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The Android operating system is a step closer to being embedded in consumer electronics, after the company behind the Mips processor architecture open sourced the code for its Android port. Mips Technologies released the source code on Monday, two months after it first said it had ported Android to the 32-bit version of the Mips architecture. This architecture is used in set-top boxes, digital TV sets, home media players, internet telephony systems and mobile internet devices (MIDs), and is a rival to the Arm technology on which Android already runs.

In its latest 10-K report Microsoft admits what we already knew. Open source has run away with its lunch money. (Picture from MeallDubh.org, the blog of John McCreesh.) A whole bunch of companies are identified as villains. Springsource. Canonical. RedHat. Google. What Microsoft does not admit here is the truth. Look at that list of “competitors” again. Other than Google — which gets is money from ads — are any of them more than a a bug heading for the Microsoft windshield?

There's twelve days left until the release of X Server 1.7 and X.Org 7.5! Wait, there still is not even an X Server 1.7 Beta, which should have happened last month, so chances are slim to none on seeing a final release this month. The release schedule for X Server 1.7 / X.Org 7.5 has already slipped a few times, after it was supposed to be released back in April.

There is a persistent and annoying myth that nobody should have to bother with learning to use a computer competently, but rather should wait until that far-off day when computers are perfect and effortless, and even dead people can use them. Your editor has a bit of fun and shoots this down.

This tutorial has been written for both vi and vim. It starts with really basics, such as cursor navigation and ends with more advanced techniques like merging files. For every section of this tutorial there is a short video with hints to help you understand how vim / vi works. Even that I have divided this tutorial into parts from novice to the expert user, there is plenty more what vim can do to make your work with vim editor easier and more efficient. However completing this tutorial you will give sufficient knowledge about vim / vi and its features for your daily tasks.

Hi folks, I've stayed quiet in this discussion, though several folks have invoked my name and ascribed motivations to me that were a little upsetting. I'm not responding to that here, instead I'd like to focus on what we can achieve together, and how we can lead a very significant improvement in the health of the whole free software ecosystem. Apologies in advance if this mail is lengthy and not particularly witty!

KDE 4.3 was released just yesterday, and it comes with a lot of great new features and improvements, like the the new Plasma theme called Air, new Plasma widgets, several improvements to Dolphin, the default KDE4 file manager, improvements to the KDE games, and these are just a tiny part of all the improvements KDE4 introduced. The full announcement including reader's changelog can be found on the official KDE4 website, here.

Early registration closes on Aug. 15 for the Linux Foundation's inaugural LinuxCon event, scheduled for Sept. 21-23, 2009, in Portland, Oregon. LinuxCon intends to draw a mix of end-users, administrators, and top Linux developers, with speakers including Linus Torvalds, Mark Shuttleworth, and Greg Kroah-Hartman.

Just one week shy of Christmas 2008, the Python world saw the release of version 3 of Python. Big deal, eh? Well ... it turns out it was and is, as Python 3 is the first major release of Python designed from the get-go to be incompatible with prior versions of the language. Python is well liked among the Linux Journal readership (winning the Favorite Scripting Language category in 2008), and such a development may come as a shock to some. A detailed description of all of the changes brought into Python 3 can be found in the what's new document, another interesting source can be found on the pythonology blog. Consequently, in this article, I don't intend to rehash such material. Instead, I present my own take on Python 3, as well as discuss what Python 3 means for the new and existing Python programmer.

I no longer have CentOS running on my netbook. It won't be back. At the moment I am not recommending CentOS for anything, not even servers. On my netbook and on desktops in general it has very little to do with the overhyped and exaggerated claims that miscommunication between the developers would lead to the death of CentOS. I have a story I'm writing for O'Reilly Broadcast about that CentOS misadventure, a combination of self-inflicted pain when the developers aired their dirty laundry in public and some in the tech press sensationalizing a story. On servers that story actually does play a significant part in my decision making...

Unreal Tournament 3 was released for the PC nearly two years ago, and there was the promise of a Linux client and it was being worked on by Ryan Gordon, but to this day there is still no such client. Back in March it was said that it was still undergoing work, but there was no ETA for its completion. The work that it was supposedly undergoing was just optimizing the code, bug fixes, etc.

Red Hat has pledged to ensure Malaysia' open source software economy continues to grow with the launch of its Open Source Collaborative Innovation (OSCI) program in the country. Speaking to the media Tuesday in his first visit to Malaysia, the software vendor's CEO and president Jim Whitehurst, said Malaysia is a natural country for Red Hat to introduce the OSCI program as it has a strong record of adopting open source applications.

Up to Novell's takeover of the Suse Linux AG, KDE was without doubt the preferred default for the German distribution. Now openSUSE users are increasingly demanding the return of KDE as default desktop.

Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala simply have do an apt-get upgrade to update to the latest KDE 4.3 (which was released yesterday) but (K)Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope users have to add the Kubuntu PPA backports so they can install the latest KDE 4.3. IMPORTANT NOTE: The packages for Jaunty are not officially supported. KDE 4.3 will be part of Karmic Koala Kubuntu 9.10 which will be officially released in October. If you still want to continue, you can add these repositories by running the following command in a terminal:

Microsoft's latest 10K filing with the SEC sees the company officially acknowledging that it faces competition from Linux vendors on the client side of its business, namely desktop Windows. Citing Canonical and Red Hat as "competing commercial software products", alongside Apple's products, Microsoft acknowledges that partners such as Hewlett-Packard and Intel have been "actively working with alternative Linux-based operating systems" and suggests that competitive pressures on OEMs and the low-price of netbooks are to blame.

Microsoft has introduced together with Windows 2008 a new Hypervisor called Hyper-V. Initially Microsoft only supported Microsoft products and Novell Suse, but recently they added support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. With this support it is also possible to install the components on CentOS.

Microsoft has warned investors about new threats to its precious client-side tech ecosystem, by listing Linux vendors Canonical and Red Hat as rivals in its annual Form 10-K filing. The software giant also acknowledged Apple’s impressive market share grab in the US, where it now commands fourth place for total shipments.

Lucidor, a desktop program that reads e-books, is available in version 0.6. The open source software can also read and archive Web feeds.

Tiny Core Linux v2.2 is released. It is a very small (10 MB) minimal Linux Desktop, which runs very well on a Netbook.

Hear that? It’s the sound of servers in Switzerland sucking down information from social networking sites. Open-Xchange, an open-source e-mail and collaboration software maker, has set up a test Web site that allows people to pull in their contact information from various social networking services like LinkedIn and Facebook. The goal of the project is give people a chance to take control of their contacts and put all of their personal and work information in one place. By creating what amounts to a connections clearing house, Open-Xchange wants to spur to new types of networking services.