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From the very start, anyone who paid attention to SCO's attempts to throw a spanner in the Linux works, knew that they had no case. Over the years, I've covered their decline from the last major x86 Unix power to an industry joke. And, now SCO's story is almost over. It's garbage time now for SCO. Those of you who follow basketball know exactly what I mean. This is when the winning team, Linux, and its chief champions in the SCO lawsuits. Novell and IBM, can send in the reserves from the end of the bench. SCO's lawsuits are smashed to bits. As the clock ever so slowly winds down, SCO is now dumping what was once its heart, its Unix OpenServer and UnixWare business, and its newer mobile software, to continue its forlorn lawsuits. SCO has filed a new reorganization plan with the federal bankruptcy court in Delaware on January 8th.

Okay it is no secret that Linux has not been able to crack the desktop, either at the home or at the workplace. Not to ignored either is that Windows lost some desktops last year (a little over 3%),but let’s not panic just yet, Windows still owns over 88% of all the desktops according to leading research. Many people might be surprised to learn that I come from a background of Windows, Linux, UNIX and even MAC. In fact, my first IT experience was in a Novell/SCO UNIX environment. Now there are some fundamental issues to why Windows 7 will trump Linux distros like Ubuntu, Fedora and Debian. Therefor, to get those out of the way let’s just spell them out.

[Here's my submission for FUD-of-the-week. It's just too funny. I dare you to top that! -- Sander]

This isn't about a shell script, it's about a really cool technique to apply in shell scripts. Have you ever been worried about multiple instances of a shell script running because they might overwrite or corrupt the data or devices they are working on? Here's a way to prevent that. There's a Unix system call named flock(2). It's used to apply advisory locks to open files. Without exhausting the subject, it can be used to synchronize access to resources across multiple running processes.

Yes, this is a 2009 headline. Who'd have thought? The SCO Group is back in the news with plans to auction off its core products so the proceeds can continue its lawsuits over alleged copyright violations in Linux. Is CEO Darl McBride mad? Personally, I thought SCO was long gone but they’re still alive and kicking.

Google has revealed its goal for releasing Mac OS X and Linux versions of its browser. Also, cutting-edge Chrome sports early work to enable extensions.

When things go wrong with your Oracle DB, someone has to ignore the problem ;)

I've sung the praises of the Opera Web browser many a time. It's a great deal lighter than Firefox, it renders most Web pages well, and most importantly for me, it enables me to use a critical Web-based application that is designed to only work with Internet Explorer, a browser I try to run as little as possible (and which isn't an option in OpenBSD). In OpenBSD, Opera is run with the Linux compatibility layer, so it's basically a Linux binary when it comes into the system from ports.

The Amarok team is pleased to announce the release of Magellan, Amarok 2.0.1.1. It includes some of the features users have been waiting for, bugfixes as well as a security fix. Filtering and searching in the playlist is possible again and track queuing as well as "stop after current track" are back. A lot of improvements have been made to MTP device handling and the scripted service API. Mac users can now enjoy Growl support. Read more in the release announcement and try it today.

Krsync is a simple GUI frontend for the famous rsync to synchronize files and directories between systems or even two different directories on the same server. Krsync is a Kommander based GUI for rsync.

One of the highlights of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) just ending in Las Vegas is Palm's offering of its WebOS for mobile devices. A fitting name for its coming attraction in mid-2009 that uses this OS is the Palm Pre, to be offered exclusively through Sprint.

As installers go, Ubuntu actually has a pretty good one, but that doesn't mean its perfect. In fact, it could be improved in a number of ways.

Nginx (pronounced "engine x") is a free, open-source, high-performance HTTP server. Nginx is known for its stability, rich feature set, simple configuration, and low resource consumption. This tutorial shows how you can install Nginx on an Ubuntu 8.10 server with PHP5 support (through FastCGI) and MySQL support.

I was in a rush when I posted the second addendum, hence, I knew I left out graphics that might have been useful. My intention is to post a few screen shots and to describe my methods and experiences using the update notifier solely as an unprivileged user. In addition, I learned an easier way to activate the update notifier upon startup.

Surprise. I normally review books on actual and not fictional technology, but I came across the hardcopy version of this book at my local library and, having not read a Haldeman novel in a couple of decades, decided to revisit science fiction as one might revisit an old girlfriend. I wanted to see how much my interest in the genre and specifically Haldeman's writing, had held up over time. I'm also kind of a sucker for time travel stories.

With the EXT4 file-system having been stabilized with the Linux 2.6.28 kernel, the Ubuntu developers are preparing to adopt this evolutionary Linux file-system update. EXT4 will not replace EXT3 as the default file-system until at least Ubuntu 9.10, but as of yesterday, Ubuntu 9.04 now has install-time support for EXT4. In this article we are looking at the EXT4 support within Ubuntu as well as providing a few Linux file-system benchmarks from a netbook-embedded solid-state drive. In this article we have published Ubuntu benchmarks of EXT4, EXT3, XFS, JFS, and ReiserFS file-systems.

So, the season of giving has just come and gone, and you’ve received a Linux-based netbook—the popular new class of ultra-cheap, ultra-portable computer. By definition, netbooks are very limited in what they can do; they’re primary meant for accessing the web as well as some moderate office and multimedia use. Their low-speed processor and minimal memory means that they’re just not suited for more intensive applications like gaming or video editing. However, there are things you can do to get the most out of your little machine. For instance, you can swap out the limited OS that comes packaged with most Linux-based netbooks for a much more versatile distro like Ubuntu, which can be customized specifically for netbooks. It’s a somewhat complicated process, but in this guide we’ll walk you through it, step by step, and then we’ll show you how to get around in Ubuntu.

Nowadays a very large number of sites use a dedicated content management system that serves to totally abstract users from the intricacies of learning HTML, DHTML, XHTML and all the other different languages that can be harnessed to produce rich and dynamic websites in favour of having strict controls on look and feel. That's not to say that there isn't a place for good old fashioned web editors; rather that they now provide a complementary set of tools that can enhance a website, turning it into a thing of relative beauty. So, what's the state of editors for Linux and does it get any better than Vi or Emacs? Let's take a look at what options are on offer today.

Yesterday, while looking through the Comdex news feeds, I stumbled across a Mini Mi 1000 HP product announcement from HP. The Mini Mi retails from just $329.99 and ships with Mobile Internet, a "user-friendly, all-inclusive interface built on Linux". What caught my eye on the product page wasn't the description of the GUI, it was what followed on the next line. Preceded by "Please note" in bold, the HP page states "the Linux command line interface is disabled on this edition."

2008 was a big year for indie gaming. With the likes of Braid, Castle Crashers, World of Goo, and a host of other titles raking up big sales numbers, the indie gaming industry is growing right alongside its bigger brother. And, like the indie film industry before it, the smaller, more humble sector of the industry garners a lot of adoration and respect from its faithful followers. But now that the indie sector is growing, how does one stand out from the pack? According to one indie developer, the answer is simple: make games for Mac OS X and Linux.

While you were likely to be opening up Christmas presents, Linus Torvalds was giving Linux users around the world a special present: the release of the next major Linux kernel: Linux 2.6.28. I had some time to tinker with this latest and greatest Linux, and it's my kind of Christmas present: solid improvements to my favorite operating system. Here are the five features that I think most of us will appreciate the most as we move into the New Year.