With Ubuntu linux being the distro of choice according to Laptop Magazine.

Computer World reports Red Hat CTO Brian Stevens, in a phone conversation with blogger Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols:

“Yes. Red Hat will indeed be pushing the Linux desktop again.”

This could be a reaction to the Windows XP-Vista-7 quagmire Microsoft has managed to create.

According to Computer World

Does anyone care?

This story is everywhere.

Having trouble with your new Dell computer?  Who do you call?

1) Technical support

2) The local news

If you’re the women in this story the answer is #2.

A woman ordered a computer from Dell with Ubuntu Linux.  Upon recipt of her computer, she became frightened and confused and called Dell.  She claims Dell talked her out of having windows installed.  (It’s far more likely that she was simply unwilling to pay for XP and MS Office and misrepresented the Dell employees assurances that Ubuntu will still meet all of her needs.)

She claims that she can’t ‘get online’ with Verizon DSL because the CD provided by Verizon doesn’t work under Linux.  The disk in question is completly unnecessary.  Had she tried to connect to the internet without the disk, she would have been successful.  If she had any trouble, Verizon technical support would have gladly helped had she bothered to call.

She also didn’t think to call Madison Area Technical College, where she had signed up to take those online classes.  Had she called, they’d have told her about this wonderful program (pre-installed on her computer, by the way) called OpenOffice.org that she could use in place of MS Word for writing her papers.  Being a technical college, it’s likely they’d have helped her connect to the internet as well.

The news reporter, ever vigillant, called both Verizon and MATC.  The response was the same in both cases: “Ubuntu linux? No Problem!”

Update:  Apparently, in order to order a Dell computer with Ubuntu installed, you need to click through a page containing only this warning:

“The main thing to note is that when you choose open source you don’t get a Windows operating system. If you’re here by mistake and you are looking for a Dell PC with Windows, please use the following link.”

The buyer must then either “use the following link” or click “Shop for Ubuntu” or “Shop for FreeDOS”.

Now you can finally store those pesky 16TB files!

Ars Technica Reports that all major linux distros are now compliant with DoD IPv6 policies.

So reports LinuxDevices.com

This should make Nokia very happy.

A linux version of Flash Player 10 was released along with versions for some other competing platforms

Update today, and enjoy the future.

Source: DesktopLinux.com

Check it out at lkml.org or this summary at kernelnewbies.org

Summary: 2.6.27 add a new filesystem (UBIFS) optimized for “pure” flash-based storage devices, the page-cache is now lockless, much improved Direct I/O scalability and performance, delayed allocation for ext4, multiqueue networking, an alternative hibernation implementation based on kexec/kdump, data integrity support in the block layer for devices that support it, a simple tracer called ftrace, a mmio tracer, sysprof support, extraction of all the in-kernel’s firmware to /lib/firmware, XEN support for saving/restorig VMs, improved video camera support, support for the Intel wireless 5000 series and RTL8187B network cards, a new ath9k driver for the Atheros AR5008 and AR9001 family of chipsets, more new drivers, improved support for others and many other improvements and fixes.

Good Stuff.

In an odd twist, ZD Net is reporting that, in Taiwan, Linux is selling better among novice computer users than experienced users (who apparently perfer XP).  The article suggests that price is a major factor.