25 Great Games, Ubuntu Tips, and Red Hat Downer

Linux Mint 17 KDE and Xfce were released today, but some of the website is down. Matt Hartley has some tips for new Ubuntu users. Russia is planning to switch to Linux (and Russian chipsets) reports Glyn Moody. David Meyer says Opera is back on Linux and gurufocus.com says Red Hat isn't a good investment. All that and more in tonight's Linux news report.

First up tonight, Linux Mint 17 KDE was finally released just under a month after the others. Unfortunately, the blog portion where the announcement is posted is experiencing a database error. The release notes are still working as are the forums (although the forums are going down as I type). Yep, the whole domain is down now. I'm sure it as well as the download page will be back up probably before I hit publish.

Over at datamation.com, Matt Hartley offers a "reality check" to new Ubuntu users. First, why are you trying to switch to Linux he asks and suggests not expecting it to look familiar. Then he offers tips for choosing a distribution and applications. He discusses malware a bit before getting to the punchline.

gurufocus.com published today why Red Hat isn't such a good investment despite all the good news, positive ratings, and buy recommendations flying about. They say it's going to be difficult for Red Hat to keep up its growth rate and that it's a bit risky attempting growth through acquisitions. Finally they say, "As much as the law of large numbers and acquisition strategy could be troubling issues, what really magnifies the potential downside for the Red Hat stock price is the company's extremely generous valuation."

David Meyer at gigaom.com is reporting that Opera is back on Linux, albeit "in the low-stability developer stream" and only available for Ubuntu. We can look forward to last year's advancements in next year's Opera 24.

Glyn Moody today reported that not only is the Russian government swearing off Intel and AMD chips, but Microsoft will no longer be tolerated. Moody says there's little Microsoft can do to persuade Russia to stay since their stated goal is security not savings.

PCWorld.com has put together a slideshow of the top 25 Linux games on sale now at Steam. Speaking of games, Chin Wong looks at how far Linux gaming has come in recent years and concludes, "All you’ll need is your Linux PC—and enough time to play all those great games."

In other news, Should Everyone Learn to Code?, Whatever Happened to These Red-Hot Linux Distros?, and DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 564, 23 June 2014.

UPDATE: The Linux Mint sites are coming back up at this time.