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Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 4 was released last week and with all of its updated packages and changes compared to Ubuntu 9.04, we decided to carry out a fresh round of benchmarks comparing Ubuntu 9.04 to Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 4. We used a Samsung NC10 for testing with an Intel Atom N270, 2GB of DDR2 memory, a 32GB OCZ Core Series V2 SSD, and Intel 945GME graphics.

The choice of a Linux desktop environment, typically between the "big two": GNOME and KDE, is one that inspires enthusiastic advocacy—some might even say religious fervor—among the supporters of each choice. So, it should come as no surprise that a distribution's default choice of desktop—the one that most new users will end up running—can be contentious, as the supporters of each desktop jockey for recognition of their choice. That battle is currently playing out for openSUSE after a proposal to make KDE the default desktop was made in the openFATE feature tracker; since then, a number of rather lengthy threads on the opensuse-project mailing list, as well as postings on various web logs, have made for a lively debate.

The computer world is notorious for its obsession with what is new - largely thanks to the relentless engine of Moore's Law that endlessly presents programmers with more powerful machines. Given such permanent change, anything that survives for more than one generation of processors deserves a nod. Think then what the Unix operating system deserves because in August 2009, it celebrates its 40th anniversary. And it has been in use every year of those four decades and today is getting more attention than ever before.

Researchers at the Spanish University of Granada are publishing as open source their software simulating the human nervous system, saying this is the only way to allow other teams to become involved. The department of Architecture and Computer Technology last May published Edlut (Event driven look up table based simulator) that can be used to mimic parts of the human brain. Apart from studying how the brain works, tt is meant to aid research into diseases and to test new medicines. The software can also be used to improve robots and other machines, such as accurate control and tool manipulators.

With over 3,000 stories and blog entries to date (according to a Google News search), is there anything left to say about the current XML Patent Wars? Well, yes, there is one thing; they don't really matter.

First look at TonidoPlug Linux-based plug computer. For Linux Pro Magazine readers, the name Tonido will sound familiar. I covered this sleek and user-friendly solution that lets you turn an Ubuntu-based machine into a nifty server in issue 105. Recently, CodeLathe, the company behind Tonido, launched TonidoPlug -- a tiny Ubuntu-based server running the Tonido software.

The Wikimedia Foundation, the organisation responsible for the operation of the Wikipedia free online encyclopaedia, has received $500,000 from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, a foundation established by the co-founder of HP and his wife. According to a press release, this grant acknowledges the important role that Wikimedia projects play in making educational information freely accessible.

And the best part is, you can download these themes directly from PPA launchpad repo itself, which is always the safer bet. This is by far the best collection of themes i have ever seen for Ubuntu.

The Danish Competition Authority has conducted a market analysis of office software so as to give governmental agencies recommendations for public purchases. The results are a definite "live and let live" between the competing standards ODF and OOXML.

Computers get faster and smaller every year, but in the case of servers – the building blocks for many modern businesses – the tasks we expect them to perform have increased to match. We so rely on these servers that we increasingly need to monitor what they do, how they do it and when they hit problems. An under appreciated aspect of modern server designs is that they now incorporate facilities to monitor themselves and report problems: a small computer built into a bigger server to monitor it used to be reserved for very expensive systems, but now even the cheapest 1U Dell server comes with this kind of monitoring and control.

Sony surprised the eBook market last week when it announced it was adopting the open ePub standard. Could this move pressure Amazon to follow suit or is it too big to care.

Asterisk is one of the best telephony solutions which is free to use. There are others such as yate that provide same type of solutions and even more custom ones. Due to the easy of implementation Asterisk has become more popular than anything else. Asterisk is very easy to use and lots of open source and closed source panels provide a GUI for it.

A couple of months ago, Free Software Magazine went through what you’d call a “rough patch” in terms of hosting: 3FN, which hosted FSM, was effectively shut down by the FTC in the United States. Many companies had their backup servers on 3FN’s networks — and therefore lost everything. We were lucky enough to have a full backup over in Europe. So, we quickly moved everything to CariNet. What’s the aftermath of this adventure? Read about this cautionary tale at Free Software Magazine

Microsoft's earned the respect of certain sections of the open-source community for its engineering work around open-source and Linux. Specifically, its support for MySQL, PHP and JBoss on Windows and its involvement with Eclipse and Apache have been welcomed by developers and various community leaders in and around these technologies and projects. Yet, there remain many more skeptical and even suspicious of Microsoft and its motives, especially when it comes to statements and legal actions on patents.

Writing honestly about Linux distributions is not a way to become popular or make friends. When a given distribution, any distribution, has problems and a reporter writes about it there are always fans who will circle the wagons and/or go on the attack. I am very used to that by now. It's no surprise at all that has happened with a few CentOS loyalists. What is surprising is that it is continuing more than two weeks after I last wrote about the subject.

Some heavy lifting has been done to move Chrome to the 64-bit world. It's Linux-only for now, though, and don't expect doubled performance over 32-bit versions.

WorksWithU reported a couple weeks ago on new features in Ubuntu 9.10, like kernel mode setting and GRUB 2, that are likely to please geeks. But Ubunti 9.10 (codenamed Karmic Koala) will also sport changes aimed at traditional users.

This week I revisited a distribution I first wrote about back in 2007, Pardus Linux. It’s developed by the Turkish National Research Institute of Electronics and Cryptography, it has its own package management system called PISI (Packages Installed Successfully, as Intended), and it’s not based on any other Linux distribution, which makes quite a change these days. I was eager to see how it had developed since our last encounter.

The Linux Foundation has published an update to last year's study on Linux kernel development. The updated study reports that for each kernel release there has been a 10 percent increase in the number of contributing developers, resulting in a 42 percent increase in patch acceptance.

Mozilla has taken a position on the European Union's proposed settlement with Microsoft about browser integration in Windows 7. Both Mozilla Foundation's Mitchell Baker and Mozilla's general counsel feel that Microsoft is benefiting all too well from the settlement.