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The Fedora 23 Sugar on a Stick desktop offering is an unusually flexible computing desktop for children of all ages, school admins, and organizations looking for the best bang for absolutely no bucks on existing computer hardware.

SoftMaker's FreeOffice Linux office suite is a LibreOffice look-alike that provides strong performance compatibility with Microsoft Office documents. SoftMaker offers a line of open source offerings that compete with its commercial flagship office suite, SoftMaker Office 2016. It's a Windows/Linux c...

If you want an effective and different approach to computer platform security, turn to the Qubes OS. Be prepared to adjust your expectations and your computing comfort zone, however. The Qubes OS does not work the way other Linux distros work in adding extra layers of security. It is based on the Fe...

If you're looking for a quick, clean and classy Linux distro, look no further than the Apricity OS beta. Either of the two available flavors -- GNOME or Cinnamon -- is sure to give you a pleasant computing experience. Apricity OS is an Arch Linux variant with rolling releases. The latest beta versio...

The latest release of the Linux distro now called "Depth OS" deserves serious consideration. It is fast, reliable and innovative, with an impressive homegrown desktop design dubbed "Deepin Desktop Environment." Depth OS has a bit of an identity problem. It's not well known outside Asia and Europe, b...

GALPon MiniNo is one of the strangest and most distinctive Linux distros to grace the Linux Picks and Pans computer screens. Those two traits make it an almost ideal option for anyone looking for a reliable operating system for youngsters and educational facilities that cater to early education stud...

MuseScore is a complete tool to help musicians and songwriters write musical scores, play them back and print the sheet music. It is available in a variety of Linux distro packages and comes in versions for Windows and OS X 10.7 or higher. It is fully open source software licensed under GNU GPL. The...

Robolinux Mate Raptor v8.1 is a stunningly gorgeous and well-tuned operating system that soars with unmatched functionality. This release of the Robolinux distro line runs the newest iteration of the Gnome 2 fork desktop Mate. It is fast and slick. The integration of Mate as a modern desktop envir...

The Raspberry Pi Foundation on Tuesday announced the availability of a touchscreen that brings the low-cost tiny computer one step closer to becoming a standalone mobile device. The touchscreen was in development for nearly two years. The first round of screens will require some assembly of parts th...

MyNotex is one application I keep revisiting for my note-taking and project management tasks. Italian Developer Massimo Nardello releases one major update per year. MyNotex keeps getting better and better. Version 1.3.1, was released in June. Nardello took what was a near-perfect locally stored note...

Bodhi Linux 3.0.0 RC3's implementation of the Enlightenment desktop, makes an awesome desktop computing platform for office or home. Bodhi is one of only a handful of Linux distros embracing the Enlightenment environment. Its developers call Bodhi the Enlightened Linux Distribution. Beware ...

I am always interested in new desktop approaches. That's what drew my attention to Evolve OS. Normally, infant releases are too undeveloped to be the focus of a bona fide software review. This is not a criticism, but a reality of the work-in-progress nature of developing an OS. Evolve OS Beta has tw...

Samsung announced at last week's International CES a new line of smart TVs powered by the open source Tizen operating system. Beginning with this year's models, all of Samsung's smart TVs will run on Tizen. Samsung has taken the lead in developing Tizen, which is a derivative of Linux, and this is i...

The amount of open source software used by the U.S. government might well be one of the biggest secrets in Washington. Not even purveyors of FOSS, as in free and open source software, know the extent of federal agency adoption of nonproprietary software. Some in the Beltway Loop contend that open so...

Black Lab Linux is a general purpose free distribution for home users and SMBs. This particular segment of the Linux OS tries to bridge free OS and preconfigured commercial hardware/software with a flexible set of options. Black Lab Linux is an outgrowth of OS4 OpenLinux, a distro released in 2008 b...

Scribbleton is a very infant -- as in alpha -- release of an innovative note-taking app for Linux that provides cross-platform access with Windows and Apple computers. It creates a personal wiki for storing everything from quick notes to detailed checklists to outlines. It creates links between page...

The Pale Moon Web browser project gets rid of a problem that many Mozilla Firefox users would like to solve. The Pale Moon browser is a fork of Mozilla's official browser developed by Moonchild Productions. It provides users with access to all of their favorite Firefox extensions but eliminates the ...

Peach OSI is a new Linux distro that stands apart from the crowd. Its first stable version was just released in June -- yet it displays more performance traits and sophistication than many Linux distros that have been searching for an audience for years. In the crowded Linux distro field, it is very...

The connected car is a battlefield among technology purveyors fighting to get their hardware plugged into the vehicle's network bus. Open source technology is becoming a key contender. OEMs are sorting through a garage full of options from versions of embedded Linux to the Automotive Grade Linux dis...

The pulling points for migrating either to the Linux desktop or the Linux server often are reduced to two things. One is the cost of not migrating. The other is a decision to deploy Linux gradually -- or entirely -- throughout the office infrastructure. Individuals and businesses migrate to Linux fo...