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I have a confession to make: For the past 6 weeks, I’ve been leading a secret double life. By day, I’m a mild mannered system/network/database admin in academia. I also write some PHP, Perl, and Python code. By night, however, I’m an author and editor. My latest project is bigger than most. In fact, it’s an entire magazine. Devoted to Python. I am the Editor in Chief of the newly launched Python Magazine.

[Note that Python Magazine is a paid-for subscription magazine -- Sander]

In my previous article of Why Linux STILL runs faster than Windows a reader left a comment asking about processes, command line interaction and system setup between Linux and Windows. I think what he is really wanting is a comparison of usability between Linux and Windows.

I am proud to announce that after just over a year, 809 changes, and before LUG Radio Live wine-doors 0.1 has been branched in SVN, A tarball is available from the downloads page. Wine-doors is an application designed to make installing windows software on Linux, Solaris or other Unix systems easier. It is essentially a package management tool for windows software on Linux systems.

Welcome to this year's 28th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! The all-new Slackware Linux 12.0 should have been the major story of the week, but it was the release of Elive 1.0 that stole some of Slackware's thunder; we will take a quick look at the Enlightenment-powered desktop distribution, link to an interesting interview with the project's founder, and explain why DistroWatch provides direct download links to the Elive CD images. In other news, Fedora's Max Spevack talks about the future and vision of the popular distribution, Kubuntu's Jonathan Ridell explains why KDE 4 will not be the default desktop in Gutsy Gibbon, and Mandriva's Adam Williamson introduces NEPOMUK, a new social semantic desktop technology for KDE. All this and more in this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. Happy reading!

Ars Technica recently got its hands on the new Intel Classmate laptop computer, one of the new projects competing for a share of school-aged computer users in developing countries. I was able to survey this machine thanks to Helio Chissini de Castro of Mandriva.

Here’s a simple guide to using your existing Windows install inside Ubuntu - and still being able to start it from your hard disk if you need. Unlike previous guides, it takes around 15 minutes and doesn’t require any terminal use.

[I've seen lots of VMware tutorials but none that do easy migration of an existing Windows installation. Nice for those who need it. -- Sander]

Redmond says it's not a party to the new license. And those Suse Linux coupons won't get you any support guarantees.

Linux creator Linus Torvalds announced the official release of the 2.6.22 kernel, "it's out there now (or at least in the process of mirroring out - if you don't see everything, give it a bit of time)." He summarized the changes since 2.6.22-rc7]: "Not a whole lot of changes since -rc7: some small architecture changes (ppc, mips, blackfin), and most of those are defconfig updates. Various driver fixes: new PCI ID's along with some ide, ata and networking fixes (for example - the magic wireless libertas ioctl's got removed, they may be re-added later, hopefully in a more generic form, but in the meantime this doesn't make a release with new interfaces that aren't universally liked)."

We all have them; snippets of code, half-written tutorials, cooking recipes, photo galleries, blogs, information about a project or event, and the list goes on. Information can take many forms. Writing a book? Have a document you want the world to be able to access? Wouldn't it be nice to have a central location for all of these things and have them all conform to a common appearance? Or, better yet, a central location where several authors can collaborate on these items?

One of the “cool” features Windows Vista has is the ability to add available space from an inserted USB drive to the virtual memory (swap). I quickly outlined a plan in my head on how it *could* work and after twenty minutes I had a basic implementation. I’d love to get some feedback on this script.

When Dell first announced that it would be releasing Ubuntu Linux-powered consumer desktops and laptops, some people saw it as more of a stunt than a serious business move. They were wrong. Dell has already expanded its consumer Linux line, and now it has announced that it will soon be offering Ubuntu Linux systems outside of the United States and for new businesses.

Paradoxically, the viral clause, the part of the GPL licensing framework that so many people objected to because it wasn't business friendly, made the license business friendly - in the future, a license that liberates business from the drug of DRM and the prison of software patents may turn out to have been equally prescient and business friendly...

The NVIDIA GeForce 6100 and 6150 integrated graphics processors have been relatively popular among Linux and Windows users. These IGPs have been common in HTPC setups with the NVIDIA driver working out well with MythTV. NVIDIA's GeForce 6100/6150 parts have also appeared in a number of desktop systems, and while these IGPs cannot really handle modern games, they have no troubles with Beryl or Compiz. However, it's now time that the GeForce 6 series moves on with NVIDIA having recently introduced the NVIDIA GeForce 7025 and 7050 with the nForce 630a as the replacement for the GeForce 6100 and 6150 with the nForce 410/430. We have decided to look at the NVIDIA GeForce 7050 today as we compare it to the GeForce 6150 and test it in a variety of Linux graphics benchmarks.

The version 1.4 of "Ultimate Ubuntu Edition" is now released, and it is the first time it comes in a sigle CD, this one is based on Feisty Fawn

There's a worldwide initiative to push out the de facto standard for the storage of word-processing documents, Microsoft Corp.'s ".doc" file format, and replace it with Open Document Format, a supposedly universal and open format. This kind of sniping will never end as long as Microsoft is Microsoft. Maybe it's time to seriously think of breaking up the company into smaller companies.

Ocean Blue Software is to release its advanced TV software suite on Toshiba's TC9040x 'Donau' series of processors. The new Linux-based software will allow for fast development of reduced component count consumer electronics products, such as set top boxes, integrated digital televisions, personal video recorders and combination hard disk/DVD recorder systems.

The Boy Genius Report has uncovered the sliding kin to the RAZR 2 family. It’s called the Motorola Z9, and seems to be destined for AT&T service. It will brandish Motorola’s relatively new Synergy Operating System, which is based on Linux.

It is well known to many parents that the only people in the house capable of programming the VCR are their children. The 30 girls sitting in the Harrington Learning Center at Quinsigamond Community College yesterday were far past VCRs, however. The group of 10- to 14-year-olds was busy installing and configuring the Linux operating system on computers they had finished building.

Matthew Aslett reports that VC funding to open source startups rose more than 33% in 2Q07 vs. 2Q06. Matthew estimates that a total of $2.05B has been invested in open source startups since 2000. For VC investments in OSS to track with the historical 57%, the $2.05B invested would have to be worth $30.7B. Wow. Is there any way that OSS vendors are worth that much today? My gut says it's closer to the $12.5B to $19.6B.

Under the name Sun ODF Plug-in for Microsoft Office, Sun has released its import/export filter for the OpenDocument format (ODF), which the ISO has recognized as a standard, for versions 2000, XP, and 2003 of Microsoft's Office suite. The 30 MB installation package adds a document type to Word's file dialog so that users can access ODF files directly and use OpenDocument as a standard format.