In its "Windows 7 Sins" campaign, the Free Software Foundation has labeled Windows 7 as "treacherous computing," and accuses Microsoft of such acts as "poisoning education." But Apple is arguably even more closed than Microsoft, yet always gets a free ride from vociferous open source proponents. Can anyone explain this hypocrisy?

After several unofficial leaks, Nokia on Thursday officially unveiled the N900, the company's first Linux phone. It's a good first step to rejuvenate Nokia's smartphone line, but will the N900 have what it takes to go head-to-head with the iPhone and Android Phones?

Wireless on Linux is a perennial embarrassment.  Although the situation has improved immensely since a few years ago, the inability to get wireless cards working acceptably often tops the list of user frustrations. Here's an outline of what's wrong with Ubuntu's approach to wireless drivers, and how to fix it.

Quoting things in bash is quite simple... until it isn't. I've written scripts where I'd swear 90% of the effort was getting bash to quote things correctly.

To hear some tell it, SCO has emerged triumphant, Novell is vanquished, darkness shall reign in the whole of the land, and male pattern baldness will engulf us all.

I must confess to a good bit of laziness with some of my rants. For Linux Mint, I went whole hog and installed it on the laptop in a spare partition.

Part 2 of this 2 part feature takes a look at alternative audio, video, burning and encryption applications and much more.

xTuple to hold free, educational open source summit - attendees to learn how to profit from free open source software.