Reflecting the growing need for automation tools in the enterprise, Quest Software has released a software package that could help Unix administrators better manage policy files that determine which users can access privileged material and programs on Unix and Linux systems.

Google's Android mobile platform may be based on the open source Linux operating system, but the extent of its own openness has long been a topic of considerable debate.

The world of hypervisors is complicated by the fact that there are proprietary and open source tools and the latter are often pressed into service in different ways, say nothing of the fact that the whole market is evolving quickly.

With some funding from Google and the U.S. Energy Department, a pair of computer scientists at Dartmouth University are updating the venerable grep and diff Unix command line utilities to handle more complex types of data.

Red Hat has updated its flagship operating system, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, with new technologies designed to cut the cost and improve performance of enterprise storage, the company announced Tuesday.

The Linux world may still be all abuzz following the release last weekend of Linux Mint 12, but meanwhile the Ubuntu Linux team has been hard at work crafting the first alpha release of Ubuntu 12.04, or “Precise Pangolin.”

For any new release of a popular Linux distribution, there are typically numerous fans eagerly awaiting the software's final debut. For Linux Mint 12, however, that anticipation may well have broken all previous records, so anxious have Linux fans been to see the new release's answer to the controversial desktop environments increasingly appearing in other operating systems.

Linux had a big birthday recently -- its 20th -- but the event may have been a tad bittersweet for its most devoted fans. According to recent results of the annual application development survey from Santa Cruz, Calif.-based researcher Evans Data Corp. , Linux has slipped to third place in popularity, behind Mac OS and, of course, Windows.

The Motorola Xoom was the most advanced tablet that we got to try out at Mobile World Congress. Other tablets, including the HTC Flyer, certainly look promising, but the Xoom is the launch device for the Google Android Honeycomb OS - the version of Android developed specifically for tablets - and the devices on show at MWC were fully working ones used for live demonstrations.

There's no doubt Canonical's popular Ubuntu Linux distribution gets the majority of attention in the Linux world these days, but there are myriad others equally worthy of consideration.

Motorola announced the Atrix smartphone at the Consumer Electronics Show, and while many have been concentrating on its 4G connectivity and clever desktop dock that lets it run a cut-down Linux desktop on a full-sized monitor, nearly everybody has missed something very important.

Were it not for Windows' long-standing installed base and overwhelming market dominance, it seems unlikely that anyone would argue seriously for the merit of the operating system, plagued as it is by high prices, security problems and vendor lock-in.

As the details of Samsung's Galaxy Tab are gradually revealed, it's becoming increasingly clear that many of the tablet's most desirable features derive from its use of Android--or Linux, that is--which, after all, is the basis for Google's winning mobile operating system.

Google's patching of vulnerabilities in its open source Chrome Web browser last week wasn't so much notable in itself; Microsoft, to be sure, is forever issuing patches for the many bugs that afflict its products.

The Apple iOS, which runs on its iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, has a flaw in how it reads PDF documents that makes it easier to hack. This flaw is exploited by JailbreakMe, a one-click site that makes it easy for anyone without any real tech skills to hack into their own iPhone.

Despite the wealth of free applications out there, many small business owners continue to spend an inordinate amount of their all-too-scarce resources on software.