A good overview of more popular Linux distributions. By Thomas J. Fitzgerald at The New York Times…
HAVE you ever wondered what happened to Linux? Linux is the free software created through the open source development process that many technology enthusiasts had predicted would revolutionize the world of computing.
via The Many Alternative Computing Worlds of Linux – NYTimes.com.
By Matthew Hughes at MakeUseOf.com…
Learn To Build With PHP: A Crash Course
It’s a great month for operating system updates. In 2 days we will have the finished Ubuntu 13.10 release. A nice review here by Jack Wallen at TechRepublic.com…
Find out why Jack Wallen thinks that Ubuntu 13.10 is a solid, reliable platform that just works. Do you agree?
By Kev Quirk (is that a real name?) at MakeUseOf.com…
Dropbox is a great service, no doubt about that. It’s the original cloud syncing and backup tool, that will make all of your data available anywhere, while keeping it safe. But what if you’re worried about your privacy while online? What can you do to ensure that your data is backed up, yet your privacy remains intact? Simple — host your own alternative to Dropbox.
By Narasu Rebbapragada at TechHive.com
A bright orange line emerges from the horizon at the left side of the screen. Getting brighter, it arcs upward—and then suddenly turns ashen gray before falling back to the horizon. More lines follow the first. Thousands upon thousands of lines. The visual is at once beautiful and daunting.
via The art of numbers: Who knew Big Data could look so cool? | TechHive.
I’ve been looking into contemporary textbooks on operating systems and found this free, online text. The authors now teach at Duke and are gracious to make their book free. Kudos to the Arpaci-Dusseau team!
From their web page…
Welcome to Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces (now version 0.6 — see BOOK NEWS for details), a free online (and available for purchase in printed form) operating systems book! The book is centered around three conceptual pieces that are fundamental to operating systems: virtualization, concurrency, and persistence. In understanding the conceptual, you will also learn the practical, including how an operating system does things like schedule the CPU, manage memory, and store files persistently. Lots of fun stuff!
By Cade Metz at Wired.com…
Alex Polvi is living the great Silicon Valley archetype. Together with some old school friends, he’s piecing together a tech revolution from inside a two-car Palo Alto garage.
He’s like Dave Packard or Steve Jobs or Sergey Brin — at least up to a point. The difference is that, from his vantage point here in the 21st century, Polvi views his garage with a certain sense of irony — “straight-up Palo Alto-style,” he says — and he harbors ambitions that suit our particular time. He wants to change the way we build the entire internet, making this worldwide network of computer servers as easy to update as the browsers on our laptops.
via Linux Hackers Rebuild Internet From Silicon Valley Garage | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com.
A well written article on why open source is not profitable (not that it is intended to be) and some interesting analysis on the success and failures of many initiatives. By Daniel Eran Dilger at AppleInsider.com…
Open Source enthusiasts love to tell you Android is winning, and that it is winning because it is open. But they’re wrong on both counts. The history of computing makes that abundantly clear, as do the current leaders in profitability.
via Editorial: Apple, Google and the failure of Android’s open.