Monday, February 28, 2011

The Return of Linux Monday

The Return of Linux Monday

Political fans, don't fret: We'll have some Mike Huckabee later today. But for now, it's the return of Linux Monday. It's been about seven weeks since I've inflicted a Linux Monday on the loyal readership; it's starting to turn into more of a monthly feature than a weekly.

Leading distribution Ubuntu - which for non-Linux geeks us de facto synonymous with "Linux, though there are a bunch of hidden places where Linux dominates - has of late suffered some loss of love in Linux Land:
Instead of being the model corporate member of the community that it first appeared, today Ubuntu/ Canonical increasingly seems concerned with its own interests rather than those of FOSS as a whole. No doubt there are sound business reasons for the change, but many interpret it as proof of hypocrisy. Added to the suspicion towards the corporate world that lingers in many parts of the FOSS community, the change looks damning, especially when it is so clearly documented in Canonical's corporate history.
In response, it's a geek thing:
FOSS fans tend to be passionate. They don’t dislike something, they “hate” it. They don’t like anything, they “love” it. To which I can only say, “It’s just software people!”

What Ubuntu has done for Linux is to market it to the masses. CIOs and CTOs, know Red Hat and Novell’s SLES (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server), but if ordinary people know any Linux, it’s Ubuntu.
If you fall on the don't love Ubuntu side, here's The best Linux distros you've never heard of, releases to watch this year, and a bunch of the best Linux window managers.

One of my favorite window managers is the low-resource Fluxbox, which just released a new version.

For teh uber-geeky, a look at the Linux boot process.

And lastly, the most important tech development since the mousepad: the death of the power brick.

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