The six month update cycles of major Linux distributions guarantees that there will be plenty of fresh releases for every spring and fall. At the end of 2007 we ranked the best distributions of the year, but as most distros have been refreshed since it is time to have another look at the current Linux offering.

"The Apache Software Foundation and the Apache HTTP Server Project are pleased to announce the release of version 2.2.9 of the Apache HTTP Server ("Apache")..."

A lot of people tend to shy away at the mention of even the word Linux, myself included. Being raised on a Windows machine, and pampered by an easy visual interface, I was nervous about trying out something that used so much of the command line. I like clicking, scrolling, and buttons that flash. Using a command line made me nervous.

Verizon last month joined the LiMo Foundation, an organization that advocates for open mobile phone handset technology using Mobile Linux. As a core member of LiMo, Verizon hopes to lower the development costs of mobile phone designs across the industry.

Of all the community distributions, probably the least known is openSUSE. After two and a half years, the distro is not only still working out details about how its community operates -- including how its governing board is elected -- but also struggling to come out of the shadow of its corporate parent Novell, much as Fedora has emerged from its initial dominance by Red Hat.

GNOME Do (Do) is an intelligent launcher tool that makes performing common tasks on your computer simple and efficient. Do not only allows you to search for items in your desktop environment (e.g. applications, contacts, bookmarks, files, music), it also allows you to specify actions to perform on search results (e.g. run, open, email, chat, play). Want to send an email to mom?

This weekend, the One Laptop per Child movement in New York City is holding an OLPC "Grassroots Jam" at the Manhattan Neighborhood Network. The Jam is a gathering of volunteer educators, content creators, artists, writers, programmers, engineers, and others who want to help create a central server for NYC schools that already make use of OLPC laptops.