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Going head to head with Microsoft 2007, the latest version of the free-for-all OpenOffice.org touts across-the-board improvements in the software's word processing, spreadsheet, database and presentation applications.

In my geeky haze, I forgot to blog about my triumph last week: I set up the $15 Laptop, a Compaq Armada 7770dmt (233 MHZ Pentium II with a whopping 64 MB RAM) to triple-boot Windows 2000, Puppy Linux 2.14 and Damn Small Linux 3.3. So yesterday I figure I can perform the same magic on the Maxspeed Maxterm thin client, the 1 GHz VIA C3 processor/256 MB RAM box that I use to test distros.

What Kodak's camera breakthrough means to you, behind Microsoft's Linux love affair, and the "greening" of the friendly skies.

The high priests of free software have congregated at Google Inc. headquarters this week to debate the future of the movement and face down recent patent threats by Microsoft Corp. Leading names of Linux, the world's biggest grassroots software phenomenon, are spending three days to Friday debating whether an increasingly commercial open source community should fight or ignore the world's largest software maker.

Today it's Linspire agreeing to a Linux technology deal with Microsoft that includes "IP protection" for customers, with IP standing for "intellectual property," and Microsoft basically agreeing not to sue users of Linspire's Linux distro. Curiously, Freespire -- Linspire's "free" version -- isn't included in the IP protection deal but will benefit from greater integration between Open Office and MS Office.

Intuit said it is making this move in response to users' requests for an open-source option.

Comprehensive Upgrade Improves Performance and Extends Usability for Leading Open Source Alternative to Microsoft Exchange

Each distribution has some specific tools to build a custom kernel from the sources. This article is about compiling a kernel on a Debian Etch system. It describes how to build a custom kernel using the latest unmodified kernel sources from http://www.kernel.org (vanilla kernel) so that you are independent from the kernels supplied by your distribution. It also shows how to patch the kernel sources if you need features that are not in there.

In the lead-up to KDE 4, Amarok will be undergoing a number of large changes both under the hood, and cosmetically with the user interface. I managed to interview a developer, Jeff Mitchell, to talk about the things changing in Amarok from the 1.4 stable branch to version 2.0, including the playlist redesign, the context view and the new web services framework.

We see the headlines all the time: "Company X Loses 30,000,000 Customer Social Security Numbers and Other Intimately Personal and Financial Data! Haha, Boy Are Our Faces Red!" And it always turns out to be some "contractor" (notice how it's never an employee) who had the entire wad on a laptop with (seemingly) a terabyte hard drive, which was then lost or stolen, but nobody is quite sure where or when.

Today, Linspire announced our latest partnership, one with Microsoft, to bring even more choices to desktop Linux users, and together, offer a "better" Linux experience.

The deadline for the biggest ever synchronised release of open software is looming. On 29 June, the long-awaited Europarelease from the Eclipse Foundation will see updates in 20 categories of Eclipse open software. The unprecedented release covers around 30 separate components - with several making their public début.

Major players including Ubuntu, Microsoft, and Red hat join network intent on setting new targets for energy efficient PCs.

When you power on your computer, the first software that runs is a bootloader that invokes the computer's operating system. GRUB, the GRand Unified Bootloader, is an integral part of many Linux systems. It starts the Linux kernel. Here's some background on GRUB, and some tips on installing and configuring the software.

LXer Feature: 14-June-2007

There are plenty of ways to transfer photos from your digital camera to the World Wide Web. Here's how I took my photos straight from my camera to my website with Konqueror.

When not threatening to sue Linux makers, Microsoft can't help itself from partnering with them. Redmond today announced a buddy-buddy deal with desktop Linux maker Linspire.

The press release started with the words, "Answering the call for an open source option from Information Technology professionals, Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq: INTU) announced today that businesses will soon be able to operate QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions® from Linux servers. It is the first time the company has made one of its products available to users of open source systems." Except QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions itself is not now and may never be open source. And even though a Linux version of the server software is now available for Linux, you will still need Windows on your desktops to use it.

The latest in this vintage clothing named distribution (yes yes, we know the are roots in Red Hat) comes with a new distribution format, the latest X.org release for 3D accelerated goodness, and an extremely polished desktop environment. When we eventually got it installed, that is.

Mandriva announced this week that it has revamped its eTraining website interface for better ease of use. In addition, the free online management modules have been improved, and there are two new free courses: one on urpmi and rpmdrake, and the other on Mandriva Flash.

Chris Mason announced an early alpha release of his new Btrfs filesystem, "after the last FS summit, I started working on a new filesystem that maintains checksums of all file data and metadata." He listed the following features as "mostly implemented": "extent based file storage (2^64 max file size), space efficient packing of small files, space efficient indexed directories, dynamic inode allocation, writable snapshots, subvolumes (separate internal filesystem roots), checksums on data and metadata (multiple algorithms available), very fast offline filesystem check". He listed the following features as yet to be implemented: "object level mirroring and striping, strong integration with device mapper for multiple device support, online filesystem check, efficient incremental backup and FS mirroring".