Don't tell Greg Kroah-Hartman that Linux hurts for device drivers. He's heard too much of that rap, and he's already done plenty to stop it. We should thank him and help pick up the ball. I'm doing both here.

Just when you thought it was safe to come out from behind that rock I'm back with a long awaited review. It's true to say the pace here has slowed in the last month or two but I'm getting back at it now and I'm even contemplating another distro tour, this time on my Dell m1330 laptop. Today's victim...

Linux and UNIX-like operating systems in general are regarded as being more secure for the common user, in contrast with operating systems that have "Windows" as part of their name. Why is that?

One of the biggest arguments used against Linux in grade school level education is that we aren't teaching kids to use the applications they'll use in the "real world". As the Technology Director for a K-12 school district, I've heard that argument many times. After all these years, I still don't buy it.

For my money, the best desktop operating system is Linux -- MEPIS and OpenSUSE at the top with Ubuntu closing in fast, to be exact. But everyone has their own opinion, and over at PC Magazine some old friends and coworkers of mine decided to compare all the most popular desktop operating systems: Windows XP and Vista, Mac OS X 10.5.1 (Leopard), and Ubuntu 7.10.

Dream Linux, the dream of every new user, or at least the distro that's a dream to use has taken another jump forward and released a newer version. But as with every new version, questions remain as to how well the new version stacks up against the older ones. And how does this one do against it's predecessors? Let's find out.

It was with much joy that the Linux community saw two harmful myths about open source get put in their places recently. Myth #1: Linux is bad for business. Linux Foundation: More than 70 percent of work on the kernel today is done by developers who are being paid for their efforts. Myth #2: Linux netbooks have a high rate of customer returns. Dell: No more so than Windows netbooks.

Operating systems seem to have received more attention these days than they have ever before, and while there are numerous available discussion points, in relation to new versions of these operating systems, one of the biggest trends that has been fascinating to watch is how people are switching operating systems like crazy.

iPhone challengers Palm Pre as well as HTC's Dream and Magic have one thing in common: Linux-based operating systems. We look at why Linux is so good for smartphones.