These days everyone is looking for a bargain, and laptop manufacturers are eager to deliver. As you might expect, these cheaper netbooks often lack the performance and security features you'll find in higher-priced models. Fortunately, you can overcome many of these limitations – without spending an extra cent – by turning to open-source software.

I run across people that get confused as to what a GUI is. Of course a GUI stands for Graphical User Interface and can be applied several ways and methods, but I want to focus on 3 things for this post... The 3 I want to hit on are Xorg, Desktop Environment and Window Manager.

The natural extension of the “Etymology of a Distro” blog would be delving deeper into Open Source project’s etymologies. Indeed many readers already suggested that. Here are 20 Open Source applications and the interesting (and not so interesting) stories behind their names...

Quote: "are they distributing FAT kernel components under GPL while paying for Microsoft licenses for that technology?"

Although for some reasons, there has been no announcement so far as I know, PCLinuxOS 2009 had been released. I guess it's time for first impressions.

THE first real connection I made at an emotional level with a Linux distribution was with Zenwalk, back in its version 2.0 days, and it was that connection which persuaded me to make my first (modest) cash donation to an Open Source project.

Ahead of the first-ever Open Source Software (OSS) BarCamp event, which will take place on 28 March in Dublin, chief-organiser Laura Czajkowski has said that small-to-medium businesses have much to gain from open source, even if it is just to realise that there are alternatives out there.

One of the nagging problems for Linux is that the most popular laptops are still codesigned by Microsoft and its OEMs. It's not for nothing that laptops come with stickers on the bottom that say, “Windows Vista—Business OEM Software” or whatever. These are not white boxes. You can get Linux running on them, but the hermit crab approach isn't the swiftest route to market leadership.