The first Release Candidate of ROSA Marathon 2012 GNOME edition has been released. ROSA Marathon is a line of Linux distributions published by ROSA Laboratory, a Linux solutions provider based in Moscow, Russia. Other Linux editions published by ROSA Laboratory are ROSA Marathon 2012 KDE and ROSA Marathon 2012 LXDE. Both have already been reviewed on this website. See ROSA [...]

Choice, as they say, is a good thing. Or you can never have too choices. In the mobile device operating system space, there are plenty to choose from, with Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android leading the pack. Not to be left out, the Mozilla Foundation, publishers of the popular, open source Firefox Web browser, plans to add one more mobile [...]

KLook and StackFolder are two really cool features on the K Desktop Environment. Currently, they are only available by default on KDE editions of ROSA Linux, a line of Linux distributions from ROSA Laboratory, a Linux solutions provider based in Moscow, Russia. KLook is a multi-file-type viewer. It is not an application that can be started standalone, but is integrated [...]

An HP TouchPad with 32 GB of internal storage takes the tile of “My first tablet computer.” It was an early Christmas gift to myself last year. Compared to the latest offerings, it is a little bit old, but for a device that enables me to step away from my desktop computers and still consume digital content comfortably, it comes [...]

The HDMI Dongle and Cotton Candy were the first USB stick-sized Android devices profiled on this website. Here comes a third one – the ANDHDM2S. It comes to us courtesy of Sanko Co., Ltd. of Japan. Measuring just (in mm) 10x98x42, and weighing in at just 39 g (1.4 oz), this computer is really small. But size is not just [...]

Qualcomm has announced the public preview release of Snapdragon SDK for Android. Snapdragon is Qualcomm’s single-chip, all-in-one mobile processor for smartphones and tablet computers. “The Snapdragon SDK for Android is a collection of software components that can be downloaded to enhance your app – especially when it’s running on Snapdragon Processor powered devices. It is designed to make it easy [...]

ROSA Media Player, (ROMP), is a media player from ROSA Laboratory (ROSA Company), a Russian Linux software solutions provider responsible for ROSA Linux distributions. It is the default media player on the KDE edition of ROSA Desktop, a distribution derived from Mandriva. It is one of the better media players available on any distribution, with a feature that other applications [...]

Apache 3.4 was released just six weeks ago. Since that time, download rate has been brisk. That is relative, of course, but for a software that is no longer installed by default on Linux distributions, surpassing the 5 million download mark in six weeks is still impressive. If you just dropped in from outer space, Apache OpenOffice, or what used [...]

I do not have the exact numbers, but I think it is save to say that there are more distributions that are based on Ubuntu than on any other (actively) developed distribution. While most add no real value to the system, a few attempt to do something different, even if slightly, from the parent distribution. Zorin OS is one of [...]

With the release of Mandriva 2012 technology preview last week, Mandriva SA has taken the first step towards publishing Mandriva 2012. The release announcement shows that the company will now support desktop environments other than the K Desktop Environment, which was the default and only desktop environment supported in Mandriva Desktop 2011. The installer in this technical preview gives you [...]

Sabayon 9 is the latest release of Sabayon, a multi-purpose Linux distribution derived from Gentoo Linux. Made available for download are 32- and 64-bit installation ISO images for KDE, GNOME 3 and Xfce desktop environments. Sabayon is a rolling-release distribution, so existing users do not have to reinstall to get the latest core and applications of a Sabayon release. That [...]

Piwik is a free software/open source Web analytics software developed in much the same manner as most open source applications – global collaboration of talented coders doing what they love. It is an alternative to Google Analytics and from my experience, better in many respects. If you manage websites and want to have complete control over traffic monitoring, Piwik is [...]

Fedora 17, code-named Beefy Miracle, was released yesterday for all to download and use. Aside for the main edition, which uses the GNOME 3 desktop environments, installation images for three main Spins were also released. These are for KDE, LXDE and Xfce. Specialized Spins for Security, Scientific-KDE, Design-suite, SoaS, Games, Electronic-lab and Robotics were also released. It is very unlikely [...]

Linux Mint 13 is the latest release version of the Linux Mint, the desktop Linux distribution based on Ubuntu Desktop. This edition is based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. Unlike earlier editions of Linux Mint that shipped with one main GNOME edition, Linux Mint 13, code-named Maya, ships with two “main” GNOME editions. There is Linux Mint 13 MATE, which features [...]

Mageia 2, the second edition of the Linux distribution forked from Mandriva Linux, was released just two days ago. Made available for download, were Live CD installation images for KDE and GNOME 3, and other ISO installation media that allows you to install desktop environments and window managers other than KDE and GNOME 3. One of those “other” desktop environments/window [...]

When the going gets though, as the saying goes, the tough gets going. That is usually a test of character. When it comes to software companies in a financial mess, that old adage can be paraphrased as: When the going gets tough, we dump our software on the (open source) community. It certainly was true of HP/Palm and their webOS [...]