LXer Weekly Roundup for 10-Jan-2010

LXer Feature: 11-Jan-2010

Six office alternatives: Microsoft will release Office 2010 in June but until then there are some great alternatives. In June Microsoft will release a final version of its Office 2010 productivity suite. Naturally many users will upgrade, at substantial cost, to the latest version of the popular Office suite, but for those not so eager to hand over their money to Microsoft there are still many great alternatives. And they are free.

SCO's IP Rights After Distributing UnitedLinux Under the GPL: Since Chapter 11 Trustee Edward Cahn's lawyer, Bonnie Fatell, reportedly opined at the most recent bankruptcy hearing that SCO would never have given away its Unix intellectual property rights to UnitedLinux, I thought I would show you exactly what was in UnitedLinux -- some, if not all, of the very code they now claim IBM had no right to put into Linux and others can't use without infringing SCO's rights. But they put it in their very own SCO Linux Powered by UnitedLinux distribution themselves, and under the GPL.

What will it take for Linux and Open Source to dethrone Microsoft?: We are currently in one of the best situations ever to think about moving to open source and Linux on the desktop. With Windows XP’s end of life, many companies are already considering upgrading to Windows Vista or 7. The user interface has changed, and many existing applications aren’t compatible. I am currently reviewing a list of hundreds of applications for compatibility with Windows 7 to decide what will have to be upgraded or replaced. What is missing or needs improvement on Linux from an I.T. perspective?

Welcome to Google's Nexus One – and the "Nexus" Device: Most people have been asking whether the Google Nexus One is an iPhone-killer; but there's a phrase in the official Google blog that suggests it's something much bigger: the fusion of computer and mobile, with the Internet as the digital glue - a true "nexus" device. If Google can encourage other manufacturers to come out with more, lower-cost models, this could be the device that the billions of people currently with neither computer nor mobile phone could use to access the Internet. And all running on Linux.

I Just Want Something to Happen When I Click: In the olden days of personal computing, we were on a continual hardware upgrade path seeking better performance. Now our low-end PCs would have been supercomputers ten years ago, and they're still bogging down. Is there no end in sight?

10 things to know about Linux and Open Source: Compilation: In case you missed some of the Linux and Open Source content in the 10 Things blog in 2009, I thought I would do a round-up of some of the best posts that appeared, many authored by our own Jack Wallen. If you’re new to Linux yourself (or want to introduce others to the world of open source), these concise lists provide a good jumping-off point on a number of topics.

Ubuntu Linux and Your iPhone / iPod Touch: Not content with the roadblocks Apple had erected for users who wanted to connect to their digital devices (that they had paid for, natch), Apple decided to up the ante with its iPod Touch and iPhone series. This meant that a whole new round of reverse engineering was necessary just so that, and this bears repeating a thousand times, users could connect to a device that they paid for and actually access content they legally possess. Does that make sense to you? Me neither. Welcome to the 21st century.

Preparing Yourself for the Linux Admin Market: Tips for Linux administrators entering and moving through today’s Linux admin market as traditional qualifications become less relevant and the need for real skills increases.

Can You Top This? 15 Practical Linux Top Command Examples: This article is part of the on-going 15 example series where 15 examples will be provided for a specific command or functionality. In this series, earlier we discussed about find command, crontab examples, grep command, history command, ping command, and wget examples. In this article, let us review 15 examples for Linux top command that will be helpful for both newbies and experts.