Product names are tricky, there's no doubt about it. If you're not going to use a meaningless string of characters such as "X77-P73" then you've got your work cut out for you because it's hard to find a good name that isn't already taken by some other company. Even internal project names have to be researched, checked that they are OK to use and vetted by lawyers for liability.

When Ubuntu decided last year to abruptly replace the familiar Gnome UI with its own Unity interface, many users were upset. And according to the latest numbers from DistroWatch, Linux Mint has been the major beneficiary, so we decided to test Linux Mint 12.

There are more interesting Linux desktop distributions to choose from than ever before. However, if you're looking for major distros with a great deal of support, you'll want to look at the big four: Fedora, Mint, openSUSE, and Ubuntu.

Ubuntu 11.10 has some jagged edges and documentation isn't easy to locate, but Canonical is certainly dreaming big with this latest update, dubbed Oneiric (dreamy) Ocelot.

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.”

Ubuntu 11.04 (nicknamed Natty Narwhal) marks a decided change in direction for the Linux-based operating system. The biggest change is that Canonical, the organizer of Ubuntu, is replacing the Gnome/KDE desktop environment with a new user interface called Unity.

People don't like change. One of the things that some people get hung up on is the look and feel of the desktop. More precisely, some Windows users who look at Ubuntu Linux get hung up on how it doesn't look and feel like Windows. Well, it isn't that difficult to customize the look and feel of Ubuntu Linux to make it be whatever you want it to be.

Canonical has switched its cloud software stack to the open-source OpenStack, the company announced Tuesday. The current version of its Ubuntu Server, version 11.04, uses the Eucalyptus platform.

As Ubuntu Linux continues to grow in popularity, most discussions of it tend to focus on the basics of the operating system itself, including especially details about its desktop environment and user interface.

Ubuntu Server is a fast, free, no-frills Linux distribution that fills a niche between utilitarian Debian and the GUI-driven and, some would argue, over-featured Novell SUSE and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

As mentioned in my last posting, I'm not a very good Linux evangelist. I don't try and convert family and friends to Linux. Therefore, as surprising as it sounds, putting Ubuntu on my dad's new laptop--as I did a week ago--was the first time I've ever directly converted another individual to Linux.

I've been writing Linux guidebooks for some time, and it's fair to say that most people who buy my books are Windows users looking to make the leap to Linux (or perhaps just wondering what the fuss is about).

So far there have been six alpha releases of the forthcoming Ubuntu 9.04, due for final release next month, and late yesterday the one and only beta release was made available for download. From this point forward there's a release candidate in mid-April, before the final release is made on the 23rd.