When a Linux enthusiast hears the name Debian, it never fails to instill in him some awe and respect. After all, this is the one and only not-for-profit Linux distribution which has singularly built up a name synonymous with security, stability and freeness.

"I know the DIY VCR cat feeder article has been popular - when I went on vacation, it was something I considered to help keep me the cats entertained and fed. They were formerly strays, so an "all you can eat" bucket would turn them into 100lb behemoths in about 30 seconds :-) Unfortunately, the VCR version requires some complex mechanical pieces, so I opted instead for a computer / cardboard mashup."

Microsoft's decision to hold back the launch of its forthcoming Windows Vista operating system appears to have played into the hands of Novell, its would-be rival.

While there's still some doubt over the exact date the delayed next version of Windows will hit the market, Novell launched its price-competitive SuSE Linux enterprise 10 desktop and server editions last week.

Billy Marshall, who as a VP at Red Hat helped take its North American sales from $8 million in 2001 to $150 million in 2005, and Erik Troan, ex-Red Hat VP of product engineering, have moved a few miles down the road to found rPath. The company wants to make it easier to bundle Linux with software applications. It serves app vendors, such as Digium and Ingres, that in turn produce digital files that include the Linux operating system preconfigured to run their specific application.

How do you know which open source approach is right for you? We've pulled out a few start-ups that you might not be familiar with, but we think should be on your radar.

Last quarter, Motorola was the second biggest smartphone maker in the world, thanks largely to the million or so Linux-based smartphones it shipped in China.

Clearly, Motorola has seen the writing on the wall, and is making a big commitment to Linux. In fact, this company is working to have over 50 percent of the handsets it releases in the future run Linux.

This release holds a few records - it is the most long-awaited release of ReactOS, it is the release which was preceded by 3 Release Candidates instead of usual 2, and at last ReactOS release never had so many changes since the last one.

IBM is expanding its open source strategy beyond Linux by targeting eight new technology areas where it will focus open source attention going forward.

Linux has reached a "tipping point' in its development, helped in part by IBM, so IBM can now nurture other forms of open source software development, an industry analyst says.

"There is no technical reason why a GNU/Linux user running the proprietary Flash player can't view New York Times video, but for some reason that newspaper's honchos have decided to limit video viewing everywhere except on their front page to proprietary operating systems."

SCALE 5x, the Southern California Linux Expo has issued a call for papers. SCALE 5x will be held on Feb 10-11, 2007 at the Los Angeles Airport Westin. Past speakers have included Chris Dibona, Jon "maddog" Hall, and Andrew Morton.

Let’s face it. Microsoft till date has been no friend of the open-source movement. There is enough bad-blood between open source evangelists and Microsoft to fill up pages. However this could be soon changing. In a rather unusual move, Microsoft has issued an open invitation to the Mozilla Corp. to bring both its Firefox browser and Thunderbird e-mail application into the Windows fold.

An update was released for Dapper on 21 August 2006 UTC, which has been found to cause problems on certain systems.

A subsequent update published 17 hours later corrects this, so if your system is fully up to date now and you have no obvious graphical system failures, then you are highly unlikely to be affected. However, delays to the system of update distribution mean that you should make sure you have fully updated before rebooting your computer. You can read more about the issue to ensure you will not be affected, and learn what steps we are taking to ensure this does not happen again.

Check out this Ubuntu starter guide maintained by the Linux Center of University of Latvia. A great resource for anyone using Ubuntu. It’s Wiki based too, so feel free to contribute.

When Flash 8 and 9 weren’t released for Linux, I thought, "why doesn’t someone just edit Flash’s code and change the 7 to a 9?" Turns out it’s possible. Here’s how.

The Vietnamese Communist Party's decision to move its computer systems to open-source software got a boost on Friday from Intel, the world's largest chip maker.

Under terms of a memorandum of understanding signed on Friday, Intel will help the Communist Party's Central Committee for Science and Education (CCSE) set up a laboratory, called OpenLab, for testing and developing open-source software. Over the next three years, the lab will oversee the installation of the software on 27,000 PCs running Intel processors, the chip maker said.