of is installing the cross compilers. Even if you're using a Debian-based distro this may apply to you, because although cross compilers can be installed easily with apt-get, you're still left with a barebone cross compiler. The fun starts when you want to add a library.

Today I will continue the series of GUI applications reviews with 5 clients for the BitTorrent protocol. In this article I will leave command-line clients like rtorrent or ctorrent for some other time, focusing on KTorrent, Deluge, Transmission, Vuze and QBitTorrent.

The Wikipedia Community has begun voting on whether to change over to a Creative Commons licence. Introducing the "Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license" (CC-BY-SA) is aimed at making it easier to reuse content from Wikipedia and its sister projects and at enabling the integration of other free content. Existing content is also to be relicensed.

Ubuntu Server Edition, built on Debian GNU/Linux, has established itself as one of the most popular and well documented GNU/Linux server distributions. The Long Term Support (LTS) version of Ubuntu Server is provided with security updates for five years from the release date.

In what seems like a surprise move from the already famous maker of Mac clones, Psystar has recently introduced a new computer, which, interestingly, isn't capable of running Mac OS X. Psystar has made a name for itself just because it provided (and still provides) regular computers that are modified to run Apple's operating system, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.

If you’re running a small business and you’re in the market for server, you might want to consider SME Server, a Linux distribution customised specifically for the small and medium sized business environment. You can find SME Server, which is is based on CentOS, a distribution known for its stability, at http://www.contribs.org.

By releasing the Google Update software as open source code, Google aims to allay concerns over what exactly the program is up to when it phones home.

At first glance, they aren’t dating and they aren’t getting married. But Sun Microsystems and IBM will be shacking up at the MySQL Conference & Expo (April 20-23, Santa Clara). IBM is sponsoring the event, which focuses on Sun’s open source database. Hmmm. Time to re-start the merger rumors? The VAR Guy hopes so. Here's why.