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From Christopher Blizzard on one laptop per child and open source: For once Microsoft is getting the reverse Linux laptop experience: little support and little documentation for the hardware. The result will be a platform that doesn’t include any of the really novel features that we’re building in, bad power management, no systems management via the firmware and apps that will randomly crash because they can’t fix the virtual memory problem in the same way we’re approaching it. A second class citizen, to be sure.

Are you happy with the way your team is able to organize and exchange office data? Maybe Horde, phpGroupWare, PHProject or moregroupware will help you all become better team players.

Dell won't include open-source software such as Wine with its Ubuntu Linux machines, according to Mark Shuttleworth.

Skype, the well-known VoIP (voice over IP) software provider, has never been known for its quickness in getting Linux releases out, but about a year after the company started work on Skype 1.3, it has announced the release of the alpha for Skype 1.4.

Plugging memory leaks in JavaScript is easy enough when you know what causes them. This article walks you through the basics of circular references in JavaScript and explain why they can cause problems in certain browsers, especially when combined with closures. After seeing some of the common memory leak patterns you should watch out for, you'll learn a variety of easy ways to work around them.

Metasploit LLC released version 3.0 of the Metasploit Framework (MSF), the popular penetration testing project, late last month. Version 3.0 is a complete rewrite of the previous tools using primarily the Ruby programming language; versions 1 and 2 were written primarily in Perl. Also new are an experimental GUI, and perhaps the crowning jewel of the release, the db_autopwn module, which automates exploit discovery and execution.

Much Fanfare Awaits the Fanless Matrix-520, Linux-Ready, Communication Computer

The PHP development team would like to announce the immediate availability of PHP 5.2.2 and availability of PHP 4.4.7. These releases are major stability and security enhancements of the 5.x and 4.4.x branches, and all users are strongly encouraged to upgrade to it as soon as possible.

Now that we have open source beer, open source cars, and open source photography, a social networking service run by Red Hat and based around open source software comes as no surprise. The name of the project is Mugshot, and the official definition describes it as "an open project to create live social experiences around entertainment." That may sound vague, but it's actually a useful service, and there are quite a few things you can do with it.

This guide provides step-by-step instructions on how to install Xen on an already working Debian Etch system. You can find all the software used here in the Etch repository, so no external files or compilation are needed.

Ingo Molnar reviewed Con Kolivas [interview]'s swap-prefetching patches suggesting that they were ready for inclusion in the mainline kernel, "I've reviewed it once again and in the !CONFIG_SWAP_PREFETCH case it's a clear NOP, while in the CONFIG_SWAP_PREFETCH=y case all the feedback i've seen so far was positive. Time to have this upstream and time for a desktop-oriented distro to pick it up." He went on to describe swap prefetch, "to the desktop user this is a speculative performance feature that he is willing to potentially waste CPU and IO capacity, in expectation of better performance. On the conceptual level it is _precisely the same thing as regular file readahead_. (with the difference that to me swapahead seems to be quite a bit more intelligent than our current file readahead logic.)"

Windows is loved more than Linux by a factor of 2.4, but hated by a factor of 9.8 according to Google search results.

The optimist in me cheers. The optimist in me believes, its tiny voice raised to the heavens, like a mouse on LSD. Sorry, but it is a very very small optimist...

The executive editor of DesktopLinux.com installs Kubuntu Feisty Fawn on his "trusty old Thinkpad testbed" and relates his experiences. The verdict? Thanks to a little assistance from Automatix2, Feisty's a real winner!

I'm tired of debating the relative merits of Linux's various desktop environments and distributions. Tired of reading about them, tired of writing about them. So today an experiment begins: My month at the command line. I'm going back. To the $ prompt. No GNOME. No KDE. Not even Xfce, IceWM or Fluxbox. No X at all. Just the console.

Microsoft Corp. is resuming its pursuit of search engine operator Yahoo Inc. that could help it better compete with Web search leader Google Inc., published reports said Friday.

[Its not Open Source related but certainly of interest around here. - Scott]

Speaking UNIX is simply a matter of building a sentence. An executable is a verb, output is a noun, and the shell operator is a conjunction. Virtually all non-trivial problems require you to filter good data from bad. Discover the many UNIX command line utilities that use regular expressions to discern the relevant from the irrelevant.

The Mozilla Quality weblog has announced a Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.4 and 1.5.0.12 Community Test Day tomorrow. The Community Test Day will allow interested members of the Mozilla community to test release candidates of the upcoming Firefox 2.0.0.4 and 1.5.0.12 releases. The Mozilla Wiki has a page with full details about the Firefox 2.0.0.4 and 1.5.0.12 Community Test Day, which will take place on Friday between 7:00am and 5:00pm Pacific Daylight Time (2:00pm and 12:00pm UTC/GMT).

This article shows you how to use the built-in debugging features in the Eclipse Platform for debugging software projects.

He ooh'ed and ahh'ed over the transparency settings in the window decorations and the multiple desktop possibilities available to him. I didn't think it was a good idea to show him Beryl just yet. There is only so much one can take at a time.