By many of the accounts we've seen, the star of last week's Consumer Electronics Show was Palm's new Pre smartphone, a Linux-based offering with all the features we've come to expect from post-iPhone devices and a few innovations of it's own.

Palm announced its WebOS Linux platform yesterday, along with a smartphone to run it. To be sold by Sprint in the first half of 2009, the 3G-enabled Palm Pre features a slide-out keyboard, WiFi, GPS, 3-megapixel camera, 3.1-inch touchscreen, and Palm's homegrown "WebOS" Linux phone stack.

Contrary to recent rumors, it's not Palm's first Linux smartphone, and no, it's not a competitor to Nokia's Linux-based N800 Internet Tablet. Rather, Palm today unveiled the Foleo, which it's calling a 'new class' of mobile device.

As promised, Palm's Linux-based smartphone went on sale Saturday, available exclusively for Sprint networks, says eWEEK. Early reviews have been favorable, although analysts worry about the lack of software and the ability of Sprint to effectively market the Palm Pre.

Verizon Wireless announced Jan. 25 availability of two modified versions of Palm's WebOS-based smartphones, the Palm Pre Plus and the newly WiFi-enabled Palm Pixi Plus. Meanwhile, Palm announced that its WebOS developer program is now open to all developers, and plans to launch a WebOS plugin development kit, says eWEEK.

Independent programmers in the community recently achieved Palm's goal of running Linux on Palm devices. Linux is an alternative interface to Palm and Windows Mobile operating systems, which allows you to control and navigate basic Palm device functions.

The Linux-based Palm Pre is a sleek smartphone full of features-- but is it feature-ful enough? Gerry Blackwell gives a detailed report on this new entry in the smartphone marketplace.

Artifex Software is suing Palm over the PDF (Portable Document Format) viewer in Palm's Pre smartphone, it said on Thursday.

Sprint and Verizon Wireless have released Palm's upgraded 1.4 version of the Linux-based WebOS for Palm Pre and Palm Pixi smartphones. Ofering much-anticipated video capture and editing functionality plus improved messaging features, WebOS 1.4 arrives shortly after Palm announced lowered investment guidance due to disappointing smartphone sales.