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The Linux desktop has long had most of the apps anyone could ever really need. Sure, it doesn’t have some specific applications, like Adobe Photoshop or Quicken, but it had other apps. Such as Gimp for Photoshop and GNUCash for Quicken and QuickBooks that can do the job. Lately, however, companies that have supported Linux are moving away from the Linux desktop and that worries me. These companies and groups are: Adobe, Google, and Mozilla.

Akademy, the KDE community summit, is happening in just a few weeks, from the 30 of June to the 6 of July, in Tallinn, Estonia. The Akademy Organizing Team is pleased to welcome this year's Akademy sponsors whose support is critical to the success of the conference.

When hackers are stealing valid credentials, how do you protect your system from the inside? The answer may be automated threat detection that looks for anomalies instead of accepting credentials on face value.

PlayOnLinux 4.1 has been released.

Nginx (pronounced "engine x") is a free, open-source, high-performance HTTP server. Nginx is known for its stability, rich feature set, simple configuration, and low resource consumption. This tutorial shows how you can install Nginx on an Ubuntu 12.04 LTS server with PHP5 support (through PHP-FPM) and MySQL support (LEMP = Linux + nginx (pronounced "engine x") + MySQL + PHP).

Oracle Corporation of America just suffered a massive defeat at the hands of Google in its patent infringement lawsuit. A California jury decided that Google did NOT infringe on Oracle’s Java patents with its ubiquitous Android operating system. This decision has a significant impact on the future on the of Free Software. After this decision, will anyone dare try to shake down a FOSS-based company again?

The Worlds Favourite Distribution gets a new version based on all the good parts of the Ubuntu LTS, and bundled with two traditional desktop environments...

Owners of Android handsets can be forgiven for feeling frustration over how long it took to get an update from the 2.3 "gingerbread" release. Google's flat-out effort to improve tablet support led to a 3.0 ("honeycomb") release that was not deemed suitable for handset use—or for open-source release. It was only with the 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" (ICS) cycle that all that new code became available for handsets—sort of. Six months after the 4.0 release, your editor finally got his hands on a device that can run it; what follows is a review of sorts.

Google has won the second phase of court battle against Oracle when the jury found that Google did not infringe upon any of Oracle's patents.

Phoronix declares the death of open-source graphics, but I disagree. Now, I am not really following the projects mentioned in the article (though I pay attention when I come across the topic), but I believe that open-source graphics is far from dead and it will come back. I am certain. We just need some patience.

The software ecosystem has interesting tentacles, says Simon Brew, as he investigates the trend of selling icons onto increasingly bloated Windows computers…

The problem with bringing your own device to work is when you lose it and IT decides to remotely wipe your phone -- including your personal content. This week, I learned about two ways IT could control enterprise content while leaving your personal contact untouched.

Even if the Raspberry Pi is under-powered for desktop work, I have only high regard for the stated goal of the design: an affordable platform for the next generation of hardware and software designers. Considering that the higher-end model is a mere US$35 (plus shipping, handling, and tariffs), the actual bang-for-the-buck is amazing.

While Fedora 17 should be released next week, the ARM version is lagging behind and has just reached its own beta milestone...

When Richard Hughes, founder of Hughski Limited announced an “open source” colorimeter with full GPL source code and even Linux support late last year, he offered a developers’ discount for testers and early adopters. So I was quick to give him a nod on that one.

A few minutes after the Oracle v. Google verdict, the ten jurors filed out to the elevator. A group of several reporters, including me, had hunkered down close to the elevators to wait for the jury as they walked out. Several Oracle lawyers stood farther back, also eager to hear from the ten men and women who had dealt their side a major setback.

A court security guard, who had been outside the jury room throughout deliberations, walked the jurors straight to the elevator, saying the jurors didn't want to talk to anyone. That wasn't quite true. The foreman of the jury, Greg Thompson, stopped and answered reporters' questions for about twenty minutes, while Oracle lawyers listened quietly to his answers.

The Linux 3.5 kernel will introduce support for the Sound Core3D audio cards that were launched by Creative last year...

Two of the most useful free (as in beer) software applications from Google are Google Earth, which runs on your computer, and Google Maps, which runs as a Web service. You can use both Google Earth and Google Maps to plot your own points, lines or shapes on an interactive map. You can also annotate these things with informative details. Unfortunately, the user interfaces provided by Google for doing this kind of DIY mapping are... well, clunky. They're slow, especially if you have a lot of items to add to a map.

The good news is that both Google Earth and Google Maps use the KML file format for their map-plotting. As this article shows, KML (Keyhole Markup Language) is simple. You can easily design your own maps offline, then display or share them as KML files.

Read the howto at Free Software Magazine.

Clement Lefebvre proudly announced a few hours ago, May 23rd, the immediate availability for download of the final release of the Linux Mint 13 operating system.

When Opera invented "speed dials", they quickly became an important wish list item in all other browsers. Speed dials allow you to visually "see" (via screenshots) a list of most recently visited web sites when you open a new tab. Several Forefox plugins tried to fill this important niche, but none of them really stood out -- until now. This great plugin also allows you to back your Speed Dials up.

Read the howto at Free Software Magazine.