This is an excellent guest post by Scott Rowed on the use of Linux in K-12 schools, including strong evidence that school districts that do not have students using the Linux operating system are placing their students at a disadvantage, as well as a description of one outstanding success story in British Columbia.

Virtualisation software such as Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion let Mac users run the Windows operating system and Windows-only programs on a Mac, but the install process is complex and time-consuming, and the programs can slow down even a speedy Mac.

So here we go again, another distro has made it to the front of the queue and this time it's the relatively new release Sabayon 1.1 Professional. I tried out version 3.2 of the main distro a while back but it was only on a virtual machine and I wanted to give it a proper test drive.

This post has been in the making since mid-December, when I came across one of the most outrageously titled posts on a professional web publication that I think I've ever read: "Dumbass consumers squander netbook experience by rejecting Linux."

For the third consecutive year, the Linux Professional Institute will provide discounted certification testing during LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in San Francisco, Aug. 6 through 9, 2007, at the Moscone Center. Toronto-based LPI is the official certification sponsor of LWCE, offering a standardized, multi-national program to certify professional expertise in Linux.

How does an enterprise ensure that its staff has the skills necessary for Linux? One answer is skills certification. That's where the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) comes in. LPI, founded in 1999, is a non-profit entity that runs a core Linux certification program called the LPIC (Linux Professional Institute Certification), which is offered around the globe.

Innotek VirtualBox is a general-purpose full virtualizer for x86 hardware. Targeted at server, desktop and embedded use, it is now the only professional-quality virtualization solution that is also Open Source Software. Some of the features of VirtualBox are: Modularity, virtual machine descriptions in XML, guest additions for Windows and Linux and shared folders. The following workshop describes how to install VirtualBox (OSE) on OpenSuse 10.3 and to install a WindowsXP guest addition.

Scribus is an open-source page layout program that runs on Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X. Is it a viable alternative to proprietary products for professional production work?

A question from John.P in Texas: “…About the poll called “Are you considering a switch from Windows to Linux?” I see that almost 47% of visitors say “Yes” (so did I). I am an XP user and was wondering if you can post a short note for advice about switching to Linux?…“spacer_gif Switching From XP to Linux - Should You?