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I use a Linux desktop. According to Google Analytics, 12% of the visitors to my various technology Web sites use Linux. Nevertheless, I know that on the traditional desktop, the vast majority of ordinary users are running Windows, and don’t even get me started on “The Year of the Linux Desktop.” It’s not going to happen. But, and this is interesting, it appears that there is a slight upward trend in desktop Linux use.First reported by Katherine Noyes on Linux Insider, it turns out that the Web research firm Net Applications’ data show that Linux’s desktop market share has been growing...

Intel's Linux graphics team is seeking any questions or feedback that Phoronix readers have concerning their open-source Linux graphics driver stack. ... Before anyone asks, this is only about the driver developed by the Intel OSTC team for hardware with true Intel integrated graphics -- Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, Ironlake, i915, i945, etc -- and not the notorious Poulsbo or now the Medfield situation. This is also only about graphics and not any other area of your Intel Linux desktop/notebook/netbook/tablet. Go forth and post!

The control of US military spy drones appears to have shifted from Windows to Linux following an embarrassing malware infection. Ground control systems at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, which commands the killer unmanned aircraft, became infected with a virus last September. In a statement at the time the Air Force dismissed the electronic nasty as a nuisance and said it posed no threat to the operation of Reaper drones, but the intrusion was nonetheless treated seriously. "The ground system is separate from the flight control system Air Force pilots use to fly the aircraft remotely; the ability of...

The Beefy Miracle already has a beefy list of possible changes like maybe the Btrfs file-system by default, multi-touch advancements, GNOME Shell software rendering, and many other features, but now there's even more. At the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee (FESCo) meeting on Monday (9 January), several more Fedora 17 features were approved. Here's the features that were just approved to be part of the Beefy Miracle:

"The following are major features for Fedora 16: enhanced cloud support including Aeolus Conductor, Condor Cloud, HekaFS, OpenStack and pacemaker-cloud; KDE Plasma workspaces 4.7; GNOME 3.2; a number of core system improvements including GRUB 2 and the removal of HAL; an updated libvirtd, trusted boot, guest inspection, virtual lock manager and a pvops based kernel for Xen all improve virtualization support."

With over 600 GNU/Linux distributions available, 300 of which are under active development, what’s the best? How do you choose? It would be nice if there was a Linux Store, like the Apple Stores, where you could actually walk in and “testdrive” a Distro (short for Distribution). Unfortunately, there aren’t any “Linux Stores”. Money’s just not there. Apple products are premium products with premium price tags. Leasing a store, stocking it with “testdrive systems” and having Geeky Guru’s on the payroll just won’t work with a FREE product. Why are there so many Distros anyway? Makes it difficult to find...

In the last two weeks, we have lost two people who had immense influence on our industry. It is undeniable that Steve Jobs brought us innovation and iconic products like the world had never seen, as well as a cult following of consumers and end users that mythicized him. The likes of which will probably be never seen again. I too, like many in this industry, despite my documented differences with the man and his company, paid my respects, and have acknowledged his influence. But the “magical” products that Apple and Steve Jobs — as well as many other companies...

India has launched what it says is the world's cheapest touch-screen tablet computer, priced at just $35 (£23). Costing a fraction of Apple's iPad, the subsidised Aakash is aimed at students. It supports web browsing and video conferencing, has a three-hour battery life and two USB ports, but questions remain over how it will perform. Officials hope the computer will give digital access to students in small towns and villages across India, which lags behind its rivals in connectivity. At the launch in the Indian capital, Delhi, Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal handed out 500 Aakash (meaning sky) tablets...

Posted in smartphones , MeeGo , Tizen , Intel , Samsung When Intel first announced its intentions to enter the smartphone space it needed an OS that demanded the additional silicon Intel was willing to invest in this market. With PCs Intel had Microsoft Windows, an OS that could seemingly always use more processing power. Newer versions of Windows helped Intel sell newer versions of its processors. There was no analog to that in the smartphone market when Intel first started making noise. It was software and styling, not SoCs that differentiated most Android smartphones early on. Obviously times are...

Here's one non-UDS announcement hitting the web right now that's also very significant for open-source and Linux: Advanced Micro Devices has announced today they will support Coreboot on all future processors. Coreboot, formerly known as LinuxBIOS, is an open-source Linux-based BIOS implementation. AMD has long been a supporter of the Coreboot project with releasing code for Coreboot and supporting documentation in their products: both chipsets and servers.

