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To me this inconsistency is a true sign that computer discrimination and software profiling not only exists but should be a very big concern for all of us. There is no other reason that the Pearson system works with a Linux operating system sporting Firefox except for their Microsoft based computer course which they claim doesn't work with anything but Microsoft which is actually untrue.

The public sector is ignoring government guidelines on procuring open-source software, according to open source database company Ingres. At a roundtable event on Thursday, Ingres worldwide operations chief Steve Shine praised the guidelines--issued in February--but said they were being ignored because there is nobody in place to enforce them.

Intel hosted their developer conference this week in San Francisco (Intel Developer Forum) where several new announcements were made, with Linux being involved in some of these announcements. It was revealed that Dell will begin shipping Ubuntu Moblin Netbook Remix on one of their Atom-powered netbooks, Moblin 2.0 was released, and there was a snapshot of Moblin 2.1 was released. This week we also showed off some new Lynnfield Linux benchmarks that Intel had sent over to us using the Phoronix Test Suite.

(*) By “Unix”, I mean Linux, Unix, AIX, OS/X, and similar flavours. Way back when, about twenty or so years ago, I was a Unix admin, and a Unix developer. I had to be both, because I was the only person in the company who could spell Unix. My favourite game was to go along to presentations for Microsoft Windows ‘new features’ and say “Oh, but hasn’t Unix had that for the last twenty years?” Sure enough, there were countless things that Windows users and developers were just discovering (TCP/IP, shared libraries, multiple sessions on the same computer) that had been in Unix for some time. Linux was yet to make a mention, but as I’ve moved firmly into the Windows world, and left Unix behind, I’ve pretty much assumed that technologically speaking, if Windows has it, Unix and the like must also have the same functionality.

For pidgin users , there is a security issue regarding storing passwords in pidgin, so this program stores the passwords in archives .xml in clear text without any encryption. So any one can easily boot into recovery mode while you are away and find all your passwords in plain text. Then he can just copy the password files and opps he will got all the passwords easy way.

FOSS license compliance is particularly problematic in the consumer electronics market. Veteran gpl-violations.org and FSFE experts examine the issues and what can be done to improve matters.

This tutorial shows how you can boot Linux over HTTP with boot.kernel.org (BKO). All that users need is Internet connectivity and a small program (gpxe) to boot the machine. This gpxe program provides network booting facility. BKO allows you to boot into the following distributions: Debian, Ubuntu, Damn Small Linux, Knoppix, Fedora. BKO provides gpxe images for USB sticks, CDs, and also for floppies, i.e., you can boot from a USB sticks, a CD, or a floppy.

Sabayon is a system administration tool to manage GNOME desktop settings. Sabayon provides a sane way to edit GConf defaults and GConf mandatory keys: the same way you edit your desktop. Sabayon launches profiles in an Xnest window. Any changes you make in the Xnest window are saved back to the profile file, which can then be applied to user’s accounts.

The Wine development release 1.1.30 is now available. With Wine it's possible to run Windows applications on top of Linux.

"How am I to continue supporting the growth of Firefox if they're gonna chalk it up to Google to control what sites we should visit? They're putting us in a position from which supporting Firefox is getting to be equal to supporting Google's further grip on the market. That's NOT making me happy."

Banshee 1.5 has been released, but not yet found its way into the official Ubuntu repo yet. Here is how you could install the latest version of Banshee in Ubuntu.

Ubuntu Netbook Remix came around last year at Computex Taipei and the original version we tried out was quite nice with its small-screen optimizations and very different launcher interface compared to simply running GNOME or KDE on a small mobile device. This year when the Moblin V2 user-interface was finally unveiled and it put us in awe with its sleek, intuitive design that was driven by Clutter. How has Canonical responded to Intel and Moblin V2? Well, there is Ubuntu Moblin Netbook Remix that just debuted to deliver the best of Ubuntu and Moblin, but the traditional Ubuntu Netbook Remix has also picked up several improvements for its 9.10 release.

Google Summer of Code has again been a huge success for KDE this year. 37 out of 38 projects were finished successfully. Much of the work done during these projects is already merged into trunk and will be available for the users with the KDE 4.4 release in January 2010. Thanks to all students and mentors for their great work! Below you will find a short interview with each of the students, asking them about the cool things they have been working on for the past few months.

Groupware software (or collaborative software) is designed to enable users to collaborate, regardless of location, via the internet or a corporate intranet and to work together in a virtual atmosphere.

It's always interesting, as well as incredibly frustrating, when a company takes a stand on an issue and then switches back and forth based on what best suits it on any particular day. There's a word for taking a stand against something and then doing it yourself, but we're not going to use that word. More than a few people have been using it to describe a growing feud between two of the biggest names from the old order and the new.

Labs are step-by-step exercises that students can perform to learn how to perform a task. Labs can also provide the aspect of experience if it is repeatedly done, which creates confidence.

SeaMonkey, the default browser in Puppy Linux, is good, but what if you prefer Firefox? No problem, it takes only a few simple steps to install your favorite browser onto Puppy Linux.

LWN last talked to Leslie Hawthorn, Google's Open Source Program Coordinator, in September, 2007 about the Google Summer of Code (GSoC). GSoC is a project where Google pays students to work with a mentor to write open-source code. The 2009 Google Summer of Code recently concluded, marking the end of the project's fifth year. The official end of project summary, Wrapping Our Fifth Google Summer of Code, covers this year's effort.

Our Hive Five asks readers to identify five of the best tools for any job, then vote for the absolute best. Here's a look back at the winners—the best of the best—from each week. The following list showcases the winners in each of the categories we covered in the third quarter of 2009.

Two prolific open web standards advocates at Mozilla are leaving the non-profit foundation for Palm, vowing to spread their developer-centric gospel to the smartphone maker's webOS platform. Ajaxian.com co-founders Dion Almaer and Ben Galbraith have accepted new positions helming Palm's developer relations team. The duo announced their change of venue on their blogs this Friday.