"Me and Bobby Powers have spent a few hours smoothing out the process of getting fully-featured Linux desktops to boot on the XO laptop. On the whole, OLPC developers have been pretty good at getting code upstream, so only a few fixups are needed to get things operational on the XO." On a slightly (stretching it here) related note, here is a detailed guide on installing and optimising Ubuntu on the Acer Aspire One that we reviewed last week. I replaced the default Linpus installation with Ubuntu using this guide, and I must say that I am quite pleased.

How does OpenSolaris, Sun's effort to free its big-iron OS, fare from a Linux user's point of view? Is it merely a passable curiosity right now, or is it truly worth installing? Linux Format takes OpenSolaris for a test drive, examining the similarities and differences to a typical Linux distro.

GoboLinux is a distribution which sports a different file system structure than 'ordinary' Linux distributions. In order to remain compatible with the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, symbolic links are used to map the GoboLinux tree to standard UNIX directories. A post in the GoboLinux forums suggested that it might be better to turn the concept around: retain the FHS, and then use symbolic links to map the GoboLinux tree on top of it. This sparked some interesting discussion. Read on for more details. Read more on this exclusive OSNews article...

GoboLinux is a distribution which sports a different file system structure than 'ordinary' Linux distributions. In order to remain compatible with the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, symbolic links are used to map the GoboLinux tree to standard UNIX directories. A post in the GoboLinux forums suggested that it might be better to turn the concept around: retain the FHS, and then use symbolic links to map the GoboLinux tree on top of it. This sparked some interesting discussion. Read on for more details. Read more on this exclusive OSNews article...

Linux project lead Linus Torvalds has said it is not easy to become a major contributor to the Linux kernel. In an email interview with ZDNet.com.au sister site ZDNet.co.uk last week, Torvalds said that, while it was relatively easy for coders and organisations to contribute small patches, the contribution of large patches, developed in isolation, could lead to both new and established contributors becoming frustrated. "The kernel is about pretty harsh technical issues, and mistakes are really frowned upon," wrote Torvalds. "In an OS kernel, there are simply more security and stability requirements, and the bar is really higher in some respects. That will inevitably also reflect in the response to patches."

We've covered Windows 7 quite often already - on the desktop side of the fence, that is. Continuing tradition, there will also be a Windows 7 Server release, but until now, Microsoft has remained fairly tight-lipped about the server counterpart of Windows 7. Until now, because Microsoft has stated that Windows 7 Server will be a "minor release" - and named accordingly: Windows Server 2008 R2.

With the SIGGRAPH OpenGL BOF now past, Nick Haemel from AMD has written a blog post about OpenGL 3 and the reasoning behind the choices made. "After testing an approach that would have a drastic effect on the API, requiring complete OpenGL application rewrites and not introducing any of the long awaited features modern GPUs are capable of [...] GL 3.0 takes two important steps to moving open standard graphics forward in a major way. The first is to provide core and ARB extension access to the new capabilities of hardware. The second is to create a roadmap that allows developers to see what parts of core specifications will be going away in the future, also providing the OpenGL ARB with a way to introduce new features faster."

This is the eighth article in a series on common usability and graphical user interface related terms [part I | part II | part III | part IV | part V | part VI | part VII]. On the internet, and especially in forum discussions like we all have here on OSNews, it is almost certain that in any given discussion, someone will most likely bring up usability and GUI related terms - things like spatial memory, widgets, consistency, Fitts' Law, and more. The aim of this series is to explain these terms, learn something about their origins, and finally rate their importance in the field of usability and (graphical) user interface design. In part VIII, we focus on the tab. Read more on this exclusive OSNews article...

"In many ways the virtues that have brought Linux from a Unix look alike pet project to a competitive operating system are the same as the ideals behind DefCon. The community stood on each other's shoulders and developed piece after piece of software to fill in the gaps that were found through use. Programmer's built on the ideas of others creating tighter and tighter code to support an increasingly complex framework."

InformationWeek is speculating on how Linux will change in the next four years. "By 2012 the OS will have matured into three basic usage models. Web-based apps rule, virtualization is a breeze, and command-line hacking for basic system configuration is a thing of the past."

The traditional market share numbers would say that Linux is currently at less than 1%, but some more recent numbers suggest that it might, in fact, be almost even with the Mac. This all brings the question of how many Linux users are there really? Unfortunately, we may never know. Certainly, there is no way of knowing currently, but it should be possible to at least get a rough estimate.

Windows 7 has been making waves around the net for a while now, and we already know some of the more encompassing goals of Microsoft's next operating system release. It's going to be built on top of the foundations laid out by Vista and Server 2008, but it will not increase hardware requirements. There's going to be a multitouch framework, and a new mystery taskbar. That's more or less all we know. Microsoft also said they were going to be more tight-lipped during the development process, something they will continue to do, but they did open a blog today: Engineering Windows 7. The E7 blog is written by Jon DeVaan and Steven Sinofsky, two senior engineering managers for the Windows 7 product.

A federal appeals court has overruled a lower court ruling that, if sustained, would have severely hampered the enforceability of free software licenses. The lower court had found that redistributing software in violation of the terms of a free software license could constitute a breach of contract, but was not copyright infringement. The difference matters because copyright law affords much stronger remedies against infringement than does contract law. If allowed to stand, the decision could have neutered popular copyleft licenses such as the GPL and Creative Commons licenses. The district court decision was overturned on Wednesday by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

An interesting article has been making its way around the internet the past few days, titled "Top 10 Usability Highs Of Mac OS". Mac OS X indeed does some things very, very right, just like many other operating systems and graphical environments do some things very, very right. The issue with the list of the article in question is that many of the items on the list are not exactly examples of "Usability Highs" at all. Read more on this exclusive OSNews article...

"I recently had the opportunity to interview Andrew S. Tanenbaum, creator of the extremely secure Unix-like operating sytem MINIX 3. Andrew is also the author of Operating Systems Design and Implementation, the must-have book on programming and designing operating systems, and the man whose work inspired Linus Torvalds to create Linux. He has published over 120 works on computers (that's including manuals, second and third editions, and translations), and his works are known all over the world, being translated into a variety of different languages for educational use universally. He is currently a professor of computer science at Vrije University in Amsterdam, the Netherlands."

"Often it is difficult to make the transition from procedural scripting to object-oriented programming. This article explores how to reuse knowledge from PHP, Bash, or Python scripting to transition to object-oriented programming in Python. The article also briefly touches on the appropriate use of functional programming."

As we all know by now, netbooks are the latest craze in the computing world. Small notebooks, perfect for on the go, and relatively cheap. The interesting thing is that these netbooks are often offered with Linux pre-installed instead of Windows, and this prompts many to believe that it is the netbook niche where Linux will gain its first solid foothold among the general populace. "It does a lot to level the playing field. In fact, Linux looks to be quick out of the gate," said Jay Lyman, analyst with the 451 Group. However - is that really happening?