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Novell plans to release open-source interoperability technology between the OpenOffice.org productivity suite and Microsoft Office 2007.

New Delhi, Jan 1 (IANS) It is called the 'hall of shame'. Within its cyber walls are pilloried a long list of websites, Internet service providers and websites which do not treat all their visitors fairly.

Happy New Year and welcome to this year's first issue of DistroWatch Weekly! With another exciting year safely behind us, we'll start the first issue of DistroWatch Weekly in 2007 with a statistical look at the popularity of Linux distributions and other interesting data collected here during the past year. The news section will then bring a varied collection of happenings from the distro world, including news about the latest beta release of SimplyMEPIS, updates about the forthcoming Fedora 7, information about the release blockers delaying Debian GNU/Linux 4.0, links to interviews with the developers of Ulteo and SabayonLinux, and alerts to articles of interest to users of PCLinuxOS, openSUSE and Yellow Dog Linux. Finally, we are pleased to announce that the December 2006 DistroWatch donation goes to SabayonLinux. Happy reading!

This is the dawn of a new year. As usual, the new year is ushered in by making resolutions and wishes. And what is a Linux enthusiast to wish for if not for this year being the year of GNU/Linux. This article ponders on the accomplishments of GNU/Linux and Free software in the year gone by and feels that after all, 2007 could really be the year of GNU/Linux.

If you have followed any of my last six installments about LDAP, then you know we've taken a technical approach to the subject. I wrote the majority of the material in this series as part of an O'Reilly book entitled"Linux System Administration" or simply LSA. You can find a write-up on the book at thislink.

In this week's KDE Commit-Digest: The KDE Commit-Digest 2006 retrospective. blinKen and KNetWalk become the latest applications to move to scalable graphics. KSquares further develops, with an AI player implemented. More maps and a more sophisticated divisions and capitals implementation in KGeography. Support for password-protected RAR archives in the kio_rar interface.

From the LXer team, here's hoping the best for you and yours in 2007!

The mainframe is really going through a rebirth. Last quarter and the third quarter of 2006, mainframe revenue has grown 25 per cent in the year. We gained over 5 points of (market) share according to IDC and we are the leader in the high-end service segment — about 20 per cent ahead of the next largest competitor.

When it comes to Linux servers, a few months can make a whole lot of difference. Earlier this year, Red Hat, Novell, and most major Linux vendors were doing their best to fend off Windows Virtualized Server by getting their own virtualization offerings out the door first. Jacqueline Emigh concludes this three-part series on Linux in 2006.

Virtual Dimension is a virtual desktop tool for Windows. Before we proceed, let's clear the doubtful air around the term itself.

[Virtual Desktop is Free Software (for Windows), released under the GNU GPL. - dcparris]

Installing Ubuntu was a snap. Since I had chosen to completely get rid of Windows altogether, instead of dual booting, I backed up all my sensitive data, music, Word documents, photos, etc., to my external NTFS hard drive. It is crucial to note that Ubuntu 6.06-6.10 can only read from NTFS natively and writing to NTFS drives is a bit trickier. Apparently, if your hard drive is in FAT32, it isn't a problem at all and Ubuntu can talk to FAT32 perfectly. When I was sure I had backed up all my data, I inserted the x386 disc (for all Pentium processors) into the drive and booted into the Live CD. On the Acer c310 series, the default way to boot is into the hard drive. You must press F12 at the BIOS post splash screen in order to boot to the CD.

A few articles have appeared recently discussing the copying of the Windows interface to Linux to ease user migration, such as the one on Youtux.org. This is nothing new - Windows-like Linux desktop environments such as LXP and xpde have been in existence for a few months/years. I think these projects are great because the developers are enjoying their work and I’m sure that some people use their products, but I don’t believe that this is the right way to attract Windows users to desktop Linux.

Running a Microsoft Windows NT server these days is a brave (or, perhaps, stupid) thing to do: Support for the product has finished, and as far as Microsoft is concerned, the product should be put in a rest home for retired software. Paul Rubens walks through the optimal steps to letting go of the IT past and moving to a better Linux future.

Late but worthy -- that's how one can call this issue of Amarok Weekly News.

In the enterprise Linux space, 2006 was marked by greater expansion of Linux into vertical markets, new products, and most notably, a string of surprise business deals among vendors. The year also bore witness to an increasing trend, of sorts, among Novell, Oracle, and other software companies to justify their actions on the basis of "customer demand." Jacqueline Emigh reports

THE YEAR ending today, for me, marked a full 20 years of active computer journalism. No, it surely doesn't make you rich but, well, it was interesting and 25 years since the first IBM PC saw the light of the day in IBM's internal customer demos.

According to independent analyst firm Ptak, Noel & Associates, the IBM System z mainframe is a "rising star" for emerging IT market segments in addition to meeting "the needs of a significant portion of the IT market that demands unrelenting and unmatched reliability, security and control."

For the past month I've been bulding and playing with Leonard'paniq' Ritter'sAldrin, a music production system that combines a tracker-style composition interface with audio synthesis and processing modules called machines. Users of the famousBuzz music software will probably recognize Aldrin's design at once. In fact, it may be fair to describe Aldrin as Leonard Ritter's interpretation of the original Buzz.For my last blog entry in 2006 I'll take a brief look at the latest public version of Aldrin, then we'll discover just what makes its creator tick in a rather lengthy interview with Leonard Ritter himself. Leonard is a thoughtful and articulate fellow, I hope you enjoy his responses as much as I did.

The Ubuntu developers are in the process of deciding whether to enable binary-only drivers by default in their installation process, under certain limited circumstances. This decision process has prompted the latest wave in a conversation that's nearly as old as Linux itself. Some see this step as a compromise on the principles of freedom, and point out the numerous practical problems with binary drivers: lack of portability, dependence on the vendor to fix security flaws, dependence on the vendor to continue supporting your hardware, etc. Others take a pragmatic perspective, draw the line that Ubuntu will not cross, or point out that Ubuntu developers also care about the principles of freedom and intend to educate their users on the reasons for choosing open source drivers and hardware vendors that offer open source drivers.

Trolltech has released their “Greenphone” which is a phone that runs open source Linux. This phone includes developer tools to increase the phone’s capabilities, along with VMWare software. Using Mini SD and USB ports, this phone has huge potential, hardware wise.