The first thing you need to do when you start considering small Linux distributions is decide what your priorities are - what do you need it for and what are you planning to do with it? There are a number of different small/mini/tiny/whatever distributions available, and each has its own special strengths. I have been looking at three of them

Linux users rejoice. It is now possible to watch the Barack Obama Official Inauguration live via video stream. Thanks to Moonlight, the open source implementation of Microsoft Silverlight, we will finally be able to see the much-awaited presidential inauguration from the comfort of our own Linux desktop.

OpenSUSE (in various forms) has been around for quite some time and has been quite popular with developers and business users. It currently holds Distrowatch's number 2 spot on the page hit ranking and has a thriving community of users.

The last few years have seen a tremendous growth in the number of BitTorrent users and the content that is available via BitTorrent. Nowadays it is no big deal if you can find a TV Show on BitTorrent before it has premiered on TV. The number of sites indexing and searching BitTorrent files have kept pace with this growth.

The ReactOS project has seen some major progress during 2008. The project, which aims to create a Windows NT-compatible operating system, has published a 'year-in-review' article concerning 2008, detailing the various area of work. It provides some interesting insights into the project's development.

I’m primarily a Linux user (mandriva on laptop and ubuntu on desktop) though I do have a Windows dual-boot option for those occasions that it’s necessary to use Windows. Not that I’ve ever actually found it necessary to use Windows yet - 99%+ of my time is spent using Linux. (At work though as with most companies, I use Windows XP and haven’t had any issues with it in a business context.)

For the next couple of Linux Monday posts, I'll be testing out my legacy Microsoft Office files in Open Office, Linux world's main alternative. This is, by necessity, a one-way test. Files in Microsoft Office formats (.doc, .xls, .ppt) can be opened in Open Office; the open source community recognizes the need.

Some time after Linux netbook started appearing, it became obvious that there was a problem. Every time a new manufacturer gets in to the business, they try to build a completely custom Linux system that is "easier." It is impressive the number of times this has been attempted and how many times it has horribly and completely failed at the goal of making things "easier."