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One of the main reasons people move from Windows to Linux is the promise of greater security from malware on the Internet. Everyone knows you need to add extra security to try to keep a Windows desktop safe, but what do you have to do to accomplish the same thing on Linux? To answer that question, we asked a number of well-known Linux kernel hackers and a security expert for their thoughts on the matter.

Over the past few days several of you have suggested that I take a look at the new KDE 4 for Windows. Well, yesterday I downloaded the installer and took a look - and I’m pretty impressed by what I’ve seen so far. KDE stands for K Desktop Environment and this is free software that provides an easy to use and application rich desktop environment. KDE’s origins are rooted in Linux but the latest release brings with it support for both Windows and Mac.

And so it begins. One challenge Dell has had over time is getting the right lists of hardware included in the right Linux packages. Today's example - monitors. Dell, over the years, has by my count sold 197 different monitor types, and releases several more each month. We'd like to see those monitors appear in the drop-down list of your favorite Linux monitor configuration tools.

What you can - and cannot do - with your software is often determined by the code owner's license. From not using open source APIs with closed-source digital rights management (DRM) to being barred from fiddling with Windows source code, we've seen it all. Or have we?

Newsletters are an important means of developing your online business, therefore it is extremely important for you to know how to "sell" your newsletter. Read this article in order to get some tips on increasing newsletter subscriber list.

This article provides an overview of Linux-based tools for Geographic Information Systems (GIS), including a quick take on the ESRI's ArcReader. Future articles will explore this and other individual tools in greater depth.

Tomorrow, January 26th, Gareth Greenaway, SCALE Operations Chair, and Orv Beach, SCALE Publicity Chair, will be on the Digital Village radio show. Digital Village is carried on KPFK (90.7 FM in the Los Angeles area), and streaming audio at http://www.kpfk.org.

This week Richard Seibt, the final CEO of an independent SUSE, held his third Open Source Meets Business Congress in Nurnberg, Germany -- birthplace of SUSE. Seibt says the event plays host to 720 people, 60% of whom identify themselves as "c-level decision makers" and 20% of whom say they are "IT professionals." The Congress lasted three days. The first day was the Investment Summit, intended to instruct attendees on "why to invest in open source," and featuring keynotes from venture capitalist Larry Augustin and IBM's Bob Sutor.

Last week, The VAR Guy raised questions about Novell's overall business strategy. This week, Novell Chief Marketing Officer John Dragoon responds with key points about Novell's strategy and momentum. Among the highlights: Even without license revenue from the Microsoft-Novell agreement, Novell's Linux growth rates would equal or slightly exceed the overall Linux market growth rate. Here's a recap of Dragoon's conversation with The VAR Guy.

UNetbootin is a simple open source tool that allows you to install a variety of distributions over the Internet, without burning a CD. The Wubi tool for installing Ubuntu this way has been around for a while, but unlike UNetbootin, Wubi installs Ubuntu on a file stored in a Windows environment and creates no actual partitions. UNetbootin will create a partitioned dual-boot system as though you installed with a CD. It's useful if you're working on a machine with a slow or no CD/DVD drive or don't have any spare discs to burn.

In 1994, National Semiconductor promised the IEEE that it would license two of its patents to anyone implementing the Fast Ethernet standard for a flat $1000. Later, it transferred those patents, and they eventually came to be owned by Negotiated Data Solutions (N-Data) - a troll. That's the same Ethernet standard that's implemented in millions of computers all over the world. You can guess what happened next.

Debian Developer Benjamin “Mako” Hill, who also runs Planet Debian, announced that the planet now has a search function - thanks to another Debian Developer, Steve Kemp.

There is a lot of activity going on in the CinelerraCV mailing list these days about the next version of Cinelerra.

The simplest application of NAT is address translation from a more trusted segment to a less trusted segment. The simplest use of NAT with iptables is MASQUERADE.

When you hear the phrase “official support,” what comes to mind? Informative user manuals? A well-staffed call center? But what makes it “official”? This is the second item on my Top 10 List of Linux FUD patterns: the lack of “official” Linux support. The goal of FUD based on this notion is a mixture of fear and uncertainty, to make you believe that using Linux means having no place to turn when a problem occurs.

Inspired by the command wheel in the Neverwinter Nights online game, Kommando is a floating command panel for KDE. Although Kommando's development is almost as slow as an official Debian release, and is only at version 0.5.2, it is already a configurable and convenient addition to the array of panels available in KDE.

This year will see Linux gain a stronger foothold as an enterprise platform in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as steady growth in mobile-commerce, a market report revealed. In its study released Wednesday, Canadian-based research house XMG gave its top eight predictions and trends that will impact the region in 2008.

That crazy penguin is making some huge strides toward the mainstream, because Dell has announced that they will be preloading the Linux-based Ubuntu 7.10 OS in their new XPS 1330n notebook computer. From what I can gather, this unit is similar in many ways to the Windows-based XPS m1330, with the obvious difference of the operating system.

For years, the poster child of the anti-open source movement was Microsoft, with its proprietary software model. In recent years, however, the company has changed its views, opening an open source software lab to work on interoperability issues. It's even become a purveyor of its own open source-approved licenses.

KDE isn't just for Linux anymore. With the recent release of KDE 4, the K Desktop team has set their focus on porting the core libraries that power KDE applications over to both Windows and OS X. Although still in the early stages, there are already builds available for both platforms that will enable you to compile and run popular KDE application like the Amarok Jukebox or KOffice suite on either Windows or Mac, and KDE's goal is to have production-ready versions out later this year.