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Canonical, which leads the Ubuntu project, has reportedly decided to switch from the OpenOffice productivity suite to LibreOffice in future versions of the popular Linux distribution. Version 11.04 of Ubuntu, also known as "Natty Narwhal," is expected to be the first release to incorporate LibreOffi...

CPTN, a consortium set up by Microsoft, Apple, Oracle and EMC to acquire hundreds of Novell patents, appears to have inadvertently faked out the open source community by withdrawing its proposal from the German Federal Cartel Office. News reports on Tuesday noted the event and alluded to possible su...

Modern data centers with large number of Linux servers and heavy use of virtualization often don't have the tools they need to handle system version control and modeling. "Twenty years ago, most companies had tens of servers to manage," said Erik Troan, founder and chief technology officer of rPath....

A study conducted jointly by Penn State University, Duke University and Intel Labs has found that some Android apps surreptitiously send user information to remote servers at ad networks and analytics firms. Some of the apps send users' geographic locations to remote ad networks; others send a uniqu...

One of the best productivity tools I had when I used Microsoft Windows was a collection of portable applications. I missed those tools when I migrated to Linux. Now several open source projects could make portable apps available to mainstream Linux users. Three websites are trying to create that fun...

It's hard to imagine a topic more central to the argument for or against free and open source software than security. Hardly a day goes by without news of some fresh exploit in the Windows environment, after all -- but what about Linux and other open software? Can they do better? That's essentially ...

The question of security is one that has plagued proponents of proprietary and open source software alike for as long as there has been a choice. Is free and open source software more secure by virtue of all the many pairs of eyes that can see the code, identify vulnerabilities and fix them? Or is "...

Linux provides more than one way to listen to music collections. The bare-bones solution is to click on a music file from within a file manager app. The high-end approach is to playback music with Amarok. Amarok is a sound-system-independent audio player with a flexible interface that uses a browser...

The file manager utility more than any other system app on any computing platform is the workhorse of daily computing tasks. Linux users have numerous file managers as choices. Depending on the distro, usually one or two default apps are preinstalled -- but these might not be the best options. Thuna...

New York hedge fund Elliott Associates is in hot pursuit of Novell, and developments have left some worrying that an acquisition, if successful, would mean the end of Suse Linux. On Monday, Novell's board of directors turned down a March 2 offer of $2 billion for the company from Elliott Associates....

After nearly four years of legal battle, a case involving the unauthorized use of open source software last week came to a final conclusion that affirms the legal right of open source developers to collect damages when their code is used improperly. The case of Jacobsen v. Katzer dates back to 2006,...

Google has updated the beta version of its Chrome for Linux with a variety of fixes designed to make the browser more reliable, the company announced Thursday. Version 5.0.307.7 of Chrome for Linux addresses several bugs that were problematic in the previous version. One fix, for example, changes an...

If you are looking for a superior text editor, your search might just begin and end with a nifty program called "Geany." One of my biggest concerns when I switched from Microsoft Windows to Linux was finding an adequate replacement for my favorite text editor. I use the OpenOffice Writer for printed...

Google finally released a beta version of its Chrome Web browser for Linux on Dec. 8, slightly more than one year after releasing its Chrome browser for Microsoft Windows. The wait was worth it, especially given the more than 300 extensions already available to customize the new browser. Because Lin...

With more than 200 Linux distributions currently listed at Linux Online, it's perhaps an understatement to say that newcomers to the field face a broad array of choices. In addition to considering their own goals for Linux, however, potential users may also need to take other factors into account. H...

There are many compelling reasons to switch to Linux. Excellent security and low -- or nonexistent -- costs, to name just two, have already persuaded countless organizations and individuals around the globe to eschew the world of end-user license agreements and opt for the freedom and openness of Li...

Amid all the talks, workshops and training sessions now under way at LinuxCon, attendees hoping to get an up-close look at some of the latest open source technologies were not disappointed. A wide variety of products are being demonstrated by a diverse set of vendors in the technology showcase at th...

Taiwanese computer manufacturer Acer, which seems to be having an on-again, off-again relationship with netbooks running Android, is now reportedly working on one. Jim Wong, the firm's president of IT products, made the announcement Tuesday at Computex Taipei, Asia's largest computer exhibition. The...

Though it's struggled when it comes to kicking in doors in the consumer market, Linux has clearly found a welcome home in the enterprise, and it appears to be making itself more comfortable with each passing day. "It's the fastest-growing server-side operating system of any of them that are out ther...

Taking aim at the next generation of computing -- virtualization and the cloud -- Novell on Tuesday unveiled Suse Linux Enterprise 11. Suse Linux Enterprise 11 has been optimized for the major hypervisors -- VMware ESX, Microsoft Hyper-V and Xen. It runs on the x86, Itanium, IBM Power and IBM System...