There are plenty of reasons for wanting a low-resource distro running on your computer. The important things that we'll look at here are the amount of space needed, how much processing power is required to get the distro running at an acceptable level, and the effort required to get it to work.

Drupal is a great CMS but is a bit hefty when you host it on bargain-basement shared hosting, and virtual private servers are great but memory-constrained at the low-end. Apache can be a big offender when it comes to resource usage, so a nice alternative is nginx, a fast, light-weight and efficient http server that supports PHP via PHP-FastCGI.

Puredyne is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution aimed at creative people. It provides a number of creative applications, alongside a solid set of graphic, audio and video tools in a fast, minimal package. It includes software for everything an artist might need - from sound art to innovative film-making.

The .desktop file fills two primary functions: first, it informs the desktop environment how the file is to be handled by the desktop environment with regard to menu placement, display, environmental variables, and similar. In this function, it resides globally in /usr/share/applications/ and for specific users in $HOME/.local/applications.

Remember Amiga? Well, if you're old enough to remember that platform, then you might remember the Pagestream desktop publishing system. Pagestream began in 1986 as Publishing Partner for the Atari Computers.

The next major release of Debian GNU/Linux is taking shape - albeit without the explicit direction of a Release Manager and with some significant hurdles to overcome.

MicroOLAP Database Designer for PostgreSQL is an easy CASE tool with intuitive graphical interface allowing you to build a clear and effective database structure visually, see the complete picture (diagram) representing all the tables, references between them, views, stored procedures and other objects.

MyPaint is a lightweight, easy-to-use open source painting application that you might not have heard of before. It’s not a photo editor, it doesn’t bother with paths, geometric shapes, text manipulation, or fancy masking options. Instead, it focuses on one and only one use: painting.