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Right now I'm facing what I'd consider the most outrageous case that I've been involved so far: A manufacturer of Linux-based embedded devices (no, I will not name the company) really has the guts to go in front of court and sue another company for modifying the firmware on those devices. More specifically, the only modifications to program code are on the GPL licensed parts of the software. None of the proprietary userspace programs are touched! None of the proprietary programs are ever distributed either.

Every Linux distribution has to strike a balance between being up to date and being stable, between including the latest versions of software packages and retaining better tested, more mature versions. Fedora, for example, is known for having the very latest software, whilst Debian GNU/Linux has a reputation for being a particularly stable distribution, with the software included in each new release already well cured.

We've talked a little bit before about ways to bring your new Linux users along so that their migration experience is positive. Here are a few more tips to help make the switch to Linux a pain-free experience for you and for them.

Linux may have started out small, but it’s grown by leaps and bounds. Today, Linux can be found on everything from a home wireless router to the gigantic mainframe in the data center. Although the spirit of openness surrounds Linux, thanks in part to the GPL, distinct communities have sprung up to support the different environments, each with a slightly different take on what it means to be in the Linux community.

LXer Feature: 05-Sept-2010

There is nothing quite like a good conversation and we have a plethora of articles that started many a good one in our forums this past week including Abiword has smart quotes, what technology has Microsoft ever been the first to market with? Another "There are too many Linux's" article and look out, your Linux system fell down and it can't get up. Enjoy!

We had a visit from a vendor the other day, one who sells high end Unix hardware. The meeting was informative, and overall went well. While I was walking the vendor out of the building, he turned to me and told me how learning his version of Unix would really help me as I matured in my profession. He continued to say how any company who needed a Linux admin could just grab a kid right out of college, because, according to him, it was no big deal. I understand his position as a vendor, and wanting to push his proprietary software. I also understand that he’s right that learning new things is good for any career, but he’s completely wrong on his perception of Linux.

Martin Gräßlin, the KDE developer known for working on KWin and working on advanced features like OpenGL 3.x compositing in KDE 4.7, has written a new blog post in which he details some of the driver issues currently being experienced by some users of the recently released KDE 4.5 desktop.

A few days ago Unigine Corp announced OilRush, their first in-house game that's coming from the creators of one of the most advanced multi-platform engines. Unigine developers are also fond of Linux and properly support it with the OilRush game receiving the same level of support and there will be a Linux client on launch-day.

Many have already opined about the Oracle v. Google lawsuit filed last week. As you might expect, I'm not that worried about what company sues what company for some heap of cash; those sort of for-profit wranglings just aren't what concerns me. Rather, I'm focused on what this event means for the future of software freedom. And, I think even at this early stage of the lawsuit, there are already a few lessons for the Free Software community to learn.

The Ubuntu team announced the beta release of Ubuntu 10.10 ("Maverick Meerkat"). Ubuntu 10.10 features Linux 2.6.35, GNOME 2.31, and Evolution 2.30.2, while updating the Software Center UI, adding a new sound app, enhancing Ubuntu One, and revamping Ubuntu Netbook Edition with Canonical's "Unity" UI stack.

The annual Ohio LinuxFest is a genuine grass-roots community event. It is one of the most fun and most worthwhile Linux fests, and one of the most welcoming-- everyone from brand-new Linux users, people curious about Linux, to wizened gurus and everyone in between are welcome.

Clonezilla is a bootable CDROM designed for partition backup and restoration. Unlike SystemRescueCD, Clonezilla Live doesn't contain an array of utilities, rather it is a single, focused tool. However, if you're interested in simply backing up or restoring whole partitions to or from files, or copying one partition onto another, Clonezilla might be just what you're looking for.

A month ago we reported that the Amnesia game was getting ready for a Linux release and now the Swedish developers behind this game, known properly as "Amnesia: The Dark Descent" have released a demo of the game. Frictional Games has released this demo for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X gamers.

Samsung Electronics announced its much-anticipated Android consumer tablet, due to ship in Europe in mid-September. The Samsung Galaxy Tab runs Android 2.2 on a 1GHz Cortex-A8 processor, and offers a seven-inch, 1024 x 600 capacitive touchscreen, a three-megapixel camera, a front-facing videocam, 802.11n, GPS, Bluetooth 3.0, and 3G with voice telephony, says the company.

As MP3 players and mobile devices become very common, more and more people are beginning to convert their audio CD collection to music files so they will listen to them while on the move. In Windows and Mac, the conversion can be done automatically with Windows Media Player or iTunes. What about Linux? Let’s take a look.

early four years after its launch, hackers have finally succeeded in jailbreaking the Playstation 3 (PS3) game console and circumventing its copy protection system. Just days after Sony obtained an injunction preventing the sale of a USB dongle for jailbreaking the PS3, hackers have now published source code under the name "PSGroove". This apparently allows a programmable USB development board with an AT90USB microcontroller to be used to circumvent the PS3's security systems and execute unsigned code. In contrast to the PS3 jailbreak, currently PSGroove can't be used to illegally copy PS3 games.

Nagios sent me a reminder yesterday, which I finally got around to reading today, to update to the latest version of Nagios Core, 3.2.2. We were running 3.2.0, so we were a couple versions behind, so after browsing through the list of fixed bugs I thought it would be good to go ahead and upgrade. I had a meeting in fifteen minutes, and Nagios was actively monitoring servers in production. I considered for a moment waiting till after the meeting. After all, what if something went wrong during the upgrade, what if there was some unforeseen problem that caused disastrous results and caused me to miss the meeting? And then I remembered, this is Nagios. I did the upgrade, and made the meeting in time to get a cup of coffee on the way. This is how upgrades should work for everything.

As you might know Medfloss.org (formerly medfoss.apfelkraut.org) tries to provide a comprehensive and structured overview of Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) projects for the health care domain. After the initial launch 6 months ago it recently welcomed the 200th project in its repository: the GPL-licensed iDART software - iDART is the abbreviation of "Intelligent Dispensing of Antiretroviral Treatment" and according to its authors addresses many of the challenges faced by public ART dispensing pharmacies in developing countries.

Your editor was recently amused to encounter this ZDNet article on "Android's dirty little secret." According to that article, the openness of Android has led to an increase in the control held by handset manufacturers and wireless carriers and the fragmentation of the platform. The Open Handset Alliance is in a "shambles," and Android phones have undone all the gains won by that great standard bearer for openness and freedom - the iPhone. One might easily conclude that Android is just business as usual for the mobile telephony industry, but there are a few things worth contemplating here.

Many of the facts about Samsung's Galaxy Tab Android tablet were already available before IFA, but today's presentation at the consumer electronics fair in Berlin did offer a further few surprises: The 7 inch device includes a fully functional mobile phone and could, therefore, also be regarded as a giant smartphone. This also means that it meets the access criteria Google has stipulated for the Android Market – and that users can conveniently tap into a vast selection of apps, which is not the case with most of the other Android tablets currently available.