In a no-nonsense presentation to New York financial analysts last Thursday, Microsoft's chief executive said the company's partnership with Novell, which it signed in November 2006, "demonstrated clearly the value of intellectual property, even in the open-source world.
The cross-selling partnership means that Microsoft will recommend Suse Linux for customers who want an environment mix of Microsoft and open-source software. It also involves a "patent cooperation agreement," under which Microsoft and Novell agreed not to sue each other for patent infringement. News.com has more.

OpenOffice.org is the open source project through which Sun Microsystems is releasing the technology for the popular StarOffice productivity suite. It is an international office suite that will run on all major platforms and provide access to all functionality and data through open-component based APIs and an XML-based file format. It establishes the necessary facilities to make this open source technology available to the developer community.

openSUSE 10.3 Alpha1 has been released:

"Since the openSUSE 10.2 final release, the most significant changes are:

* GNOME is moved to /usr. Please do test especially updates from older distributions.
* KDE updated to KDE 3.5.6.
* Linux Kernel updated to 2.6.20. There's no Xen support enabled for now.
* Pattern for minimal text install (see the opensuse-factory thread for details)
* Update of OpenOffice.org to version 2.1.3.
* The whole distribution is build now with -fstack-protector to better guard against some buffer overflows.
* Usage of LUKS by default for crypto partitions in YaST. Both GNOME and KDE handle removable LUKS media now."

Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring Beta1 has been released:

"This beta version is available in several format:
you can download installation ISOs on the public FTP and HTTP sites mirroring the Mandriva Linux repository. Check the list of current development mirrors on CookerMirrors. The 2007 Spring Beta tree is in /devel/2007.1/
you can also download live ISOs on the same FTP/HTTP mirrors (see CookerMirrors). *this is the recommended way to test* Mandriva Linux. Live CDs are quick to download and you can install also them on your hard drive"

LinuxCompatible

As luck would have it, GetDeb.net is back at work after the holidays, and while browsing their latest package additions, I happened upon an update to one of my all time favorite Linux games - SuperTux. For the uninformed, SuperTux is a fantastic 2D video game that was made available for all the popular distributions; in addition, to a number of other platforms including desktop and mobile. SuperTux is easy to install and provides countless hours of entertainment. Based on the Mario Brothers series from Nintendo, SuperTux is an example of cross platform game creation with the user in mind.

Fedora 7 Test 1 has been released:

"Just a quick blurb. Fedora 7 Test 1 has been released today. For this particular release, we only did a Desktop spin of the package collection. We are still fine tuning targetted spins of the collection as part of the merger of Core and Extras. We also produced a LiveCD that has the ability to install to your harddrive should you wish. "

LinuxCompatible

Sometimes when I have a few minutes to spare, I enjoy running stats with Google Trends. During one of my random searches, I came across something that really stood out to me. It was a quote by Larry McVoy of BitMover and an ongoing collaborator with Linus Torvalds, the person behind the Linux operating system.

It's maddening. For someone who is trying make a daily use of what is to be considered a beginner friendly distribution for the first time, most options leave a lot to be desired for the uninitiated. More often than not, new Linux users find that everything works great at first only to discover that setting up something as common as a dual-head monitor configuration requires editing your xorg.conf file. If you are coming from a non-Linux environment, this can be a fairly frightening proposition.

GNOME 2.16.3 has been released:

The latest stable release of GNOME is here: GNOME 2.16.3! This is the final release in a series of point releases for the 2.16 branch.

Come and see all the bug fixing, all the new translations and all the updated documentations brought to you by the wonderful team of GNOME contributors! While development continues on the GNOME 2.17/2.18 road, we didn't forget about making a new release that is rock solid. And simply better than the previous one.

LinuxCompatible

GNOME 2.17.90 Development Release is now available:

Yet another GNOME release is now available. This is our sixth development release on our road towards GNOME 2.18.0, which will be released in March 2007. I guess you could say GNOME is marching forward. You know what I mean, say no more, say no more!

This release marks the start of the UI Freeze. If you break the freeze your picture will be added to the HIG under the heading "Banned for Life" and will have to live with the stigma of causing the "worst freeze ever".


GNOME 2.17.90

GARNOME 2.17.90

There is no question about it, Linux and tax software have not been the best fit over the years. As expected, the usual excuses were being used: there are not enough Linux users to warrant a Linux version, or if people want, there is always the online options made readily available to those who chose not to.

Damn Small Linux 3.2 has been released:

DSL is a very versatile 50MB mini desktop oriented Linux distribution.

Damn Small is small enough and smart enough to do the following things:
Boot from a business card CD as a live linux distribution (LiveCD)
Boot from a USB pen drive
Boot from within a host operating system (that's right, it can run *inside* Windows)
Run very nicely from an IDE Compact Flash drive via a method we call "frugal install"
Transform into a Debian OS with a traditional hard drive install
Run light enough to power a 486DX with 16MB of Ram
Run fully in RAM with as little as 128MB (you will be amazed at how fast your computer can be!)
Modularly grow -- DSL is highly extendable without the need to customize

Full announcement:
LinuxCompatible

A Windows based installer for Ubuntu Linux is now available:

We have a development version of a Windows based installer for Ubuntu which is designed to be:
very simple to use
provide a no-risk installation
no repartitioning the hard disk
no changing the windows boot loader
Easy uninstallation.
Low risk
Doesn't use a virtual machine
Doesn't significantly reduce performance of the resulting installation
Resulting installation supports everything a normal install does.
Fast install

Full announcement:
LinuxCompatible

Once considered to be way too complicated for the newer Linux user, HDTV on a 'Nix box often times felt just out of reach for many. Then we found that hardware designed for Linux specifically was in the works. The card is known simply as the HD-5500.

Giving desktop Linux a larger market share? To be honest, this can be a touchy subject for me, personally. Much of the reasoning behind my "rough feelings" on the matter stem from the fact that I disagree with much of the Linux and Microsoft camps in general. That's right, I think that large numbers from both groups are wrong, and it's because of this that each OS is experiencing so much trouble now in the press.

Ubuntu 7.04 Herd 2 has been released:

"Welcome to Feisty Fawn Herd 2, which will in time become Ubuntu 7.04.

Pre-releases of Feisty are *not* encouraged for anyone needing a stable system, or anyone who is not comfortable running into occasional, even frequent breakage. They are however recommended for Ubuntu developers and those who want to help in testing, reporting, and fixing bugs. Installing a milestone and then upgrading through the release cycle should leave you with a close approximation of the final release."

LinuxCompatible

With the great deal of articles that we publish in regards to NVIDIA and ATI display drivers, it is very evident that at this time NVIDIA has the lead when it comes to the frame-rate performance -- with their Linux drivers performing nearly the same as their Windows ForceWare counterpart.

This alpha version is available via two means. Firstly via the public FTP and HTTP sites mirroring the Mandriva Linux repository. Check the current development mirrors at CookerMirrors, the 2007 Spring Beta tree is in /devel/2007.1/. Second, the preferred way, via either the provided One CDs (installable live CDs), or the intallation mini CD i586 and x86_64. You will find the live CDs and the installation CD in the same mirrors as the cooker one, in the /devel/iso/2007.1/ section.

Ok so earlier on we reported on how a masked stranger claimed he has hacked the Xbox 360 to run Linux and homebrew.

Seems there's a flavor of Linux out there for every subgroup of individuals you can imagine. With Christmas upon us, we decided to take a look at this specialized distro. What makes a Linux distribution Christian, anyway?

ExtremeTech