earthweb.com: Even after considering the success seen with Linux on netbooks, there is really no question that it feels like something ominous is holding back desktop Linux from the masses.

ubuntulinuxhelp.com: I had an interesting chat with a friend today, part of which dealt with the differences between Windows and Linux (hence this post). In a nutshell, he was trying to grasp why I really preferred Linux.

blog.internetnews.com: Among the bits of minutiae that I personally find entertaining about the Linux distribution release cycle is how different distros come up with their respective release names.

kde.org: KDE Community Ships Fourth Translation and Service Release of the 4.3 Free Desktop, Containing Numerous Bugfixes, Performance Improvements and Translation Updates

blogs.techrepublic.com: Everyone needs a way to organize both their work and personal life, but not everyone needs the same solution. For something fast and lightweight that covers all the basics, Vincent Danen recommends Osmo.

• Ubuntu 9.10
• 14 XSplash Themes For Ubuntu Karmic Koala
• Ubuntu 10.4 boot changing from using usplash to plymouth
• Could Ubuntu get enterprises to finally embrace the cloud?
• Nice collection of themes for Gnome and ubuntu Dec I

This tutorial shows how you can set up a Linux Mint 8 (Helena) desktop that is a full-fledged replacement for a Windows desktop, i.e. that has all the software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops. The advantages are clear: you get a secure system without DRM restrictions that works even on old hardware, and the best thing is: all software comes free of charge. Linux Mint 8 is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu 9.10 that has lots of packages in its repositories (like multimedia codecs, Adobe Flash, Adobe Reader, Skype, Google Earth, etc.) that are relatively hard to install on other distributions; it therefore provides a user-friendly desktop experience even for Linux newbies.

schoollibraryjournal.com: For the last several years, I’ve organized sessions on open source software (OSS) at ed-tech conferences. But this year was markedly different, with an awareness of these tools among educators that I’d never seen.

stephencuyos.com: The importance of video in learning Linux cannot be overemphasized. For most people, the best way to learn is to watch someone do it first. The video tutorials and screencasts offered in the following sites cover a wide range of Linux systems and applications.

crunchgear.com: The CrunchPad was a testament to the power of online media and a fascinating study in the ability of new media to enact real changes on the real world. While the product faltered, it’s fascinating that the project went as far as it did given the forces arrayed against it.

theregister.co.uk: A security bug in the latest version of the FreeBSD can be exploited to grant unprivileged users complete control over the operating system, a German researcher said Monday.

packtpub.com: Recently Ubuntu celebrated it's five-year anniversary. Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" marks five years since the initial release, 4.10 "Warty Warthog". This article by Christer Edwards outlines some of the things Ubuntu has brought to the Linux world, and what a major impact it has had.

• Fun with SUSE Studio
• Mozilla Sea Monkey
• Hosted Version of the Drupal CMS is Taking Shape
• What's new with Acquia?
• Beagle Search Tool Fetches Data From Deep Inside Your Linux System
• Red Hat To Support Meals On Wheels This Holiday Season
• Explosive Netbook Growth Expected to Slow
• On KDE notifications
• Google chart shows which netbooks run Chrome OS best
• Open source: No vow of poverty (or get-rich-quick scheme)
• Nokia plans just one Linux phone next year
• Android And Chrome OS: Google Vs. Google?
• DE: Open source professorship at University of Erlangen-Nuremberg
• Linux PDF viewers

• How to Convert smbpasswd to tdbsam on Samba
• SFTP on Ubuntu and Debian in 9 easy steps
• “bash: ./configure: /bin/sh: bad interpreter: Permission denied”
• How to Take Perfect Screenshots with KSnapshot
• How to Establish Simple Remote Desktop Access Between Ubuntu and Windows
• Regain Compiz desktop rotation with the mouse in Ubuntu 9.10
• Sharing the Same Files Between Two PC’s
• How to DHCP server on Ubuntu
• OOo: How to do a holiday letter using mail merge, and print labels for the envelopes
• Linux Security with Fail2Ban
• fix bricked xos automatically
• Have your Arch Linux always ready for an upgrade
• Tomdroid with Ubuntu One syncing goodness
• How to Print Large Posters in Ubuntu / Debian Linux
• Graphic styles in OpenOffice.org Draw and Impress

ostatic.com/blog: The GNOME Foundation has announced its annual conference, GUADEC, will be held in The Hague, Netherlands, July 24-30, 2010.

pcauthority.com.au: Stuart Turton spends the fifth day of his one week odyssey with Linux, gets his hands dirty with 'Gnome Do' and quickly realises his new found joy for Ubuntu. Has Stuart finally cracked Linux?

freebsdnews.net: Craig Rodrigues writes that his friend and colleague John Birrell passed away.

linuxgeeksunited.blogspot: I find myself becoming argumentative and generally frustrated trying to argue about nuances in Linux development and that is not what I want to come across as or be. So, I will be letting Polar Bears and Penguins go. I want to thank everyone who visited and was supportive of the things posted here.

• Photo Compositing with The GIMP: Part 1
• Photo Compositing with The GIMP: Part 2

linuxjournal.com: I have been thinking about the Open Source world more than I have in the past. And as I have been talking about it with people, I have been getting the standard responses you might expect. An email from my friend Karl, in response to an email I sent, seemed to sum it all up: