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The FSF have released a statement on UEFI secure boot. It explains the fundamental issue here, which isn't something as simple as "will OEMs let me install Linux". It's "Does the end user have the ability to manage their own keys".

Secure boot is a valuable feature. It does neatly deal with the growing threat of pre-OS malware. There is an incentive for it to be supported under Linux. I discussed the technical aspects of implementing support for it here - it's not a huge deal of work, and it is being worked on. So let's not worry about that side of things. The problem is with the keys.

And there is only a modest charge for doing so A top Microsoft legal eagle has moaned that Android smartphones and the like are profiting from cash that his bosses have invested in research and development.…

A few patches have been published today for the VDPAU state tracker in Mesa's Gallium3D...

Umbongo will be useful bargaining tool - Shuttleworth Ubuntu, the free and user-friendly Mac-a-like flavour of Linux, will be targeted at mobile phones, tablets and smart TVs.…

This HowTo lays out how to convert a regular netbook/laptop/desktop into an almost Google Chromebook using Hexxeh's Chromium OS build. All you need is a 2GB USB stick and a bit of time. It also makes a nice portable operating system as well.

While last week I showed how Ubuntu's performance has evolved as a KVM guest from Ubuntu 8.04 through Ubuntu 11.10, in today's article is a Linux virtualization showdown between VirtualBox, Xen, and KVM while using Ubuntu 11.10 on the Linux 3.0 kernel.

Kate Stewart announced on October 28th that thr Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) Netbook and ARM editions reached EOL (End of Life) on October 29th, 2011.

Red Hat, Canonical and the Linux Foundation have laid out a set of recommendations for hardware vendors in hopes of preserving the ability to install Linux on Windows 8 machines. Windows 8 machines should ship in a setup mode giving users more control right off the bat, the groups argue.

As we reported last month, Windows 8 computers that ship with UEFI secure booting enabled could make the task of replacing Windows with Linux or dual-booting the two operating systems more difficult. In order to get a “Designed for Windows 8” logo, PCs must ship with secure boot enabled, preventing the booting of operating systems that aren’t signed by a trusted Certificate Authority.

Hardware vendors can give users the option of disabling the secure boot feature—but they could also decline to do so, making it impossible to run a non-Windows operating system. In practice, it seems unlikely that dual-boot scenarios will be prevented entirely, but Linux vendors and the Linux Foundation are worried about how UEFI secure booting will be implemented.

In this week's KDE Commit-Digest: Work on grouping for names in KDE Base Added minimal global search implementation with autocompletion in Kexi New Gaussian autobrush type in Calligra Amazon-based music store in Amarok Fixed handling of redirections with HTTP DELETE and PUT requests in KDE Libs Geolocation filter option added to Digikam filtering sidebar. Read the rest of the Digest here. read more

According to an early report from ZDNet, Shuttleworth will announce plans to bring Ubuntu to smartphones and tablet computing devices. The company says that it has been discussing the plan with hardware partners for the past 18 months. No specific hardware vendors have been named yet and there is presently no concrete timeline for product availability.

Apple and Microsoft are involved in a new patent race over touchless gesture-controls.

GNU Solidario is happy to announce the release of GNU Health 1.4.1, in which we have incorporated support for PyPI, the Python Package Index

Ubuntu now has 20 million users as founder takes aim at Unity interface criticism and lays out a plan for the cloud, desktop and everything in between.

Here is a simple script that will backup your manually installed software in Sabayon Linux and will restore it at a later date if you need it.

IQnection Internet Services, Inc, an Internet Hosting company in Doylestown, PA, today has announced its acquisition of LinuxForum.com, a popular Internet forum providing Linux discussion, articles, news and more.

Canonical, plans to release Ubuntu for Android, iOS and Windows mobile devices.

Well, I am on another trip, sitting in an airport terminal wanting to use my time more effectively. That is why I recently made several purchases so that I can have access to my business wherever I am.

Chris Wilson has taken a break from his Sunday hacking on the SNA acceleration architecture to put out the first release candidate for the upcoming xf86-video-intel 2.17.0 release...

Apple sued HTC, while Kodak sued Apple, Samsung and Sony. RIM filed suit against Kodak and Motorola. And what are called nonpracticing entities (or patent trolls, if you prefer) such as Intellectual Ventures and NTP have sued pretty much the lot of them.

It can seem - and some have argued - that the patent system itself is broken, forcing companies to spend more time and money on legal battles than research and development. But that view betrays an ignorance of history, according to Horacio Gutiérrez, the deputy general counsel in charge of Microsoft's intellectual property group.

For those that weren't present at the Qt Developer Days 2011 in Munich this past week, here's some of the content that's now available online from this conference that marked the beginning of the Qt Project...