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With the release of Ubuntu Hardy Heron now behind us, most eyes are turned to October when Intrepid Ibex, or Ubuntu Linux 8.10, will make its debut. While Hardy Heron was designed to be stable enough to be a long-term support release, Intrepid Ibex promises to be packed with more exciting features, something that Ubuntu fans always enjoy.

It's a bit surreal to watch ibm come off as the plucky, self-deprecating maverick. That was the specter May 1 as CEO Sam Palmisano took the stage in Los Angeles with Google chief Eric Schmidt, both their heads squarely in the cloud.

Since I’ve been writing this blog and collecting tutorials, I’ve tried to keep a focus on security and privacy. In light of your computer rights at boarder security, the House Passing the Pro-IP act, malicious script kiddies and crackers in this world, and if it’s a business machine, also worrying about your competition, there are a lot of people in this world that want to know what you’re doing on your computer and online, legally and illegally. I’m not going to go through any actual tutorial here as most of everything I wish to explain I’ve covered, but tutorials will be linked. I just think step by step we should approach security in Linux.

Oracle’s Unbreakable Linux is something of an odd-duck in Linux distribution circles. While Oracle, the database giant, produces it, under the Oracle paint job it’s all RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux). In addition, while Oracle stands behind its distribution with support, Oracle doesn’t think of itself as being in the Linux distribution business. What does it all mean and why does Oracle have one foot in the Linux business? For the answers to these and other questions, Edward Screven, Oracle’s Chief Corporate Architect, recently spoke with Jim Zemlin, head of the Linux Foundation.

Apple may open up its iPhone and iPod touch devices to third-party apps next month, but the chances that Linux users will get invited to the party are slim at best. That hasn't stopped some intrepid hackers from coming up with a better music-syncing solution than the one Mac and Windows users have—a two-way wireless transfer, from almost any music organizing app you like, no wait for iTunes or USB cable required. Linux users, let's take a look at how to set up your iPhone or iPod touch for any-time wireless access after the jump.

Sometimes, no matter how much you try to protect your computer, you need to get down and dirty with the hardware. Sometimes it's the obvious. I never cease to be amazed at how many PC problems turn out to be loose cables or -- the shame of it all! -- an unplugged electrical cord. But, other times, it will be you vs. your PC's internal workings in a battle for system superiority.

Zaragoza, Spain-based Libelium announced an x86-based multi-protocol mesh router with a Debian GNU/Linux-based OS and a user-extensible browser-based open source management interface. The modular "Meshlium" router targets ultra-long-range Zigbee-based sensor networks, fleet tracking with least-cost GPRS/WiFi routing, and multiprotocol WiFi/Bluetooth hotspots.

Microsoft is launching a program to promote the use of its Windows OS in ultra low-cost PCs, one effect of which will be to limit the hardware capabilities of this type of device, IDG News Service has learned. Microsoft plans to offer PC makers steep discounts on Windows XP Home Edition to encourage them to use that OS instead of Linux on ultra low-cost PCs (ULPCs). To be eligible, however, the PC vendors that make ULPCs must limit screen sizes to 10.2 inches and hard drives to 80G bytes, and they cannot offer touch-screen PCs.

I have to disclose that I have never been a real fan of Ubuntu. I've tried it about every release and had more than my share of issues with it. Ubuntu 8.04 was released last month, and the first reviews mostly spoke of how nice this version was, so I downloaded the i386 version to test. Sigh -- it's rough when you have to change a long-standing opinion.

While some people will want to use the ASUS Eee PC for work, a little entertainment never hurts, and that includes games. These tips are designed for people new to Linux, with Xandros the default operating system found on many 2 GB and 4 GB models. Read on for how to add games to the ASUS Eee PC.

Man pages are excellent resources for learning the specifics of a Linux command. After all, who can remember all the nitty gritty of a command? One annoyance of reading man pages on some Linux distributions is that after you quit reading it, the contents are cleared off screen. The man page contents simply don't stay around after you quit man. If that happens to you, it means that the default pager for viewing man pages is the less command.

What's the next best thing for Linux users who can't attend an open source community conference in person? Online workshops like last week's Ubuntu Open Week, where upwards of 300 participants per session showed up to learn more about the popular Linux distribution, the community, and its teams. Organizers presented more than 40 events in a dedicated IRC channel over the course of six days. Session leaders spoke to the group in the "Ubuntu classroom" while a second channel was devoted to collecting questions from the group. This kept the learning channel free of chatter and allowed the speaker to proceed without interruption.

Todd Fast, chief architect in Sun Microsystems' Java Enterprise tools group, took a big gulp of Web 2.0 Kool-Aid at JavaOne while telling professional developers they must embrace a broader definition of "application" if they are to take advantage of the current sea change in the way software is built and delivered. Fast told a packed session - Applications for the masses by the masses: why engineers are an endangered species - the application development model is changing, opening up to a broader audience, thanks to new tools and platforms that support non-engineers, or "casual developers."

For a lot of programmers, writing an application is fun, but writing its manual is not. Adding new features, refining the product, and responding to users' input are all more rewarding than writing instructions on how to use the software. However, good documentation is necessary to have happy, informed users who can contribute meaningfully to future development. A few months ago, Gilbert Ashley, the author of src2pkg (Slackware's "magic package maker") invited me and two other people to help him manage the user documentation for his program. The process we used to create the src2pkg wiki may be a useful example for other free and open source software (FOSS) application developers.

A new release of Sun's xVM VirtualBox provides Macintosh users with a fresh virtual machine option, and delivers improvements for other host operating systems. Available for various Linux distributions including Debian, Red Hat, SUSE and Ubuntu as well as Solaris, Mac OS X on Intel and Windows, xVM VirtualBox allows "practically any x86 based OS" to run as a guest. The main exception is Mac OS X, but Apple's licence only permits Mac OS X Server to be used as a guest operating system (not the regular desktop version), and even then only when the host operating system is Mac OS X Server and the hardware is Apple-labeled.

Sun Microsystems has backtracked on previous plans to release important backup features for its MySQL database under a proprietary license, following widespread criticism from the open source community. "MySQL Server is and will always remain fully functional and open source," said Kaj Arno, MySQL's vice president of community relations, in a statement released on his Web site on Wednedsday. "So will the MySQL Connectors, and so will the main storage engines we ship."

The company Los Alamos Computers is now offering systems preinstalled with gNewSense, the fully free GNU/Linux operating system distribution. We often get asked where people can buy complete systems with GNU/Linux preinstalled on them. People want to avoid paying the Microsoft tax, but they do want the convenience of their operating system already being installed and working with all the hardware they're paying for. While large vendors like Dell and Lenovo have made commendable steps toward offering systems preinstalled with GNU/Linux, they have stopped short of offering fully free distributions as an option.

In this video an Italian TV program, NeaPòlis, talks about ubuntu as a very stable, high performance and easy to install operative system.

[I normally don't post links to videos but I thought this one worth it because of it being on mainstream Italian Television. - Scott]

This paper surveys Linux's suitability for use by owners of very small businesses and the self-employed. It was written by Howard Fosdick, a self-employed database consultant who finds Linux fairly well-suited to his needs, and reckons it has saved him thousands of dollars in recent years.

I'm out at JavaOne in San Francisco this week and one discussion I've heard popping up with some regularity is, "Do we need to do something to protect open source in a cloud computing world?" I've written about aspects of this topic at length previously. However, given that this is an area that is buzzing up a bit, I thought it would be useful to boil down the key issues and give my personal take.