Desktop: News

The release of Firefox 3.0 has been a resounding success, but for some the upgrade path has been less than painless. The latest version of the open source browser differed enough from previous versions that many add-ons had to be substantially rewritten before they would work with the new release. And just when the dust appeared to be clearing, Firefox 3.1 is on the horizon.

Australia's open source community leaders have written an open letter to Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard calling for consideration of free and open source software in the implementation of the Digital Education Revolution for the National Secondary School Computer Fund.

After 15 years of development, Wine breathes a new beginning

Ensuring your servers stamp as small a carbon footprint as possible on the earth and in your data center can encompass everything from making sure they are shipped in recyclable packaging to hiring an analyst who can predict the total life-cycle environmental impact.

Intel this week unveiled new chipsets for desktop PCs at the Computex trade show in Taiwan.

It's a small step for an operating system, perhaps, but it could be another giant leap for Linux. DeviceVM has announced that its Splashtop 'instant-on' Linux is to appear on Asus laptops from this US summer.

Customers and partners of open-source CRM (customer relationship management) vendor SugarCRM will be able to deploy and manage a number of instances of the software through a new management console, the company announced Wednesday.

It's not exactly how devotees foresaw Linux reaching mass-market desktop PCs, but it could be a turning point nonetheless. Taiwanese giant Asus is to embed DeviceVM's Splashtop Linux on millions of mainstream motherboards.

Red Hat Fedora users who wanted an easier way to use the popular and free community-supported Linux operating system on portable USB thumb drives have had their wishes granted.

I'm not embarrassed to admit it: I'm a big fan of Office 2007. I think Microsoft got a lot right with its latest release, starting with the ribbon interface and including any number of tweaks and improvements that make my day easier. I can't say I'm thrilled about the price of the suite, however; nor the countless SKUs to choose from. Plus, I'm also a big Linux fan. That's why I always try to keep my eye on the current state of OpenOffice.org, the open source office suite founded by Sun Microsystems.

A beta version of OpenOffice.org 3.0 has been released for evaluation by the public.