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What does benchmarking a Dell Inspiron Mini 9, a Radeon HD 4890 graphics card with Intel Core i7, and dual quad-core AMD Opterons look like? Well, if the systems are running Linux, BSD, OpenSolaris, or Mac OS X, it can look like this..

The National Science Foundation on Thursday said it has awarded nearly $5 million in grants to 14 universities so they can participate in theIBM (NYSE: IBM)-Google (NSDQ: GOOG) cloud computing initiative for research projects. Through the NSF's Cluster Exploratory, or CLuE, program, the universities will use software and services running on the IBM-Google data center. The companies launched the joint university initiative in 2007 to help teach computer science students.

Your Computer makin' you crazy? These error messages may or may not help you out ;)

Along with Linux, Java's been one of the biggest boons for Oracle. It's become the anchor of Oracle's middleware and developer strategy, and - with Linux - ended Oracle's one-time dependence on Microsoft as the only alternative to IBM. Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin has said he does not see Oracle's commitment to Linux lessening just because it wants to take ownership of a Solaris business.

Now that I've pretty much got my Xfce 4.4 desktop where I want it in OpenBSD, I've been spending more and more time not in Xfce but in the Fvwm2 window manager that's the default for this OS.

A general rule of marketing is "The more noise they make, the less they have to crow about." Who makes the most noise about "innovation"? I bet you can guess....

Another member of the Windows ecosystem takes a rhetorical stance in favor of a software monoculture, in this case, the Adobe Acrobat PDF reader/viewer.

If you're a Linux fan, there's a bit of a tendency to think that Linux and open source are two ways of saying the same thing. However, plenty of FOSS projects exist that don't have anything to do with Linux, and plenty of projects originated on Linux that now are available on other systems.

Earlier this month Intel had pushed out the xf86-video-intel 2.7 graphics driver that brought a variety of new features and fixes. This 2.7 X.Org driver has been rolled into Intel's "2009Q1 Package" along with Mesa 7.4 plus a few more patches, the Linux 2.6.29.1 kernel plus a few more patches, and libdrm 2.4.9. It is also suggested that X Server 1.6.1 be used with this recommended Intel software configuration.

On the server, Ubuntu is now ramping its efforts too, which is an area where Mark Shuttleworth also sees a place where Ubuntu can exceed what Debian does. "We see Debian as the system administrators choice," Shuttleworth said . "And we see Ubuntu as bringing a level of corporate identity and backing to that platform which makes it acceptable and palatable in a large scale organizational environment."

The modern workforce is increasingly mobile, with many jobs performed in the field, far from standard workplace tools, such as desk-bound computers and wired networks. Even for more mobile devices, connectivity is limited to wireless accessible areas. Learn about the development of a Mobile Workforce Framework based on the open source Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP) for supporting teams who must work in remote areas with limited or no network access. This article focuses on the value of a common open source platform to myriad remote teams, the reduction in paper and travel to perform synchronization, and improved paper-free access to critical information when "off the net."

Without encryption protecting your email messages, you might as well be sending postcards because anyone can intercept and read them. Juliet Kemp tells how to protect your email privacy with GPG and Thunderbird.

Ubuntu 9.04, codenamed Jaunty Jackalope, was released on April 23rd, also celebrating the 10th Ubuntu release. Since its first version back in October 2004, Ubuntu went through many improvements and quickly became one of the most popular distributions out there, with a huge and continuously thriving community and a fast development method. Free CDs through the ShipIt service can be also ordered, which is another way from which users can benefit of Ubuntu and spread it.

The latest release of Postgres has a slew of built-in features that allow you to improve both performance and systems administration. Learn how you take advantage of them.

How to Upgrade Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid) to Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty). The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop and Server editions and Ubuntu Netbook Remix, continuing Ubuntu’s tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution.This tutorial will explain how to Upgrade Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibix) to Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) released on the 23rd March 2009.

As we reported in December, the Nouveau driver is available in Ubuntu 9.04. Unlike Fedora 11 where the Nouveau driver is being enabled by default on NVIDIA hardware, the Nouveau driver will be an after-installation option to Ubuntu users. In this article are the simple steps on how to enabled the Nouveau driver in Ubuntu and what you can expect from this open-source, community-spawned graphics driver.

uSbuntu Live Creator is a free software for Windows that allows you to create a bootable USB stick with Ubuntu 8.10 on it. This software also offers a new option for virtualization to run Ubuntu directly into Windows and without any setup or installation - this is done by using a portable version of VirtualBox. uSbuntu Live Creator not only supports Ubuntu 8.10, but also Kubuntu 8.10 and Xubuntu 8.10.

Based on ncurses, MOC (music on console) is a popular, text-based audio player which can play various audio formats, including Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, MP3, MP4, WMA and WAV. The release I'm going to talk about in this article is 2.5.0-alpha3, as it comes with Debian Lenny.

Sun Microsystems has released a new version of its OpenSSO Express identity management solution with support for Google Apps Premier. OpenSSO Express is targeted at companies and organisations that rely on Google's software-as-a-service solution (SaaS) as their central communications platform. With it individuals can use a cross-company single sign-on (SSO) to access the web, mail and other applications.

A salesperson walks into your office today and tells you that you have to buy a new, pre-built, expensive desk for every one of your employees. You have to buy a new desk today and replace it every three to five years. Additionally, there are no options for the desk and you may not alter it in any way — one desk is all we make and you have to buy it from us. You see, you don't really own the desk; you're simply purchasing a license to use the desk. Chairs are sold separately and we have the corner on the market for chairs that are 100 percent compatible with the desk. The chairs are also very expensive. Does that sound like a scenario in which you wish to participate? Preposterous, you say? Is it? Now, what if I told you that you do have a choice of desks?