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We tried. We gave up.

Dell this week received much praise for releasing a new version of its "open source" PC. The computer fits into Dell's n Series range of Windows-less systems. These ship with a copy of FreeDOS in the packaging material - but not installed on the PC - which is apparently a bizarre concession to Microsoft. While Dell garners glowing reviews for shipping such an open source OS-friendly product, the company's new E510n actually stands as yet another example of how hard Dell tries not to sell non-Microsoft gear.

Recently a reader took offense at a comment I made when I suggested that a well-defended trademark could help win Linux "a seat at the grown-ups' table." "What makes a commercial product inherently more 'grown-up' than its open source counterpart?" the reader asked.

DistroWatch reports - The Kubuntu developers are pleased to announce the Breezy Release Candidate. New in Kubuntu Breezy: KDE 3.4.2; X.org 6.8.2 - with modular packaging; Adept and Adept Updater package manager; KDE System Settings - easier Control Centre; KDE Language Packs - now on the CD; KDE Bluetooth framework; OpenOffice.org 2; GStreamer for Kaffine and amaroK media framework; Krita image editor; KLaptopDaemon - now with hibernate support; Locate File Search - find files in Konqueror; automounting for CDs and memory sticks...

OSDir has some slick shots of Kubuntu 5.10 RC.

Most of the high-profile AJAX web applications are commercial and run on corporate servers like Google Maps or Flickr. We're going to start with some lesser-know solutions that are Open Source, and can be hosted on your own PHP/MySQL enabled server.

What happened to Microsoft in Massachusetts, whose officials haven’t been convinced by the Redmond giant to wait quietly for Office 12, a product promised to be more “friendly” with the Office suite with the Open XML standard, will be a puny earthquake compared to the tsunami prepared by Japan! AP informs that the Japanese officials have started to ponder upon the introduction of Linux on governmental PCs, in order to break free from Microsoft and its Windows operating system.

Ubuntu has released a security patch to correct a vulnerability identified in GNU Texinfo. The problem is due to an error in the "textindex.c" file that creates temporary files insecurely, which may be exploited by local attackers to overwrite or create arbitrary files with the privileges of the user running the vulnerable application.

MySQL AB's imminent release of its MySQL 5.0 database will introduce new enterprise features making it more competitive with Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft, but the company's CEO has maintained that it is more interested in mimicking the run-away success of Swedish retailer Ikea than any of the established database vendors.

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) is warning of the interoperability disadvantages and long-term higher costs of open standards and open source software again, this time calling the Massachusetts directive adopting the OpenDocument format as standard for the state "bad procurement policy."

DistroWatch reports - Featherweight Linux is a live CD based on Feather Linux, but expanded to include a minimal KDE desktop. Version 1.3 has been released.

OSDir has some great shots of Featherweight Linux 1.3.

The bundle is currently only available in Singapore. Other Chinese companies, though, are being more aggressive about supporting open source.

With 100 projects now on the SugarForge.org site, users of Sugar Open Source have a broad choice of extensions ranging from document and knowledge management systems to timesheets, database backups, data synchronization, mobile device connectors and 21 language packs.

Mozilla Firefox 1.5 Beta 2 is now available for download. Also known as the 1.8 Beta 5 milestone, this is the last beta release of the next major Firefox update and is aimed at testers, extension/theme authors and Web developers.

Speaking at a private dinner with select captains of German industry on Wednesday, Steven Ballmer, chief executive of Microsoft, may have felt a small sense of triumph in his company's battle against open source software.

This tutorial shows how to develop sockets-based networking applications using Python. Python's high-level networking classes simplify the development of applications requiring application-layer networking protocols. The tutorial covers the basic sockets features of Python, using a sample chat application as a guide.

The Opera Software company has announced that the users’ interest in the add-free version of the Opera browser is still high. Since the free version of the browser was launched, over three million users have downloaded it. This free version has recorded four times more downloads than any of the previous ones, according to the company’s statistics.

This week, advisories were released for gtkdiskfree, util-linux, ClamAV, loop-aes, helix-player, backupninja, squid, mysql, ntlmaps, mysql-dfsg, gopher, prozilla, cfengine, mozilla-firefox, apachetop, drupal, mailutils, egroupware, arc, mod-auth-shadow, mason, slocate, vixie-cron, net-snmp, kernel, openssh, binutils, perl, and gdb. The distributors include Debian, Gentoo, and Red Hat.

DistroWatch reports - The release candidate of Ubuntu Linux 5.10 is ready: With just one more week to go before the final release of Ubuntu 5.10, the Ubuntu team is proud to announce the Ubuntu 5.10 Release Candidate. This is the final milestone before the official 5.10 release, and includes installation CDs, live CDs, and combination DVDs for three architectures. Highlights: GNOME 2.12.1; OpenOffice.org 2.0 beta 2; X.org 6.8.2...

OSDir has a selection of screenshots of Ubuntu Linux 5.10 RC.

Vector Linux is a small distro based on Slackware, it's goal is to be lightweight, quick and easy to use. This is particularly true on older equipment. I think it is fair to say that they have succeeded.

OSDir has some screen shots of SUSE Linux 10.0 Final.

A release candidate of Ark Linux 2005.2 has been released, featuring KDE 3.5 beta 1. Ark Linux is a very KDE centric desktop Linux distribution, aimed at making Linux easily usable to everyone while remaining technically sane.