The VAR Guy

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that Android is open source and built on Linux. Fortunately for Android enthusiasts and independent developers, however, Sony has made life a little easier by releasing the open source archive for the Xperia S device. Of course, there are some catches. Read on for what this announcement means for the juncture of Android and free software.

We may never know every detail about Ubuntu’s user base. But some of its characteristics became a little clearer this week as Canonical’s Gerry Carr began releasing the results of the company’s recent survey of people running Ubuntu, the Linux distribution. Don’t get too excited just yet, as we’ll have to wait a few more days for the full survey findings. But if you’re interested in what’s been learned so far, keep reading…

Mark Shuttleworth’s eagerness to declare victory over RHEL notwithstanding, it’s clear that Ubuntu still has a lot of growing to do in the server room. But it came one step closer to becoming a leader on that front recently with the introduction of official Ubuntu cloud images to Amazon’s EC2 interface. Here are the details, and what they say about where Ubuntu may be headed in the cloud.

At this point, there’s no denying that Linux — despite high hopes early-on — is a late-entry to the world of tablets. But that doesn’t mean open-source enthusiasts have written off this segment of the hardware market. On the contrary, a number of initiatives to make Linux a viable choice for tablet users are in rapid development. Read on for a look.

Mid-March is a time ripe for overhauling traditional power structures — or it was, at least, in ancient Rome. But if former Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth is correct in his claim this week that Ubuntu is overtaking Red Hat in the world of Linux servers, we may be in the midst of a major shake-up in the open-source hierarchy as well. Is Shuttleworth right, or will this trend prove no more enduring than Brutus‘ brief reign after he murdered Caesar? Here are some thoughts.

Who runs Ubuntu? Where, why and how? That’s a question lots of people — including probably even Canonical employees — would like to be able to answer better. Toward this end, a survey of general Ubuntu users is underway. Here’s the scoop.

When it comes to improving hardware support for Linux, there are two traditional strategies: The Do-It-Yourself method, by which geeks write their own device drivers, and the Beg-And-Plead approach, or asking OEMs for open-source drivers and hoping they comply. But Canonical seems to be forging a third path by actually cooperating with upstream manufacturers to bring better hardware support to Ubuntu. Here’s how, and what it means for the lives of Linux users everywhere.

No, it’s not Shark Week, that’s on the Discovery Channel. This is SHARKFEST 2012, and Riverbed Technology, the WAN optimization network company, will be hosting the fifth annual convention focusing on Wireshark, the open source packet sniffer. But how does this play into the channel? I’ll tell you …

In little more than a month, the latest release of Ubuntu, 12.04 LTS, will be upon us. As we’ve already noted, it brings a lot of new features to the desktop. But since PCs are only a fraction of the Ubuntu universe, we’d be remiss not to take stock of the updates that 12.04 will usher in on servers, the cloud and beyond. Here’s a look.

Some days I think ARM computing belongs in the same category as “the cloud” — both have generated huge amounts of buzz but haven’t always lived up to the hype.  Yet the latest ARM product to hit the market, the Raspberry Pi mini-computer, might be proof that there is something to the supposed ARM revolution after all — particularly for the open source channel. Here’s why.

We’ve now officially entered the season that comes only, er, twice a year: the countdown to the next iteration of Ubuntu. With beta 1 of Ubuntu 12.04 now available, it’s time to take a look at what’s new — and there’s a lot of it — in the latest and greatest version of what is (probably) the world’s most popular open source operating system.

Telling IT consumers your latest product harkens back to the past may not seem like a great idea in a market where innovation and forward-thinking are prime. But that’s precisely what Talend is doing this week with the release of its latest open source data-integration software.  Curious?  Here’s the scoop.

Roughly one year after Attachmate acquired Novell and the SUSE Linux business, SUSE is showing several signs of progress. The SUSE organization seems more nimble and far more focused on strategic partnerships and customer acquisition, The VAR Guy senses. Here’s the update — along with some lingering challenges that the SUSE team must address.

Who uses Ubuntu, where and why? That’s a question a lot of parties in the open source channel likely ask themselves. It’s also one that’s hard to answer, since public data on Ubuntu deployment is scarce. But it became a little less so recently with the publication of the results of Canonical’s latest survey of Ubuntu server users. Read on for the highlights.

It’s already mid-February, which — besides cold weather and the bourgeois contrivances of Valentine’s Day — means Ubuntu developers are more than halfway to the release of the next version of the operating system, 12.04. And with that in mind, it seems timely to take a look at how Unity is shaping up. Read on for some highlights on what to expect from the desktop environment in April and beyond.

Until quite recently, the Linux world had, for the most part, only two major desktop environments: GNOME 2 and KDE. Fast forward to the present, however, and there’s an immense litany of different choices, all vying to become the new face of your open source operating system. To me, this shift signals a new paradigm in the world of free software — a turn that could have major consequences throughout the channel. Here’s why.

ownCloud, Inc., which went commercial fewer than two months ago, may be young, but it’s already pumping out innovative new features for the ownCloud open source framework, including some interesting potential revenue streams. Here’s a look at the latest updates in version 3, out this week.

HP has unveiled its roadmap to bring webOS to the open source community, with the whole process expected to be complete by September 2012. What’s in store for webOS as it makes this transition? Here’s the rundown …

Even if you don’t run Linux, chances are good you’ve heard of Ubuntu. You’re probably also familiar with its official cousins: Kubuntu, Xubuntu and the like. But there’s another subset of the Ubuntu ecosystem that gets less play — namely, the medley of unofficial spinoffs built by third parties. Although little discussed, the trends surrounding these distributions that hide in Ubuntu’s shadow reveal a lot about the open source channel more broadly.

Most politicians probably don’t use Linux. After all, some of them have barely figured out computers at all. But since the American presidential campaigning season is once again upon us, I’ve been wondering to myself lately: If the candidates did run Linux, which distribution would they choose? At the risk of offending various groups of people, here are my answers, for better or for worse.

Maybe it’s just a sign that I’m getting old, but more and more often lately I’ve found myself thinking thoughts like, “Back in my day, Linux didn’t have X, Y and Z. We did without!” With these sentiments in mind, I decided to put together a list of a few major desktop Linux technologies that millions of users now take for granted, but which didn’t exist only a few years ago. Read on for a look.

A recent article in The New York Times took a deep dive into the world of HP, Palm and webOS. The wild ride this mobile platform has taken thus far has been bumpy, but as it turns out, some believe it was doomed from the start. Read on for an inside look into why webOS is likely to become complete vaporware in no time at all …

The “year in review” pieces that proliferate old and new media alike around this time of year get tedious pretty fast. But because I’ve yet to see a good compilation of the major developments — and there were plenty of them — that affected desktop Linux in 2011, I couldn’t think of any better topic for my last post of the month. That may make me a hypocrite, but if you can forgive a personal flaw, keep reading for a look at how the Linux world has evolved in the last 365 days or so.