Late October 2009 is proving to be an interesting time in the world of computer operating systems. Within the space of eight days we have seen Apple dramatically dropping their prices, Microsoft releasing Windows 7 and on Thursday 29 October Canonical will release Ubuntu "Karmic Koala" 9.10.

This afternoon after I got home from work, I fragged my online enemies! What makes this remarkable is that I use Ubuntu Linux, and as everyone know gaming doesn't work on Linux (tongue-in-cheek comment there). What is even more amazing is that I didn't install an application to do this.

Saturday September 19th 2009 is Software Freedom Day, a global day of celebration of Free and Open Source Software. One of the main goals of Software Freedom Day (SFD) is to educate the public about the benefits of Free and Open Source Software.

At the Linux Users Victoria (LUV) Annual General Meeting, held on Tuesday 1 September 2009 at Trinity College, Melbourne, Donna Benjamin was elected to the position of President for the second year running. With a membership of 1793, LUV is a significant organisation in the Australian Free and Open Source software community.

The Linux community has been waiting for a long time for an updated Skype client. Recently Skype released a Beta client, version 2.1.0.47, with many new features and bugfixes, bringing Skype functionality on Linux much closer to that available for Mac and Windows.

The other day my partner left the market shopping list at home. I took a few minutes off from cleaning the house to try SMSing it to her using Skype, rather than using the small keyboard on my mobile. However I found that the latest Linux Skype client, version 2.0.0.72, does not include SMS functionality (amongst quite a few other features that Windows users have). Frustrated with Skype's treating Linux users like second-rate citizens, I resolved to see what alternatives there are to Skype. I started with Ekiga, which is pre-installed on Ubuntu. Read on to find out how I went getting rid of Skype and its limitations.

Last night I downloaded the Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix (UNR) and installed it on my Asus Eee PC 901. Here’s how it all went.

Charles Dickens wrote that "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times". I have a feeling that he wasn’t referring to computer operating system boot times, but that's what I’m going to discuss today. More specifically Ubuntu 9.04's boot times.

Microsoft Corporation today quietly announced the end of internal development of Internet Explorer. A spokesman said that one of the senior managers saw a car-bumper sticker which said "The only good use for Internet Explorer is to download Firefox", which prompted some soul-searching within the company.

Easy, quick and simple image resizing and rotating is important to many people. When using Windows, you're able to download and install the Image Resizer "PowerToy". You can then manipulate images directly from Windows Explorer. But how do you do the same task in Ubuntu?

There are quite a few anti-virus packages that work with Linux, such as ClamAV, AVG, Avast!, Panda, NOD32, Avira, F-Prot, Kaspersky, eScan and Sophos. I got these names from a quick Google search and it may not be an exhaustive list. Most of those packages are proprietary, some are free and open source. Many of them charge licence fees. However, this article is about ClamAV, so lets get on with it!

In a continuing series of articles highlighting that GNU/Linux is a viable replacement operating system, today we're exploring how to set the desktop background (also known as "wallpaper") on the popular Ubuntu distribution.

In a continuing series of articles highlighting that GNU/Linux is a viable replacement operating system, today we're exploring how to use Dropbox on the popular Ubuntu distribution.

There will never be a "Year of the Linux desktop", but I don't think that is actually all that important. Here's why.

In a continuing series of articles highlighting that GNU/Linux is a viable replacement operating system, today we're exploring how to encrypt emails using the popular Ubuntu distribution.

In a continuing series of articles highlighting that GNU/Linux is a viable replacement operating system, today we're exploring how to encrypt local files using PGP in the popular Ubuntu distribution.

In a continuing series of articles highlighting that GNU/Linux is a viable replacement operating system, I want to spend a bit of time talking about data encryption, focussing on how to achieve this with the Ubuntu distribution.

In a continuing series of articles highlighting that GNU/Linux is a viable replacement operating system, today we're exploring one quick way to speed up your web browsing experience in the popular Ubuntu distribution.

In the last few weeks and months, there have been some very interesting articles and discussions on iTWire about Linux, Windows and Mac OS and their relative merits. Here's my take on why I think that Linux will ultimately succeed, though don't be afraid the timeline is still pretty long!

In a continuing series of articles highlighting that GNU/Linux is a viable replacement operating system, today we're exploring CrossoverOffice (or installing Windows applications on Linux systems).