"Keith Curtis, an 11-year veteran of Microsoft, takes a programmer’s approach in “Software Wars,” attempting to systematically build a case that free software can help pave the way for a 21st-century renaissance in many fields ranging from artificial intelligence (cars that drive themselves) to the human journey into space (space elevators). For Mr.

GDM or GNOME Display Manager will easily allow anyone to fully customize the login screen theme without having to use the command line.There are tons of ready-made, user-submitted GDM themes available that we can just download and effortlessly install.

Oracle, maker of one of the largest proprietary database solutions, recently purchased Sun, who makes MySQL, a piece of open-source database software. Naturally, this sounds like trouble. One of the biggest database companies buys another of the largest?

Florian Effenberger is co-lead of the international OpenOffice.org marketing project. Our sister publication Linux-Community asked him how the deal between Sun and Oracle would affect OpenOffice.

Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope doesn't show the update icon in the system tray when there are updates available. This is because the update system was changed in Ubuntu Jaunty:

Some people fondly recall their first dance, some relish the memory of their first kiss, and a select few will never forget their first brush with Linux. What say *you*, dear readers? Got a Linux love story to share?

The question "Oracle good, or Oracle bad, for MySQL?" was generally met with a smile first, then a measured, thoughtful response on the final day of the MySQL Conference in Santa Clara. The responses were interesting, to say the least, ranging from an absolute "No way" to equally absolute "Yes, it will be great for MySQL," and lots of answers somewhere in between.