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The success of the Everex gPC this month raises once again the possibility that Linux can make inroads into the desktop market. In stock at Walmart, initial sales of the gPC caused panic on a scale comparable to the recent stock market panic. Not only has the gPC sold well - it has also proved popular.

Novell today announced the availability of SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time 10, the latest version of Novell's enterprise-class, open source real-time operating system for running high-performance, time-sensitive, mission-critical applications. With SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time 10, financial organizations can respond more rapidly to changing markets and new information, get greater application reliability and predictability, and identify and eliminate performance bottlenecks. This will allow them to increase revenue opportunities and improve service to their customers, even while reducing computing infrastructure costs.

The three biggest community Linuxes are Fedora, OpenSUSE and Ubuntu. They're all popular. They're all good. But which is the best? Desktop Linuxes are improving so quickly that it's hard even for someone like me, who tracks operating systems the way some people track their favorite NFL team's game match-ups, to keep tabs on what's what with the latest distributions. That's even true for the major community Linux distributions: Fedora 8, OpenSUSE 10.3 and Ubuntu 7.10.

Yes, you can purchase a $200 Linux desktop -- the Everex gPC -- from Wal-Mart this holiday season. That’s great news for consumers and the open source movement. But it might be wiser to look elsewhere for affordable, reliable PCs running Ubuntu Linux. Here's why.

Now that Sun have begun freeing their Java implementation the way has opened for free software developers to create an entirely free implementation. This free Java, Iced Tea, was shipped by default with Fedora 8, and so we talked to Thomas Fitzsimmons, the lead developer behind this feature, to find out more about what it can offer users.

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Believe it or not, even virtual penguins have a part to play in the global warming debate. Scott Allen, Europcar chief information officer, says extending the life of desktops is a form of recycling. "Most front-end staff desktops have the booking application and a browser," Allen says. "They don't need anything else so there's no point getting a powerful PC packed with software, which they would never use."

As Microsoft's Office Open XML document format remains in ISO limbo, a trio of countries are pushing forward an adoption of the alternative Open Document Format (ODF) instead, according to an ODF advocacy group. Government ministries and state services in the Netherlands will begin to add ODF support next April, according to a statement from the Washington-based ODF Alliance. All other governmental organizations there are set to follow no later than December 2008.

BASH, short for Bourne Again Shell, is derived from the Bourne Shell. But the developers didn't stop there, they also took the best from the Korn Shell, then added in the best from the C shell. This mixture of the best of the best led to an awesome piece of software. As a finishing touch BASH completion was added in, to make even the laziest (or most forgetful, in my case -- Ed.) among us proficient at CLI.

Haier America is shipping a WiFi-enabled portable media player (PMP) based on Linux. The "Ibiza Rhapsody" has a 30GB hard drive, and is designed to work with the Rhapsody digital music service, AOL Video, and other digital content services.

Groklaw is the blog that has made a difference. Created as a personal project by Pamela Jones, better known as PJ, in 2003, its stated purpose was to increase understanding of the law as it is applied to Linux and free software.

Eric Raymond made the point years ago that most software is written for use, not for sale. Eric put the number at 95%; that is, 95% of all software is written for in-house use, rather than for sale. If he's right, and I believe he's not far off, then banks, manufacturers, retail chains, etc. are sitting on a massive gold mine of software.

Want a coat with a story behind it? Act fast, and you can buy Lawrence Lessig's hand-tailored coat, as seen in lecture halls around the world through the iCommons 2008 Auction.

As part of its collaboration with Amazon Web Services, Red Hat yesterday opened the beta for Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Amazon's Elastic Computer Cloud (EC2) infrastructure for public use. Unfortunately those wishing to test it will still have to whip out the credit card.

As you can imagine, I’m enjoying OS X so much right now, and I can’t wait to upgrade to Leopard. With that said, I’ve begun to wonder if the day will ever come when I go through the switching process again and switch from OS X to another operating system.

This document describes how to manage your mobile phone with Wammu via bluetooth on Fedora 8. Depending on the manufacturer and model of your mobile phone, you will be able to retrieve your contacts (SIM & phone), calls, messages, todos, calendar and system information. You can also create contacts, events, todos and messages or manage data backups. In addition you can use the bluetooth manager to access your mobile phone like a standard storage media or use the Gnome phone manager for realtime messaging.

Anyone looking for a summary of the free software movement's concerns needs only to look at Richard M. Stallman's essay "Some Confusing or Loaded Words and Phrases that are Worth Avoiding." Behind the modest title, the essay lists all the classic free software concerns, ranging from insisting on the term "GNU/Linux" for the operating system usually called Linux to efforts to emphasize the dangers of so-called Digital Rights Management and Trusted Computing.

Most of you reading this are likely doing so with the now popular Web browser lovingly known as Firefox. Born out of the frustration to need something with less bloat, Firefox fit the bill with flying colors. These days, however, this is looking less and less like what we can expect from them in the future.

One of the biggest complaints a Firefox evangelist encounters is "it doesn't act or feel like browser X." Internet Explorer users complain that Firefox doesn't look like what they're used to. Opera, Safari, and Netscape users complain that it's missing many of their favorite features. And the social networking gurus point to the powerful social networking features Flock boasts and Firefox lacks. However, all these users overlook one of the most powerful features of Firefox: support for third-party add-ons, which can make emulating the features of other browsers extremely simple.

When it comes to the average user, they would be better off with a Mac. Yes, I say this typing on my Gutsy box with my wife's new iMac in the next room. When there is no support person around to help get things off the ground, going with a Mac is the logical out-of-the-box solution for most home users.