A senior Red Hat engineer has lashed back at Microsoft's attempt to downplay concerns that upcoming secure boot features will make it impossible to install Linux on Windows 8 certified systems. Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) specifications are designed to offer faster boot times and improved security over current BIOS ROM systems. The secure boot feature of the specification is designed so that only digitally signed OS loaders will load, a security feature that would prevent the installation of generic copies of Linux or FreeBSD as well as preventing rootkits and other boot-time malware from running. A digitally signed build...

Microsoft has become locked in a dispute over whether the boot process in Windows 8 will block Linux from running on hardware designed for the next version of its flagship platform. Windows 8 secure boot uses pre-OS boot checks, as well as third-party software checks, to ensure that users PCs remain healthy. Photo credit: Microsoft Matthew Garrett, a power management and mobile Linux developer at Red Hat, raised questions in a blog post on Tuesday about dual-booting of Linux in Windows 8. He argued the use of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)-based secure boot means either Windows 8 will be signed...

Computer scientists warn that proposed changes in firmware specifications may make it impossible to run “unauthorised” operating systems such as Linux and FreeBSD on PCs. Proposed changes to the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) firmware specifications would mean PCs would only boot from a digitally signed image derived from a keychain rooted in keys built into the PC. Microsoft is pushing to make this mandatory in a move that could not be overridden by users and would effectively exclude alternative operating systems, according to Professor Ross Anderson of Cambridge University and other observers. UEFI is a successor to the BIOS...

What does the Windows 8 Developer Preview have to do with the Linux desktop? Not much, you might think at first, especially since the final version is likely to be vastly different than the preview. But as I explored the preview, I couldn't help asking myself: is this the first hint of how major desktops will look in the future on all operating systems? It's a distinct and -- for a Linux desktop user -- an alarming possibility.If you haven't already downloaded the Windows 8 Developer Preview, then Jason Perlow's informal video will give you the general idea (as well...

OK. I've answerd my share of Tech questions over the years. Now, I'm faced with a project and looking for words of experience from others. Any recommendations (either positive, or to avoid) for OCR software for Linux. I run Ubuntu 10.04LTS on my desktop and laptop. I have 100+ pages, some typewritten, some from wordprocessing where the electronic versions are no longer available, which I need to convert to something that can be published on the web (probably on a WordPress site). Other than typing from the source pages, what are good options for OCR software for Linux. Are there...

FreeBSD provides a Linux binary compatibility layer that allows 32-bit Linux binaries to be natively executed on this BSD operating system. Linux binary compatibility on FreeBSD allows Linux-only applications to be executed in a near seamless manner on this alternative platform, even for games. New tests have revealed that the modern FreeBSD operating system (via PC-BSD 8.2) can actually outperform Linux when it comes to running OpenGL Linux game binaries. This Linux binary compatibility support for FreeBSD is commonly referred to as "Linux emulation", but it is not emulating Linux in a traditional sense nor is it acting like Wine...

Secure boot only works in UEFI mode, thus preventing legacy booting in 16-bit mode. The Linux community has been quick to point out that generating signed bootloaders may be problematic for open source operating systems.

GIMP 2.7.3 has added one of the most requested features in the program’s history: a single window mode. Version 2.7 is part of the development branch, so unfortunately, the feature won't hit most distro repositories for a while. As I said, because 2.7 is a development branch, most distributions won’t add it to their repositories, and this means that you’ll have to build it yourself. It’s a shame, in a way, because the new window mode might be viewed as a ease of use feature that less advanced users would appreciate. According to this(link) page, it looks like version 2.8...

Multiple servers used to maintain and distribute the Linux operating system were infected with malware that gained root access, modified system software, and logged passwords and transactions of the people who used them, the official Linux Kernel Organization has confirmed. The infection occurred no later than August 12 and wasn't detected for another 17 days, according to an email John "'Warthog9" Hawley, the chief administrator of kernel.org, sent to developers on Monday. It said a trojan was found on the personal machine of kernel developer H Peter Anvin and later on the kernel.org servers known as Hera and Odin1. A...

Twenty years ago, when Linus Torvalds first announced his new operating system project to a Usenet discussion group, he had no way of knowing that his creation would one day conquer the world."Just a hobby, [it] won't be big and professional," Torvalds wrote on Aug. 25, 1991. In a follow-up post, he added, "Simply, I'd say that porting [the OS to a different CPU] is impossible." Torvalds had begun the project as a fun way to teach himself about the Intel 80386 processor and nothing more. His greatest ambition was merely to see it work.It has done far better than...