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Against the backdrop of cries from the GNU/Linux community, Asus has taken steps to correct the availability of the source code for its Eee PC.

Linux is an excellent platform for network administration. If you want to monitor your network traffic, you can find many tools -- some accessible from a Web interface, others using a graphical interface -- but nothing beats the speed of the command line. Command-line tools are also useful in shell scripts, where they can help you perform complex tasks. Here's a handful of my favorites for monitoring network traffic.

I have used X10 modules on assorted lights and devices for home automation for several years, and although the remote control facet has always worked well, tying the system into my Linux boxes has never been easy. Numerous small, typically one-person X10 controller projects have come and gone. But one application has survived: Heyu. It runs on desktop Linux machines without requiring the overhead of a Web or database server, and it enables direct X10 control, event scheduling, and more.

Red Hat and Amazon recently launched their new service which allows businesses to remotely manage a virtual server hosted by Amazon.

Until Red Hat, Novell, or another party focuses around open-source directory services, Linux will be stuck playing catch-up with Windows 2000. I've been covering Linux and open-source software closely since the dawn of this millennium, and over those seven or so years I've become a believer in the potency of the open-source development model.

Once upon a time, Firefox was known for being far less prone to security bugs than Internet Explorer. Things have changed. On Nov. 27, Mozilla released the newest, security-patched version of the popular Web browser, Firefox 2.0.0.10. The vast majority of Firefox users will have the latest and greatest automatically installed on their systems. This latest update includes fixes for three security bugs.

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.