OStatic

Nokia leaks phone with full GNU/Linux distribution. Unlike Google's Linux platform, Nokia is not intentionally breaking compatibility with real distros.

Open source and healthcare reform: good news and bad. Could open source mess up a truly integrated digital infrastructure for healthcare?

How open source saved enterprise IT. Open source is becoming more like the market that it arose out of.

Open source equivalent applications for the average user. If you were weaned on proprietary Windows apps, what are the free, open source equivalents?

If Vern Yip is reading this, I still need your help. Though Sweet Home 3D tops Google's SketchUp in a number of areas, it's still not much help for someone with no design sense.

This makes it even more odd that I was so excited when I spotted Elizabeth Krumbach's post on the open source, cross platform 3D interior design modeling application. I've lived in my house for nine years -- we have shades on all the windows, but only one window has actual curtains. It's just that SketchUp is a fun little application, and it's one of the only applications I've tried to run with WINE (and failed miserably in the attempt).

Sweet Home 3D, as Krumbach says, is pretty simple once you get the hang of it. Because it's open source, there's the potential to model a structure (and the stuff that fills it) to a whole new level of precision. Perhaps the only drawback (and it could be a machine quirk, as everything's being difficult today) was its seeming somewhat crashprone on my Ubuntu 9.04 64-bit laptop. That could also be chalked up to my learning curve. But let's take a closer look.

In conjunction with the CompuTex tradeshow, ASUS has announced a new Seashell line of netbooks, with larger screens and a whole lot of battery life. The 1101HA (shown) has an 11.6-inch display with 1366 x 768 resolution. There is a 160GB hard drive, and the company offers 10GB of online Eee storage. The new netbook comes with 1GB of RAM, has a Z-series Intel Atom chip, and ASUS is claiming it gets a whopping 11 hours of battery life. That's hard to believe given the size of the display.

ASUS is making other announcements at CompuTex too. It's not clear, though, how committed the company remains to shipping Linux-based systems.

Microsoft search to be powered by open source. The company's new Kumo search technology is filled with open source.

What you should expect from Fedora 11. Here's a screenshot-driven tour of it, scheduled for release on May 26th.

Beyond Firefox: 10 other great Linux browsers. Have you tried Midori, Seamonkey, and Arora?

Novell throws support behind Moblin Linux for Intel Atom netbooks, devices. Eschewing its own SUSE Linux, Novell will back Intel's Moblin Linux for netbooks and smartphones.?

Over at the Lynx blog, Dougie Richardson cast his vote for the best comment made during the course of Ubuntu's Open Week. While his choice might be completely subjective, there is no denying that Mark Shuttleworth's response when asked whether WINE (in its own right, or as a general synonym for Windows compatibility) or native Linux ports were more important to Ubuntu's success was thought provoking.

The question (and answer) invite all sorts of tangential queries. What should any desktop computer be expected, by default, to deliver? If equivalent applications on different platforms have identical features and functionality, and content produced by one application can be opened and modified on the other, will user interfaces and familiarity matter less -- or more? If Microsoft made every last line of its code available to peruse and modify right now -- how would Windows change? How would Linux change? If you need a Philips head screwdriver, is it possible to squeak by with an approximately sized flat head type?

Even though the economy is rough all over, this really is one of the best times to be working in an open source company. There are advantages for those running the business, and for those using its services. Perhaps the only better arrangement would be along the lines of what Likewise Software has put together -- an open source company developing and offering support services for software that integrates and secures mixed network environments.

There are a lot of mixed networks out in the wild, of course. This is why Likewise has successfully secured a $10 million Series C round of funding, which the company plans to use to pursue growth in new markets and fund the development of its product line.

When did you use Linux for the first time? The question was posed at the Linux Collaboration Summit earlier this month, and has prompted many Linux users to take a trip down memory lane.

I'm not sure if the admission that I remember my first Linux installation much more clearly than any date with my first boyfriend or my first date with my husband is a really wise thing to put in writing. I will freely admit it wasn't quite as anxiety-inducing as a date, and the long-term relationship that sprang from it taught me quite a bit about myself, how I learn, and how to passionately load kernel modules at boot.