Ubuntu and Fedora are arguably the most popular Linux distros out there today. They both make a huge impact on the Linux community release after release, but are somewhat opposite philosphies at times. Fedora, the RedHat-sponsored community project is adamant of RPM packages, while Ubuntu is based on Debian and therefore uses DEB packages. Fedora maintains that RedHat corporate environment vibe to it, more like a specialised distro, the perfect choice for developers. Ubuntu, on the other hand, based its strategy around creating "Linux for human beings", a friendly desktop environment that is accessible to all kinds of users.

Read the full thing at http://cristalinux.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-to-painlessly-switch-from-ubuntu-to.html

I announced in April that as of today, I wouldn't be writing any more articles for Groklaw. I intended to finish the Comes v. Microsoft exhibits as text and perfect some of our other collections and then I would retire from Groklaw, knowing as I did that the research we have done together will remain useful no matter what happens in the future.

Read the full thing at http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110515173831922

CoffeeScript is a simple, clean, fast language which compiles to JavaScript, either at build time, with a caching framework plugin on the server, or at runtime in the browser.

The syntax looks like a cross between Python and Haskell and, generally speaking, is used similarly enough to Python that you’ll have little trouble picking it up and using it comfortably.

Read the full thing at http://blog.ssokolow.com/archives/2011/05/07/a-python-programmers-first-impression-of-coffeescript/

As programmers, we deal with a lot of unusual keyboard characters that typical users rarely need to type, much less think about.

Even the characters that are fairly regularly used in everyday writing -- such as the humble dash, parens, period, and question mark -- have radically different meaning in programming languages.

Read the full thing at http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/06/ascii-pronunciation-rules-for-programmers.html

I often get the feeling that developers of the major Linux desktop environments suffer from commercial envy. It seems they’re always trying to make Linux more “user friendly” for the .01% of Windows or Mac users that might halfway consider making the switch, while ever increasingly ignoring the 99% of full time Linux desktop users who just want easy customization and solid performance. Many argue that the major environments (KDE, GNOME) aren’t for Linux power users, who should use one of the more bare bones environments available.

Read the full thing at http://onezerothrice.com/?p=233

MeeGo is a flavor of Linux, with a similar purpose as Android in the mobile computing space (being a versatile, open-source OS for phones, tablets and other mobile devices).

I root for MeeGo because it has a lot of advantages over Android and iOS

Read the full thing at http://soltesza.wordpress.com/2011/04/07/why-i-root-for-meego/

The stable release of Drizzle has generated a lot of interest in migrating previous MySQL web sites to Drizzle. The good news for people attempting such migrations is that this isn't incredibly difficult in many cases; this article will describe what to look out for and how to go about converting a web site or any other database related project.

Read the full thing at http://www.h-online.com/open/features/A-migrator-s-guide-to-Drizzle-1217810.html

If you’re like me, you’ve got terrabytes of space full of digitized media extracted from DVDs and audio CDs. If not, disk space is cheap and ripping audio is pretty easy.

Mostly.

Read the full thing at http://wm161.net/2011/03/27/rippit-the-no-nonsense-media-ripper/

Firefox 4′s brand new Sync feature is one of the main attractions of the latest release. It allows you to sync browser data, such as bookmarks, preferences, history, and tabs – but not extensions – across multiple Firefox installations. Here’s how it’s done…

Read the full thing at http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/tutorials/firefox-4-sync-step-by-step/

The Romanian software developer Bogdan Vatra has announced a first alpha version of his Qt implementation for the Android mobile operating system. The release might be timed just right for many developers, since Nokia has, in the context of its cooperation with Microsoft, announced that it does not intend to develop a Windows Phone variant of the GUI framework. On the other hand, more than a few Qt users are probably interested in developing software for Android devices rather than using Silverlight or the XNA framework to develop software for Microsoft's mobile platform.

Read the full thing at http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Qt-implementation-for-Android-introduced-1194815.html