Whatever you do, 2009 is looking to be a big year. That no exception when it comes to Linux. Applications and large projects continue to develop and make major releases multiple times per year.

After the original releases of three Ubuntu machines last year, Dell has quietly been adding to its repository of Linux-powered machines. The newest is a UK-based Inspiron Mini 9, reported by TheRegister.

The LinuxConsole distribution is one of those small projects which quietly put out releases, gradually improve and - rarely get attention. The project, headed by Yann Le Doare, recently released version 1.0.2009 of this distribution and I decided to take a look at what it had to offer.

2008 was an eventful, breakthrough year for many open source companies, and 2009 will be even more so, especially in terms of business purchasing patterns, software business model shifts, and enterprise software stack evolution.

On Monday, Orbitz Worldwide plans to announce the creation and release of two open-source projects, Extremely Reusable Monitoring API (ERMA) and Graphite.

While it soft pedals direct competition with Microsoft, the search giant quietly keeps working on open source projects designed to undermine its archrival.

Black Duck Software released a list of the top 10 projects launched in 2008 that have the most promising future in the open source community. The company also says if you're trying to decide which FOSS horse to back in the next year or so, you should put your money on mobile apps.

The new year is almost upon us, so it's a good time to wrap up the year 2009 and ruminate over the best open source software and hardware this year brought us. So without further ado, let me present my personal "Best of 2009" list in no particular order.

I didn’t make it to OSCON this year and I am quietly thankful for it, because it seems like the conference kicked off a new round of hyperbole and hypocrisy from the fauxpen source crowd and I’m going to try to stay out of it.