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LibreOffice is already my default office suite in Ubuntu though there is not much of a difference between OpenOffice and LibreOffice for now. But things are moving fast and LibreOffice is going to have its first official release soon. Meanwhile, you might want to remove all traces of OpenOffice and install LibreOffice in Ubuntu for a change. Trust me, it feels good.

Virtualbox 4.0.2 is released, this is an update release that comes with some bug fix and improvements.

On January 18th, Oracle updated its popular and powerful VirtualBox virtualization software to version 4.0.2. This new maintenance release brings lots of stability improvements and many bugfixes over previous versions.

Google's Android mobile phone operating system was one of the winners of 2010, booming in popularity to become the second most popular smartphone OS by the end of the year. Now in 2011 it looks that Google is setting its sights firmly on the tablet market.

Seems odd that Microsoft would releases a framework for creating web sites using open source tools. While it's clear such a move could benefit Microsoft by attracting users it might not otherwise find, it's not clear what's in it for users.

Developing applications for the Linux desktop typically requires some type of graphical user interface (GUI) framework to build on. Options include GTK+ for the GNOME desktop and Qt for the K Desktop Environment (KDE). Both platforms offer everything a developer needs to build a GUI application, including libraries and layout tools to create the windows users see. This article shows you how to build desktop productivity applications based on the screenlets widget toolkit.

LibreOffice 3.3 is almost here. The third release candidate came out on Thursday, January 13 and looks to be very near complete. It’s not a major upgrade over OpenOffice.org 3.2, but should put the project on solid footing going forward. The list of show stoppers for 3.3 is just about cleared out. If 3.3 doesn’t turn up new blockers, it looks like we’ll have a final release that looks very much like the RC3.

Xfce is a wonderful mid-sized desktop environment for those that want some customization without excessive system overhead. Xfce began life in 1996 as a simple clone of CDE, but has since progressed along side contemporaries such as KDE and GNOME. Some might even think of Xfce as a compromise between the highly customizable KDE and the higher performing GNOME. It was very popular in lighter Linux distributions for a time, and is still commonly included as an alternative choice. For a while an easy one- (or two-) click installer was available that downloaded the individual packages, compiled them, and installed Xfce for you. But no more. Today the developers released version 4.8 with some new goodies and a bit of an updated look, but with no convenient installer.

You can do a lot with free open-source software, also known as FOSS. Musicians with a yen for Linux are in luck; the array of choices for creating, editing, producing, and publishing music using nothing but FOSS software is staggering.

HP may be prepping a netbook using its Linux-based WebOS operating system, says an industry report. The computer giant is expected to announce a WebOS tablet and a smartphone successor to its Palm Pre 2 at a Feb. 9 event, yet the company will face stiff competition in both markets.

Acer is expected to release two to three Android-based tablets running Intel's & Sandy Bridge& Core processors, and will start to back out of the netbook business, says an industry report. At CES, Acer announced ARM Cortex-A9 based Iconia Tab A500 Android tablet for Verizon's 4G LTE network.

ACLs provide better options for various users or groups to the same file or directory in Linux. ACLs are becoming a standard feature of many of the server installs.

Mark Shuttleworth has announced today on his blog that as part of Ubuntu 11.10 they are looking at expanding their support for the Qt tool-kit. They are looking at now including the Qt libraries as part of their default Ubuntu installation and to include worth while Qt applications.

Security fail: When trusted IT people go bad has a great title. Then it's all downhill. I suppose it's appropriate for an audience of managers who want cheerleading for bad management more than good information. It starts off with a tale of ultimate horror: not only is your trusted systems administrator selling you pirated software and incurring the wrath of the BSA (Business Software Alliance), he is running a giant porn server from the company network and stealing customer credit card numbers.

Elementary Studio GTK theme is a nice and impressive fusion of DanRabbit's Elementary GTK theme and beautiful dark Ubuntu Studio default theme. Elementary theme is supposed to be the default theme for upcoming Elementary OS codenamed "Jupiter".

If you’re looking for an original take on small-form-factor open source computing then you’ve come to the right place…

Oracle-owned OpenOffice.org and independent LibreOffice are both nearing their freely available 3.3.0 versions and show their wares with recent release candidates. Commercial OpenOffice.org 3.3 was released by Oracle last month at a licensing fee starting at $49.95 for the Standard Edition, but has yet to release the freely downloadable version for home and small business use. That version has reached RC9, which is said to probably be the last development release before final. On the other side of town, LibreOffice has been releasing development versions as well with the latest being RC3 on January 13, which is rumored to be its last before final as well. LibreOffice has gained popular support probably primarily due to breaking from Oracle control and ownership while offering largely equal functionality.

One of the reasons that I regard the rise of WikiLeaks as such a key event is that it is throwing an interesting light on so many areas – many of them unexpected. That includes the ethics of hackers and the world of open source.

Steven Shiau announced earlier today, January 18th, the immediate availability of a new stable release of his system-cloning Linux distribution, Clonezilla Live 1.2.6-59.

Awk has always been for me a source of great hatred and love, its an incredibly powerful command with which it is possible to build real programs. In this article I will give you 6 examples ready for use with your preferred terminal. Awk is a data driven programming language designed for processing text-based data, either in files or data streams. It is an example of a programming language that extensively uses the string datatype, associative arrays (that is, arrays indexed by key strings), and regular expressions.