Free and open source software is all about sharing so, prompted by a reader who emailed me last week to ask about books on Linux, I spent some time over the weekend doing research. The result is a short list of books that users - from newbies to gurus - can download and read at their leisure.

Microsoft might be betting big on Windows 7, the next version of its flagship operating system, but to Ubuntu Linux founder Mark Shuttleworth, the upcoming release is really an opportunity for Linux to shine.

Two notices of dismissal have been filed with the courts -- Microsoft's in Washington State, and TomTom's in Virginia, each dismissed without prejudice, ending both patent litigations. "Without prejudice" means that either could ramp it up and do this some more in the future, should circumstances arise that made it necessary. But in most cases, it means the litigation, or whatever, is over.

One of the most epic free open-source first person shooters has just released it's latest version with over 3000 changes to both the code and the artwork. It's truly impressive how far the game has come and with these new changes, the sky is the limit! Nexuiz is a very community driven game that runs on Windows, OSX and Linux. Check it out!

After spending years on Redhat/CentOS versions of Linux which use runlevel 3 for text mode and runlevel 5 for graphical mode, and then after spending several years with Ubuntu which is moving away from runlevels and using Upstart, I was somewhat surprised with Debian Lenny which uses runlevels 2-5 as the same runlevel.

I read a Newsweek* article titled, Stop Saving Now!, a cover story that actually encourages you, the consumer, to stop being so darn frugal and spend some money.

Compiz 0.9.x started in december when onestone announced his core rewrite on the mailing list. Currently, we are in the process of porting plugins to the 0.9.x branch.