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Microsoft has announced an agreement with One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) that will make Windows XP available on the non-profit's low-cost laptops for third-world children. Thank goodness third world children will no longer have to struggle to learn Linux, one tongue-in-cheek commentator observes.

After months of tinkering with my Asus Eee PC, I decided on eeeXbuntu (Ubuntu with XCFE). Here's a recap of my journey so far, and where I might be heading next -- potentially with Ubuntu.

BIOSLEVEL.com looks at one of the latest USB 5.1 headsets in both Windows and Linux. Are the latest round of gaming headsets ready for Linux usage?

The Italian firm CompuMaster has introduced a compact thin client that runs Linux. The "Praim Ino" can be mounted on the back of a monitor, draws just six Watts, and comes with a variety of client software, the company says.

I’m a firm believer in the idea that if you pay for hardware, you should be able to make full use of it. However, DRM and content protection mechanisms are increasingly making this difficult for people.

With the OOXML debacle behind us, one might ask, "Now what?" Clearly, something (or somethings) need to be done in order to be sure that the process that gave us OOXML does not repeat itself. One answer is "Digistan." Here's what it's all about.

Australian citizens who use GNU/Linux in their businesses should be asking exactly that question of their tax authority. (However, I doubt that anyone will do so - apart from one person who has been asking the question for at least three years). It's a tale that runs over nearly three years. Australian businesses have to periodically submit activity statements to the Australian Taxation Office and most businesses use the online method. The tax office provides a client for its electronic commerce interface (ECI) which allows businesses to file activity statements over the internet. Clients exist only for Windows and the Apple Macintosh.

This guide explains how to set up mod_geoip with lighttpd on a Debian Etch system. mod_geoip looks up the IP address of the client end user. This allows you to redirect or block users based on their country. You can also use this technology for your OpenX (formerly known as OpenAds or phpAdsNew) ad server to allow geo targeting. I will show two ways to build mod_geoip - the first way is to build a new lighttpd .deb package (including mod_geoip) which is the way I recommend. This works only if you have installed the standard Debian Etch lighttpd package. If you have compiled lighttpd yourself, then the second way is for you: it shows how to build mod_geoip.so for your lighttpd version.

Though the tools for voice control and dictation in the open source world lag far behind those in the commercial arena, I decided to see how far I could get in querying a database by voice and having the computer respond verbally. Using a number of open source tools, I'm happy to report success.

In this article, Mark Rais shares a list of those essential networking commands every beginning Linux administrator needs to know.

According to good friend Robert McMillan of IDG News, Sebastian Muniz, a researcher with Core Security Technologies, has developed malicious rootkit software for Cisco’s routers, which he will release on May 22 at the EuSecWest conference in London.

"As some of the latency junkies on lkml already know, commit 8e3e076 in v2.6.26-rc2 removed the preemptible BKL feature and made the Big Kernel Lock a spinlock and thus turned it into non-preemptible code again. This commit returned the BKL code to the 2.6.7 state of affairs in essence," began Ingo Molnar. He noted that this had a very negative effect on the real time kernel efforts, adding that Linux creator Linus Torvalds indicated the only acceptable way forward was to completely remove the BKL.

The news that Windows XP will be made available on the One Laptop Per Child's XO laptop is now official. When the project began, a move such as this would have been dismissed out of hand by any of those involved. What has changed to make the OLPC just another seller of Windows laptops?

In this second installment I'll profile Minicomputer, a subtractive synthesizer with some familiar aspects, unique characteristics, and terrific sounds. Let's take a look under its hood and see what makes the Minicomputer run.

Debian, the popular Linux distribution, has just been shown to have made an all-time stupid security goof-up. They managed to change OpenSSL in their distribution so that it had no security to speak of. Good job guys! OpenSSL makes it possible to use SSL (Secure Socket Layer) and TLS (Transport Layer Security) in Linux, Unix, Windows and many other operating systems. It also incorporates a general purpose cryptography library. OpenSSL is used not only in operating systems, but in numerous vital applications such as security for Apache Web servers and security appliances from companies like Check Point and Cisco. Yeah, in other words, if you do anything requiring network security on Linux, chances are good, OpenSSL is being called in to help.

Sugar Labs Foundation is being established to further extend Sugar, the highly acclaimed open source “learn learning” software platform that was originally developed for the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) XO laptop. Sugar is the core of the XO laptop's human-computer interface; it provides a fun, easy-to-use, social experience that promotes sharing and learning. Sugar Labs will focus on providing a software ecosystem that enhances learning on the XO laptop as well as other laptops distributed by other companies, such as the ASUS Eee PC. Consistent with the OLPC mission to provide opportunities for learning, an independent Sugar Labs Foundation can deliver learning software to other hardware vendors and, consequently, reach more children.

There’s been a flurry of discussion around the idea of syncronicity in free software projects. I’d like to write up a more comprehensive view, but I’m in Prague prepping for FOSSCamp and the Ubuntu Developer Summit (can’t wait to see everyone again!) so I’ll just contribute a few thoughts and responses to some of the commentary I’ve seen so far.

Adobe Systems is reaching out for Linux desktop users with its announcement today that the first beta of Adobe Flash Player 10, a.k.a. Astro, is now available for Linux, as well as Windows and Mac OS X. In a statement, David Wadhwani, general manager and vice president of the Platform Business Unit at Adobe, said that "Adobe had been working closely with the community; we are delivering groundbreaking creative features that will be transformative for interactive designers and developers, and revolutionary for end users."

Updated: Billionaire investor Carl Icahn announced an alternate board of directors for Yahoo in a move that could revive a Microsoft bid. Will Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer bite?

Plugins and extensions—they're what made Photoshop such a bonanza from the late 1980s onward, and they gave it the market push to triumph over competitors who preferred to keep their tools and development completely in-house. It was a great idea—make your own product more valuable by letting other people enhance it for their own benefit—and it worked famously. In the graphics world, everyone's got 'em now. But, in the browsing world...well, it takes an open-source project to apply that kind of functionality across categories.