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The latest version of Novell’s Linux distro, openSUSE 11.1, has been released, with 230 new features, improvements to YaST, major updates to GNOME, KDE, OpenOffice.org, a new license and plenty more.

Webmin is a web-based system for Unix, Linux, OpenSolaris, and recently added Windows based Operating Systems that allow you to take full control of your server through a popular control panel and web-interface. What Webmin does is it allows you to simplify the managing course of action with a Unix and/or Linux system. You can manually edit and configure files as well as run commands to create/delete accounts, set up web servers, or manage email forwarding. You’re able to complete all of these tasks through a trouble-free web interface specifically designed for the user.

A few more pictures that speak several thousand words ;) The holidays are looming larger every day now and, I don't know about you, but it's giving me a migraine. Lots of stress and craziness, mostly surrounding who's getting what for whom and constantly wondering if they're overdoing it or not doing enough.

Eric Geier show how, with Google's Picasa, you can create online photo albums, touch-up and fix photos, make movies, and create gift CDs or DVDs without having to be an ace graphical artist guru.

Bit9, self-professed leader in enterprise application whitelisting, recently included Mozilla's Firefox browser among "the Dirty Dozen" applications with critical security vulnerabilities. Mozilla's security expert Jonathan Nightingale disputes that critique.

The success of open source software is now being driven by its rapid commercialization by the likes of IBM and Microsoft, and not simply its appeal to evangelistic developers, a new report has suggested.

Let me first say that I am a believer in the possibilities that exist for laptops in learning, and I've followed OLPC as much as my free time will allow. OLPC presents itself as a learning company rather than a laptop company. Calls to constructionism, collaboration, and children as "learning by doing" are pervasive in the website. There's this vision of how the laptop can change learning and schooling and give the our children the right tools to thrive:

As a regular browser of the Firefox Add-ons site, I'm troubled by the apparent proliferation of proprietary extensions in the last year. Maybe I've simply exhausted the free-licensed extensions that interest me, but recently every interesting-looking extension seems to be a proprietary one -- especially in the recommended list. Nothing, of course, in the Mozilla privacy or legal notice prohibits proprietary extensions simply because they are proprietary, but I find them not only contrary to the spirit of free and open source software (FOSS), but, often, annoying attempts to entangle me in some impossible startup.

What is it about the holiday season? It throws a spotlight on the best -- and worst -- aspects of human nature. It holds true in the open source world. NextStep, a hardware recycling and refurbishing organization in Eugene, Oregon, was burglarized earlier this week. Hardest hit was the organization's Ubuntu Laptop Program. NextStep provides computers, technology and job skills training to Lane County Oregon's under-served residents, and its Ubuntu Laptop Program is a major source of funding for these endeavors.

With Sun Microsystems having abandoned its Project Woodstock Web application development effort, Icesoft Technologies is picking up the slack. The Woodstock project, discontinued last month, featured a group of user interface components for developing with JavaServer Faces and AJAX. But citing resource constraints during tough economic times, Sun eliminated the project. Instead, Icesoft will provide its Icefaces software for users to move forward.

Toshiba will OEM their laptop line with OpenSolaris beginning in early 2009. This is a big win for OpenSolaris, and big win for Open Source, given the increasing number of Linux devices coming online next year.

When I heard U.S. president-elect Barack Obama make his "lipstick on a pig" remark while running as a candidate back in September, it got me thinking about language, and how it can be used to deceive as easily as to explain. While listening to an elaborate theory full of jargon, have you ever felt it seemed completely out of touch with the real world?

I was reading this comment on a story submitted here on FSDaily and started thinking that life's all about balancing freedoms. We balance freedoms (sacrifice one freedom for another) everyday. We sacrifice the freedom to do whatever we want to live in a society where laws keep us safe. And we'd rather be safe than do the things that are illegal (well most of us anyway). So we sacrifice a freedom we wouldn't exercise (to commit crimes) for ones we do want to exercise (to live without being the victim of crime).

MySQL 5.1 is generally available for production use. One of the key features of MySQL 5.1 is partitioning. This how to shows how to install and configure Zmanda Recovery Manager for MySQL (ZRM) 2.1 to perform backup and recovery of MySQL partitioned tables.

The Internet is infrastructure. This should be plain, but it's not. The reason is that neither the Net nor infrastructure are well-understood, even though both could hardly be more widely used.

A public beta has started for the latest version of the BBC iPlayer desktop download manager which supports Linux, Mac and Windows. This represents a huge, and hugely overdue, move forward for the BBC which previously only allowed Windows users to download programmes using the iPlayer.

Someone on the Seattle Linux List asked about Groupware and the usual suspects were suggested. One, however, I didn't know anything about. It is called Chandler. I figured it was worth looking at. The main thing that makes it different is its approach. One clue is the subtitle on the web page is A notebook you can organize, back up and share!. The traditional way that groupware suites work is that they are one place where you put a whole bunch of different things but each type of thing (appointment, to-do, ...) has a separate cubbyhole. That means you first think about what you have and then put it in the appropriate place.

Adobe recommends that Linux Flash Player users immediately upgrade to the newest versions. The critical vulnerability affects Flash Player for Linux versions 10.0.12.36 and 9.0.151.0 (and earlier).

The Novell-sponsored openSUSE Project announced the availability of version 11.1 of its open-source openSUSE Linux distribution. Version 11.1 offers a new license that eases redistribution, and it's the first version developed with the openSUSE Build Service, which improves collaboration and transparency among contributors, says openSUSE.

Much of the time when I write about the evolution of Linux or the evolution of the client, I get lots of comments revolving around the lack of popular games for Linux or whether the GIMP can replace Photoshop. And, of course, the partisans for whom it's important whether Linux "wins" or "loses" to Windows or Mac OS X jump in with their various ideological objectives.