LXer Weekly Roundup for 14-Aug-2011

LXer Feature: 15-Aug-2011

The Six Best Linux Community Server Distributions: One question we get a lot: What are the best community server distributions? That question isn't as simple as it sounds. What makes a distro "the best"? Why community distributions, specifically? It's not a simple question — but read on and we'll point you to six distros that will help you reach a satisfying answer.

Linux Distro: Tails - You Can Never Be Too Paranoid: Tails is a live media Linux distro designed boot into a highly secure desktop environment. You may remember that we looked at a US government distro with similar aims a few months ago, but Tails is different because it is aimed at the privacy conscious “normal user” rather than government workers.

Linux users Can Finally Read Kindle ebooks on their Desktop with Amazon's Cloud Reader: If you are a Kindle user disappointed by the lack of a dedicated desktop application for Linux, there’s good news for you. Amazon.com has just launched their new HTML5-powered cloud-based web app called Amazon Cloud Reader. The webapp runs flawlessly on Linux with support for offline reading and much much more. Here’s what it has to offer.

News flash: Linus is one of us: Amid the brouhaha around Linus Torvalds' unhappiness with GNOME 3, as well as the speculation that he may or may not be using Linux Mint, there's a glaring omission from the discussion. Specifically, Linus is one of us. Sure, he's the reason we're all here, but at the end of the day he's just another Linux user. After all, which of us hasn't changed distros or desktops, or posted our praise or displeasure on mailing lists or forums? Larry the Free Software Guy says we should afford Linus the same luxury of change which most of us seemingly take for granted.

Linus Hates GNOME 3 and I Don't: My editor at LinuxPro, Joe Casad, asked me if I wanted to write an article covering the differences between GNOME 2 and GNOME 3, but I declined (I was already working on something else). The reason for his request was this piece by my colleague, Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols, where Steven that talks about Linus Torvalds' intense dislike for GNOME 3. In the article, Linux suggests that a fork of GNOME 3 is in order. Here's a bit of a spoiler . . . Linus runs Linux Mint 11 for his personal desktop. A fine choice if I do say so myself, although I happen to like the KDE version.

You're Living in the Past, Dude!: We're past the era when every Free Software project is targeted at us hackers specifically. Failing to notice this will cause us to ignore the deeper problem software freedom faces.

Will Linux miss its big desktop shot?: It's a song we've heard before: all the apps will live in the browser, so who cares what the OS will be? Observers of Linux--including me--have raised this up as the one big chance to capture desktop share, because Linux will have the same access to apps as all the other operating systems. OEMs, the sales pitch will go, why pay Microsoft all that money when you can just load up Linux to give your customers what they need! But increasingly I have some doubts that any Linux distribution is going to be able to get its collective act together in time.

"Samsung vs Apple in Europe" for dummies: For everybody who understands less about the current Apple/ Samsung battle in EU than I do, here is my attempt to share the few things I understand with you. I'll briefly discuss the situation in both Germany and the Netherlands. The article should be especially suited for those who cannot read Dutch / German and are not up to date with what has been happening the last few days.