Adobe is joining the Linux Foundation as part of an effort to show its commitment to Linux. Adobe is also now making its AIR platform available for Linux -- as an Alpha. Finally there is also an update to the alpha version of Adobe Flex Builder 3 for Linux.

Yesterday, Adobe released an alpha version of Flash Player plug-in version 10 for x86_64 architecture. This is a prerelease version of the Adobe® Flash® Player 10 software 64-bit Linux platforms. It is being made available for developers and consumers to test their content to ensure new features function as expected, existing content plays back correctly, and there are no compatibility issues.

I recently suggested that, given Apple and Adobe's growing war over iPad and iPhone applications, it would make sense for Adobe to move not only its end-user applications, but its Creative Suite development stack, to Linux. While I don't know if Adobe is considering it, Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu Linux, would welcome Adobe.

Adobe Systems on Monday is expected to release an alpha version of AIR on Linux and announce that it is joining the Linux Foundation.

Adobe hasn't officially ported Adobe AIR to Linux yet, but Ubuntu Unleashed figured out that you can install AIR using the WINE windows emulation layer for Linux. Installation isn't exactly painless, and when all is said and done, there are a bunch of AIR applications that won't run. But some will.

The Ubuntu development community announced today the availability of Ubuntu 10.04 alpha 2, a new prerelease of the next major version of the Ubuntu Linux distribution. This alpha is the first Ubuntu release to completely omit HAL, a Linux hardware abstraction layer that is being deprecated in favor of DeviceKit.

Jesse Keating has announced the availability of Fedora 9 Alpha, the first development release of Fedora 9.The Alpha release provides the first opportunity for the wider community to become involved with the testing of Rawhide

Today Adobe announced a series of changes to its emerging web applications platform. The changes include:

--The next version of the mobile Flash runtime will be free of license fees. Adobe also confirmed that the mobile version of the Air runtime will be free.

The KDE development community announced yesterday the first KDE 4.1 alpha release. Although the alpha has a lot of bugs and rough edges, it gives users a very promising first look at the KDE 4.1 feature set. Ars Technica tested KDE 4.1 by installing it from Stephan Binner's openSUSE LiveCD, which is available for download from his web site.