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The Debian distribution of Linux is one of the most well established of the Linux distributions and is used as the basis of several other more recent projects, perhaps the most famous of which is of course the Ubuntu family of distributions. Our German language associate site, heise Open recently spoke to Steve McIntyre, (at the time of this interview) the current Debian Project Leader about the present state of the Debian project and and about his hopes for its future.

Everywhere we turn these days, we see evidence of open source developers trading their time and hard work for little more than the hope of benefiting the ever-growing open source community. While there are many companies world-wide enjoying the benefits of a number of Linux and open source products, there are instances where creating sustainable employment for these talented individuals is problematic at best. Then I came across the The Development Cloud. This is a company that has found it mutually beneficial to share fifty percent of its profit – which is derived from closed source software – to reward developers of associated open source software projects. (See details here.) I think this is fantastic.

[A Matt Hartley piece that makes sense. I'm as flabbergasted as you are. - Sander]

Microsoft has brought a lawsuit against car navigation system manufacturer TomTom. The products in question incorporate Linux, and at least one of the seven patents involved concerns a Linux kernel implementation rather than TomTom's own software. Is this Microsoft's first direct salvo against Linux? There are other striking features of this suit: the technologies claimed in the 8 patents involved are so old and obvious that it's fair to say they have a high "Duh!" factor. There's an anti-trust angle to this suit that could blow up in Microsoft's face. And there's a high probability that some or all of the patents involved are invalid, due to recent court decisions. Let's take a look at what is happening.

OSPERT (Operating Systems Platforms for Embedded Real-Time Applications) is now seeking papers for its fifth annual workshop. OSPERT'09 is co-located with the Euromicro Conference on Real-Time Systems's ECRTS'09 academic real-time conference. This move, along with the naming of Red Hat Linux kernel hacker Peter Zijlstra as OSPERT co-chair, is billed as an attempt better integrate the academic real-time community with the Linux real-time embedded community.

The iPod may have won the popularity war for PMPs in many markets, but that hasn’t stopped a healthy ecosystem of unknown-brand media players that are usually cheap and, in varying degrees, cheerful. Such players just got a little more useful, with a hack to run Linux on PMPs using the common Ingenic JZ4732 chipset, such as the Onda VX747.

Best racing game ever runs on linux! Disclaimer: I'm not a racing game fan, in general I don't like racing games at all. So if I say something is the best racing game ever, it's not based on the usual things most racing fans would think make up the best racing game.

Recently I had a chat with another member of the Linux media about what Linux really needs to do in order to finally reach the masses. It was a long discussion that meandered in and out of various topics. But ultimately one topic won out over all others as being the be-all, end-all means for Linux to gain large scale support in both the end user and enterprise crowds. The conclusion? The Desktop. Why the desktop? Linux has already conquered the server market. All it needs to do for that portion of its audience is to continue to scale upwards and keep creating incredible, usable servers. What Linux has failed to do yet is to show the world exactly what a desktop can do for the user.

When I write reviews of various Linux distributions and describe differences in performance I almost invariably get a comment to the effect that all Linux distros are essentially the same: running the same kernel, the same libraries, the same filesystems. Performance should be essentially the same, right? The answer is a resounding no. The performance results of different distributions, even ones running the same kernel version, the same core libraries, and the same filesystem can be very, very different.

Like a plus-sized dress on a skinny runway model, Windows just doesn't fit when it's loaded on a netbook. So entrepreneurs are taking a page from the fashion industry playbook, and creating new operating systems that are tailored exclusively to fit the smaller, less powerful and inexpensive netbooks. At least four new operating systems are in the works, all promising to offer a better experience to users struggling with tiny Windows icons on their 10-inch laptops.

Zenwalk 6.0 has shown some real work: the project has separated from GNOME Office and MPlayer, brings a new desktop version and provides numerous optimizations.

The SCO Group has filed an appeal against last years ruling that it did not buy the copyright to Unix from Novell. The company is hoping to overturn the judgement and resume its legal action against IBM and Linux. When SCO started to pursue IBM in court in 2003, Novell said that when it sold its Unix business to SCO in 1995 it retained copyright to the code and merely sold SCO a licence to use it. SCO then sued Novell over that claim.

As Microsoft's TomTom lawsuit takes off, so SCO's winds down. But at least SCO did one good thing: it showed there were no copyright infringements in Linux - if there had been any, it would have used them. That's why Microsoft went after TomTom claiming patent infringement, which is quite different. That's also why we need patent law to be reformed.

Mozilla Labs has released an experimental Firefox extension that brings new functionality to blank tab pages. The Mozilla developers aim to use the extension as a prototype for exploring blank tab features that could potentially be included by default in future versions of the browser. The extension, which was released last week, takes advantage of some of the browser's most recent improvements and is designed to be used with the latest Firefox nightly builds. Mozilla design expert Aza Raskin explained the new project in a blog post at the Mozilla Labs web site. The goal is to add some lightweight navigation elements that are useful, unobtrusive, and quick to load.

Bloggers and their readers continued to pick apart the finer details of Microsoft's case against TomTom over FAT file system licensing. What they found seemed to indicate a greater effort underway at Microsoft to undercut open source software.

Everyone has an opinion on this one. Why do so many people care?

The release of the very nice Asus Eee PC 1000HE signals a turning point in the sub-notebook market and it's one that Linux desktop advocates will not like. It looks like the 10 inch netbook has hit the sweet spot for consumers and that sweet spot includes Windows but not Linux.

Numerous irrelevant issues and feelings about them are ventilated in comments on the case. However, there are only two important issues. One is what the law is, the other is what we think the law should be.

Are Netbook vendors putting Windows where Linux should be?

This tutorial describes how you can install Apache2 with mod_fcgid and PHP5 on Ubuntu 8.10. mod_fcgid is a compatible alternative to the older mod_fastcgi. It lets you execute PHP scripts with the permissions of their owners instead of the Apache user.

Finding a laptop that can run Linux is no longer much of a challenge. As we have shared in numerous netbook and notebook reviews, a majority off the shelf PCs shipping with Windows can easily be replaced with Linux and chances are most -- if not all -- of the components will "just work" on this open-source operating system, while ill-supported parts can usually be configured to work in just a few steps. For those looking to save time or avoid a potential headache, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and other major vendors have been offering Linux notebooks for some time now. One of the smaller vendors though that has been offering Ubuntu Linux notebooks (along with desktops and servers) is System76 Inc. This Colorado-based company not only ensures their hardware is 100% compatible with Ubuntu Linux, but they also preload some popular software packages that are not installed by default on Ubuntu. In this review we are looking at the System76 Serval Professional notebook.