linuxinsider.com: There's no denying that those of us here in the Linux community see our fair share of ups and downs. Sometimes, though, it's difficult not to be amazed by the way things often balance out "Even Steven." Case in point? The bemoaning the departure of GNOME cofounder Miguel de Icaza.

datamation.com: See how the two operating systems compare from a casual user's perspective with regards to installation, software and hardware.

itwire.com: The Linux Foundation has released a video of what it sees as the 2012 highlights for Linux - but the presence of decent video-creation and editing software running on Linux does not seem to be one of them.

theregister.co.uk: f a major Linux desktop falls in the forest and no one is around to use it, does it make a sound? That's a question the GNOME project would do well to contemplate.

linuxinsider.com (blog safari): It seems safe to say that most FOSS fans are sick to death of hearing about both of them, of course, but recently the always-insightful team over at TuxRadar posed yet another interesting question. Specifically, "What can Linux really steal from Apple?"

batsov.com: A little more than an year ago I wrote my rant post The Linux Desktop Experience is Killing Linux on the Desktop and for the first time in 8 years I wasn’t a desktop Linux user anymore.

• What Killed the Linux Desktop
• The State Of Linux — How Even Apple Is Going Open Source

wired.com: It’s hard to say exactly what percentage of desktop and laptop computers run Apple OS X, but it’s clear that the operating system has made slow but steady gains. But one thing’s for sure: OS X has been more successful than Linux.

linuxinsider.com: When life gives you lemons, everyone knows you should make lemonade, as the old saying goes. But what if life gives you Linux on a Retina MacBook Pro?

lunduke.com: About two years ago, I did a comparison of the three major operating systems (market-share wise) — MacOS X, Windows and Ubuntu. With so many changes happening to all three platforms, it seems like it’s time to do it again.

pcworld.com: Given the vast numbers of Macs that are apparently infected with the Flashback Trojan malware, it's not at all surprising to see that sales of Mac security software are now skyrocketing.

phoronix.com: After delivering benchmarks last week that were comparing the Intel Sandy Bridge performance of Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion" vs. Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" when it came to the Sandy Bridge OpenGL graphics performance, here's a comparative look at the performance of Ubuntu 11.10 against Mac OS X 10.7.2 from the Intel Sandy Bridge-based Mac.

adventuresinoss.com: Back in the summer I decided to attempt to wean myself from Apple and to migrate to a Linux desktop. This is a much overdue post on how that went and how it is going.

junauza.com: If you think that Apple is much less evil than Microsoft, read on as we give you 7 reasons that will make Redmond look slightly better than Cupertino.

arstechnica.com: Apple first introduced its own lossless audio compression format, Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC), in 2004 with iTunes 4.5. This Thursday—seven years later—the company made the code for its encoder and decoder available under an Apache 2.0 open source license.