• How to install Linux on a Chromebook

  Chromebooks have a lot going for them - they're cheap, they're lightweight, and they don't slow down over time. They're also based on a stripped-down version of Linux, and upgrading your laptop to a fully fledged desktop operating system isn't all that difficult.

• Is Linux a Threat to Windows? Not According to These Stats [Ed: A longtime Microsoft booster, Bogdan Popa, uses Microsoft-connected firm to make case against GNU/Linux]

  [Microsoft-connected] Net Applications claims Windows is currently at 90.52 percent, up from 89.79 percent the month before. Windows’ worst month was April this year, when it dropped to 88.77 percent, but the OS has been recovering ever since.

• 'I'm sorry, your lift has had a problem and had to shut down'

  “Eight years ago I was visiting a friend in hospital when I was confronted with a disturbing image upon entering one of the elevators (yeah, OK, one of the lifts).”

  Phil arguably beats Charles, though, because this Sydney lift wanted a login and was running Windows98 well after it was deprecated:

• Microsoft at LinuxCon: Building Open Source Cred One Conference at a Time [Ed: Wim Coekaerts received just one salary from Microsoft and now he's being painted as "Microsoft", which still attacks Linux. Microsoft is just purchasing the illusion that it is loved by Linux and vice versa.]

  Coekaerts came to Microsoft after some off campus meetings at a Redmond area Starbucks with Scott Guthrie and Mike Neil, two vice presidents with the cloud and enterprise group, who convinced him that "open source is very important to Microsoft."

• How Cloud Native Computing Is Evolving

  "Cloud native" is a relatively new term that isn't particularly well understood, but the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) aims to change that.

  At the Cloud Native Day here following LinuxCon, Dan Kohn, CNCF executive director (pictured), detailed what his organization does and how the cloud native approach is now evolving.

  The CNCF was formed in July 2015, as an effort to help unify and define the Cloud Native era. Kohn started off his keynote with a brief history of the cloud and the movement of workloads from physical servers.

• Are You a Linux Expert?

• Common hardware causes Windows 10 Anniversary Update crashes, again

  Microsoft’s Anniversary Update is causing headaches yet again, this time for owners of Kindle e-readers. Some Kindle Paperwhite and Voyager devices are causing PCs running the Anniversary update to lock up and display the dreaded blue screen of death (BSOD) whenever the e-readers are connected via USB, as first reported by The Guardian.

  The reason for this odd behavior is unclear, but Microsoft says it’s working on it.

  “We are aware of an issue with a small number of Kindle Voyager and Paperwhite e-Readers causing an unexpected behavior when plugged into Windows 10 devices after installing the Anniversary Update,” Microsoft said on its support forums.

  The impact on you at home: For now, there isn’t a solid workaround for anyone who’s experiencing this problem. Some users are reporting, however, that leaving the Kindle plugged in to the PC while rebooting will allow them to use the Kindle normally and transfer files. Rebooting the PC and plugging the Kindle back in again just causes another lock-up.

Linux is a free alternative. Apart from the zero-cost factor, it's still less prone to viruses than Windows. Most Linux machines start out as Windows computers that are reformatted. Linux is also adaptable -- Linux is an OS kernel, not a full system, but is the heart of software distributions such as Ubuntu or Fedora.

As for cons, Linux is more complex to learn and use. There are also far fewer programs written for Linux systems. Of course, someone with an advanced online computer science master’s degree will help you make the most of a Linux system by supplying the skills needed to innovate and implement custom solutions for your business environment.

• Coherent Accelerators, FPGAs, and PLD Microconference Accepted into 2016 Linux Plumbers Conference

  It has been more than a decade since CPU core clock frequencies stopped doubling every 18 months, which has shifted the search for performance from the "hardware free lunch" to concurrency and, more recently, hardware accelerators. Beyond accelerating computational offload, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and programmable logic devices (PLDs) have long been used in the embedded space to provide ways to offload I/O or to implement timing-sensitive algorithms as close as possible to the pin.

• Linux's brilliant career, in pictures

  Aug. 25 marks the 25th anniversary of Linux, the free and open source operating system that's used around the globe in smarphones, tablets, desktop PCs, servers, supercomputers, and more. Though its beginnings were humble, Linux has become the world’s largest and most pervasive open source software project in history. How did it get here? Read on for a look at some of the notable events along the way.

• Quarter Century of Innovation – aka Happy Birthday Linux!

  Happy birthday Linux. You’ve defined how we should be using and adoption technology. You’ve disrupted and continue to disrupt, industries all over the place. You’ve helped define what it means to share ideas openly and freely. You’ve shown what happens when we collaborate and work together. Free and Open Source is a win-win for all and Linux is the Gold Standard of that.

• Microsoft Open Source Czar Takes Spotlight at LinuxCon [Ed: Microsoft paid for this]

• Windows Update borks PowerShell – Microsoft won't fix it for a week

  You'd be forgiven for thinking Microsoft is actively trying to stop people using Windows 10 Anniversary Edition. A patch this week broke one of the key features of the OS: PowerShell.