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I've decided I'm going to start doing a few posts a month with the topic of "Application Spotlight". Basically I am going to feature applications I use on my Linux desktop every week that I feel haven't seen enough attention in the FOSS world to date.

Linux Mint 12 RC comes with two option of desktop environment: One built with GNOME 3.2 and MGSE and other with GNOME 2.3 and MATE. In this post we will show how to Gnome shell extenstion Mate and MGSE for LinuxMint in Ubuntu11.10.

Platform as a Service offering advances with some new Java dev features, but it's still not open source (yet).

Google’s New Tab Page, which got a revamp last month has a new competitor. Oh and it’s not Speed Dial 2 which we talked about earlier, it’s the upcoming New Tab Page for Firefox. For Firefox 11, Mozilla is planning to replace the time-honored blank page with a spiffy new New Tab page. Here are some early mockups of how the page might look when it’s done.

Given the rave reviews that Linux Mint has been getting recently, it would be perfectly understandable if the man driving the distribution was a little swollen-headed by this time.

Anaconda, the Fedora system installer, is probably the best installation program available on any Linux or BSD distribution, and the version that comes with Fedora 16, version 16.25, has a couple of visible enhancements that make it even better. One of those enhancements is support for GPT disk partitions. GPT, or GUID Partition Table, is an alternate partition scheme that eliminates the restrictions of the MBR or Master Boot Record partitioning scheme. With GPT, partitions sizes greater that 2 TB are possible, and more than four primary partitions can be created. Those are two major shortcomings of the MBR partitioning scheme. In Fedora 16, Anaconda defaults to GPT in standalone installations.

Slow and steady wins the race, small is beautiful, and sometimes the little guy wins. Here are four tales of small ventures that succeeded where the big money failed, or that focused on pockets of need that were overlooked.

A manufacturer of DSL routers has lost a case against a maker of web-filtering software in a Berlin court. The case revolved around the GNU General Public Licence.

In recent weeks there have been a lot of AMD Linux benchmarks of the latest-generation Bulldozer processor, namely the eight-core FX-8150. The latest unique look at the first-generation Bulldozer CPU under Linux is the KVM virtualization performance.

Barnes & Noble has done the world a tremendous favor, by pulling aside the curtain and revealing Microsoft's patent campaign tactics against Android in lurid detail. It reveals the assertion of "trivial" and "invalid" patents against Barnes & Noble and some shocking details about an "oppressive" license agreement that would have controlled hardware and software design features that Microsoft presented, thus limiting to what degree Barnes & Noble could offer upgrades and improved features to its customers if it had signed it, features it says none of Microsoft's patents cover. Microsoft worked so hard to keep it all secret, and I think you'll see why. It's ugly behind that curtain.

Firefox 8.0 has just been released and we will see how to install or upgrade to latest Firefox 8.0 in Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot below. Meanwhile, nightly builds of Firefox 10.0 is already available for installation in Ubuntu Oneiric via PPA. Firefox 10.0 Alpha 1, as expected, scores a perfect 100 in Acid 3 tests and is visibly more faster than its previous iterations.

After routing its RISC competitors, the x86 architecture is suddenly facing an unexpected and potent challenger: ARM -- What makes ARM attractive to vendors is its low energy consumption, simple RISC architecture, and large installed base. To truly challenge x86, the architecture must make the leap from the small devices it favors now to PCs and eventually servers.

Oracle is in an interesting position. It is now a supporter of both Linux and Unix with their own Oracle Enterprise Linux and Solaris Unix operating systems. This past week, Oracle released Solaris 11 their first official Unix release and it made me wonder if the new Solaris is changing Oracle's position on Linux.

The first Release Candidate (RC 1) for PHP 5.4 is now out, marking the end of the feature development phase of the next generation of PHP.

"Has Linux dropped off the face of the Earth?" The answer is obviously no. Linux is still around, stronger than ever, but the desktop OS does seem to be disappearing. Of course this is true of Windows and Mac OS, at least from the average user's perspective. Desktop Linux is strong with those who use it; those who have been using it, but the buzz seems to be gone.

A list of FLOSS for science related books released during the month of October 2011.

Red Hat proudly announced that the upcoming Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.2 operating system will fully support the power saving features of the AMD Bulldozer Opteron CPUs.

The ColorHug is a small device which can measure the displayed colors very accurately. It is extremey portable as you can plug it to the USB port of the computer and hold it against the display. The device will help you caliberate the colors of your screen, thus showing the 'true' colors of the objects that you see on your screen.

Shuttleworth's gamble is that users will change their minds as they gain familiarity, that Unity will gain traction as a universal interface, scalable across all devices, and that it will be as attractive to a certain class of user as Apple claims to be. Only time will tell whether Oneiric Ocelot, and the advent of Unity as the only choice for the Ubuntu desktop, marked the moment when Ubuntu began to scale the heights of universal acceptability, or fell back to earth with a bump.

Another dangerous bill is winding its way through Congress, this time it's the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) by Texas representative Lamar Smith. Smith's bill would establish a system for taking down Web sites that the Justice Department "determines to be dedicated to copyright infringement."