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Microsoft is an untenable position these days caught between its lucrative legacy desktop Windows and Office software business and its desire to transition to a devices and services company. When you throw in corporate politics and shareholder anxiety, it's going to be a huge challenge to find a way forward.

The open-source Ubuntu Linux operating system, which in recent years has become one of the most popular distributions, is about to get a major update. On Oct. 17, Canonical, the lead commercial sponsor behind the Ubuntu project, will release Ubuntu 13.10, also referred to as the "Saucy Salamander," with new desktop, server and cloud-facing features.

Ikey came to make news with his SolusOS 1.X releases. Even as a young distro, SolusOS broke the 20th place at Distrowatch and ultimately climbed to the 14th position. Based on Debian, he wanted to change some things that were happening in other Debian-based distros. But even the most stable of foundations are made less stable by other things.

The open-source OpenStack cloud platform has the support of many of the world's leading IT vendors, including IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Intel, AT&T, Cisco and Red Hat, but does it have the support of enterprises? -

If you need a Linux-based desktop or laptop and don't have the time or inclination to do the installation yourself, here are some alternatives.

Code.org, the organisation that believes “every student in every school should have the opportunity to learn computer programming” has signed up Microsoft Bill Gates and Facebook supremo Mark Zuckerberg to teach programming. The pair will each participate in an “Hour of Code”, 60-minute programming tutorials that are one one of the initiatives planned for 2013's Computer Science Education Week (CSEW) starting on December 9th. Gates will also participate in a one-hour video conference with a school that signs up for CSEW.

Summary: Android tablets have come a long way since the first, the Motorola XOOM, appeared. The right apps make them great tablets for both work and play.

A Shenzhen-based startup called Wizarm has launched an Indiegogo campaign for a hackable media player with DVR recording, HDMI pass-through, Miracast support, and video overlay capabilities. The Wizarm device dual-boots Android and Linux on a Samsung Exynos 5250 system-on-chip, and offers SATA storage and extensive I/O including USB, HDMI in/out, DisplayPort, and S/PDIF.

This past weekend in Dallas, the largest independently organized Android event in the US wrapped up its fourth annual get together, complete with developer sessions, more than 30 Glass users, and of course some tasty tasty smoked meat.

Oracle has popped out a white paper that may well turn some heads, because it contains robust criticism of open source software. Titled “The Department of Defense (DoD) and Open Source Software” and available here as a PDF to those with Oracle accounts or here in Dropbox, the document's premise is that folks in the USA's Department of Defense (DoD) could think it is possible to save money if they “... avoid buying commercial software products simply by starting with open source software and developing their own applications.”

Jessica McKellar is an entrepreneur, software engineer, and open source developer. She helps organize the Boston Python user group and plays a big role in diversity outreach by introducing and welcoming more beginners and women. Participation has increased from 0-2% to 15% and the user group has sustained this over the past two years.

Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander will be released on coming October 17th with many new salient features, updates and significant performance improvements. In this brief how-to let us discuss how we can enhance Ubuntu 13.10 further for day to day activities. This post we will share some interesting insight and ideas about what you can and should do after a successful installation.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are disrupting the higher education marketplace the way free and open source software disrupted the world of proprietary software more than two decades ago. The disruption in higher education, however, will be different in two key ways: It will happen twice as fast; and It may spark a competition far different from the one you expect.

Google may be keeping quiet on when the Google TV platform will be updated to the Jelly Bean operating system, but developers are already hard at work.

Xtreme Download Manager (xdman)is a java based download manager in ubuntu. We can say it is an alternate of windows IDM(internet download manager) in ubuntu linux.

With all of the recent concern over the US government’s National Security Agency (NSA) some of the attention has turn to the possibility of backdoors. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a backdoor is an intentional vulnerability in an operating system or software that allows otherwise unauthorized users to gain access to the system. Back in 2003 someone attempted to insert a backdoor into the Linux kernel. Though caught, it illustrates how seemingly innocuous changes can introduce vulnerabilities and the importance of tractability in source control.

Cairo-Dock is a Mac OS X Dock-like application for Linux and BSD distributions that supports OpenGL and freedesktop standards. It provides a desktop interface for launching applications and accessing running programs.

While more and more closed-source games -- ranging from indie titles to AAA games -- are heading to Steam ahead of SteamOS and Steam Machines, there still isn't too many open-source games on Valve's digital distribution platform. Here's some information why one of the more popular cross-platform open-source first person shooters isn't yet to be found on Steam.

Mageia 3 has been out for a while, and I’ve finally had time to do a review. Mageia is a fork of the Mandriva distribution, and offers quite a bit to desktop Linux users. It comes with a great selection of preinstalled software, and it is available in 32-bit or 64-bit versions on DVD (3.96 GB). You also have the option of getting it on CD (700 MB).

Robert Matthews discovered that the Apache FCGID module, a FastCGI implementation for Apache HTTP Server, fails to perform adequate boundary checks on user-supplied input. This may allow a remote attacker to cause a heap-based buffer overflow, resulting in a denial of service or potentially allowing the execution of arbitrary code.