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Although Linux might be making big inroads in some vertical markets, Microsoft Windows keeps enjoying virtually complete domination of the legal software space, with the small exception of some embedded appliances, concurred participants in this week's LegalTech show in New York City. "Microsoft is actually terrified of Linux in most vertical markets. But the legal market isn't one of them," said Whit McIsaac, moderator of a conference session called "Implementing Strategic Plans--Successfully Deploying Change in the Law Firm."

Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!

One of the age-long problems with the Linux operating system was never the lack of functionality but the lack of major commercial applications porting their software to Linux. The movie industry has shown high demand for such software to be ported and, after a long wait, companies such as Autodesk and Softimage have ported fully supported Linux versions of their applications for their dedicated customers.

In this article Mark Rais shares a vision for how the release of Vista even further validates the benefits of OSS.

It is my privilege to announce on behalf of the team members of the PCLinuxOS Magazine Project sponsored by MyPCLinuxOS.com, the February 2007 issue (#6)  is available for download!  Our previous issues can also be downloaded.

We are simultaneously publishing the HTML Version of the Magazine as well for our low bandwidth users.  The HTML Site is W3C standards compliant for easy browsing.

Some highlights include:

1. Change a Lightscribe Label
   
2. Parental Controls
   
3. Acquiring and Installing VMWare
   
4. Limewire/Frostwire
5. Using Fish
   
6. As always, plenty more is packed inside 

The RAR and 7-Zip file compression formats originated on Windows, so support for them on Linux is not as automatic as it is for old Unix holdovers like Gzip and TAR. But with the right software, you can handle these compressed files without much trouble.

Fedora 7 Test 1 has been released today. For this particular release, we only did a Desktop spin of the package collection. We are still fine tuning targetted spins of the collection as part of the merger of Core and Extras. We also produced a LiveCD that has the ability to install to your harddrive, should you wish.

One of the advantages of using GPLed software is that anybody who wish to use or modify the code can do so without fear of any repercussions. Ditto for the documentation of the software. This has at times tempted many a book author to release their books under a liberal license and make their efforts available for free in an electronic format. One such venture is the Free Book Linux Kernel in a Nutshell.

The beta version of Bianca was released and is available for download. Bianca comes with two brand new themes: Bianca-Blue and Bianca-Green which give the distribution a whole new 'minty' look. Only one panel at the bottom, a Slab-like menu, new default icons. The following applications were added to Bianca: mintMenu, a replacement for the GNOME menu; mintConfig, a Control Center application; mintDisk, a program which automatically mounts FAT32 and NTFS partitions; mintDesktop, which now comes as a package, has a graphical configuration front-end; mintWifi, which now comes as a package. - DistroWatch. Screenshots of Linux Mint 2.2 Beta are available at LinuxQuestions.org.

Artistic geeks often find creative ways to combine technology and art. A love for good software and beautiful guitars is what inspired Canadian luthier Mark Kett to begin the Linux Guitar Project.

Bash is one of those Unix things that I am fully aware has a lot more potential and power than I know how to use. Every so often I go looking for another handful of useful things to learn about it: this is a selection of recent ones.

One Laptop Per Child project Leader Jim Gettys reveals how having "open" hardware is a huge benefit for the project. He also talks about how the specific audience of the OLPC system calls for a user interface radically different from the regular. This and more in his interview in preparation to FOSDEM 2007.

I spoke with some guys at the AlwaysOn show yesterday who have an interesting business model aimed at tech support professionals. Spiceworks have a radically different take on free software. They allow anybody to download their application which monitors devices on the network. It incorporates a ticketing system and also the ability to share experiences in a forum environment with other Spiceworks users.

TimeSys Corp is sponsoring The Open Source Summit, presented by The IndUS Entrepreneurs (TiE) Pittsburgh.

When MySQL files for IPO, we'll get to view their financials. We'll get to compare their performance metrics against Red Hat (which, until now, has been the only pure-play OSS player with public financials) and traditional vendors. I'm willing to bet that their metrics will be (surprisingly) close to metrics from traditional software vendors.

PyDEV is a plugin that enables developers to use Eclipse for Python and Jython development, making Eclipse a first-class Python IDE. The software offers features such as code completion, syntax highlighting, syntax analysis, automated refactoring, template system, source code quality checking, and a debugging environment.

Embedded Linux specialist TimeSys is among the sponsors of a Pittsburgh conference exploring the strategies and economics of open source software. The "Open Source Summit" will feature discussions of corporate open source initiatives, adoption, licensing, and business models, and will be held the evening of Thurs., Feb. 15.

It's maddening. For someone who is trying make a daily use of what is to be considered a beginner friendly distribution for the first time, most options leave a lot to be desired for the uninitiated. More often than not, new Linux users find that everything works great at first only to discover that setting up something as common as a dual-head monitor configuration requires editing your xorg.conf file. If you are coming from a non-Linux environment, this can be a fairly frightening proposition.

This tutorial describes how to set up and run an UnrealIRCD server on OpenSuSE 10.2 and Fedora Core 6. It also shows how to install Anope IRC services. Anope is a set of Services for IRC networks that allows users to manage their nicks and channels in a secure and efficient way, and administrators to manage their network with powerful tools.

As those who are following Microsoft's OOXML formats through the standardization process will know, those formats are now in the "contradiction" phase in JTC 1 at ISO/IEC. Or, so it would seem, they are in the "so, what is a contradiction, anyway?" phase in JTC1.