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I’ve had various stints with KDE, which have all been very pleasant. In fact, I write about it all the time; but I’ve always been a Gnome man. Of course Gnome has gone it’s own way towards over-simplification and Ubuntu has shown its defiance with Unity.

Dell is working closely with Canonical (promoter of Ubuntu Linux) and Cloudera (a Hadoop advocate) to prepare its next-generation ARM servers for so-called “hyperscale” customer environments. Though not available for purchase yet, ARM-based servers from Dell and other PC makers sound promising. The big question: Where is Microsoft and Windows Server amid the expanding ARM-based server discussion? Here's an update.

For more than a decade, some of the more interesting work in the field of robotics has been driven by open source efforts. Open source robotics platforms have flourished, but they've also been fragmented, with software and hardware designs produced all around the world that have little to do with each other. That's why it's so promising that the folks behind Willow Garage--a robotics project that originated at Stanford University--have announced the Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF). We covered the initial details surrounding the foundation here, and now more information is beginning to appear at the OSRF site.

If you’re in the market for a Linux-ready PC, May 2012 has been a good month. First eRacks launched a new line of high-end desktops. Then System76 introduced high-power laptop. Now ZaReason, one of the few other big open source OEMs, has both released new hardware and upgraded a popular existing model. Read on for details.

Most of HP's webOS team, including Matt McNulty, head of the project, is moving to Google according to a report by The Verge citing several unnamed sources. The departing team is said to be almost wholly responsible for Enyo's code. Enyo replaced Mojo as webOS's software development kit in 2011.

Fedora’s Beefy Miracle has just been released, with the stable version of Fedora 17 including GIMP 2.8, OpenStack Essex, Firefox 12, and more cutting edge free software...

Red Hat sponsored Fedora Project has announced the release of Fedora 17, the latest version of its free open source operating system distribution.

Microsoft will make it harder for customers to club together with lawyers to file lawsuits against its products. The company is rolling out new End User License Agreements (EULAs) that forbid punters from joining class-action proceedings.

This should go over well.. - Scott

If only there were a smartphone operating system choice which was open source, not tied to one single commercial operation and which used web technologies already established, rather than tailored to the unique needs of the phone.

Seems like the well known Russian company Kaspersky, that specializes in computer security software, found a good way to use the power of Linux live cd’s for the benefit of their customers.

We'd like to know about your networking preferences. Please take a moment to fill out this quick poll, and compiled results will be available in an upcoming issue.

The Fedora Project announced a few minutes ago, May 29th, the immediate availability for download of the Fedora 17 Linux operating system.

Bryan Lunduke, host of the Linux Action Show, creator of the awesome game Linux Tycoon and Illumination Software Creator is willing to make his software open source (GPL): ""I’m going to cut right to the chase: I would like to Open Source all of my software (including Illumination Software Creator and Linux Tycoon) — while still providing enough income to allow me to continue developing them full time via contributions from the community."" Would you also like this? Please check out the link and help get an awesome game and awesome pieces of software GPLed!

The open source WordPress blogging platform turned Nine years old on Sunday (first WordPress release was May 27, 2003). It's hard to believe that it has been that long isn't it? (I've been a user for the last 8). WordPress started out as a 'simple' blogging platform that valued the user interface and ease-of-use over fancy knobs and deep features.

The Ubuntu News Lens is a very useful Unity Launcher plugin that allows users to search articles from various news sources.

As part of your overall hardening, and suite of security software you have installed, an IDS and/or IPS should not be left out. This is also a requirement for PCI Compliance. And IDS/IPS is very important for a number of reasons, first because when you are hacked, typically some sort of activity preceeded the hack, such as a port scan, which and IDS could detect, and an IPS could block. In addition the logs from your IDS/IPS can serve as part of your audit trail when investigating a security breach.

AMD admits it has had some Linux support problems with its graphics drivers and they'll be working to improve the situation. In particular, AMD concedes it has the most problems with OpenCL support on Linux. They attribute their Linux problems to the fact that there's many Linux distributions out there rather than just a single platform like Microsoft Windows.

Two weeks ago, Steve Wozniak made a public call for Apple to open its platforms for those who wish to tinker, tweak and innovate with their internals. EFF supports Wozniak's position: while Apple's products have many virtues, they are marred by an ugly set of restrictions on what users and programmers can do with them. This is most especially true of iOS, though other Apple products sometimes suffer in the same way. In this article we will delve into the kinds of restrictions that Apple, phone companies, and Microsoft have been imposing on mobile computers; the excuses these companies make when they impose these restrictions; the dangers this is creating for open innovation; why Apple in particular should lead the way in fixing this mess. We also propose a bill of rights that need to be secured for people who are purchasing smartphones and other pocket computers.

While there is no word from Facebook yet confirming the rumors, there are multiple reports going around the web saying that Facebook may be looking to acquire the Opera browser. According to English site Pocket-lint, "Pocket-lint has heard from one of its trusted sources that the social networking giant is looking to buy Opera Software, the company behind the Opera web browser." This, would, of course, put Facebook squarely in the browser game along with Microsoft, Apple, Mozilla and Google. But would the move make sense for Facebook?

If Dell buys Quest Software, it could thrust Dell into the virtualization market head-on against VMware, Citrix Systems and Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, among other potential rivals. But is Dell really trying to get into the virtualization market? Here are some clues.