Digg “Linux Nation” for Thursday September 13th 2007

I saw a post over on Diggnation forums saying that Diggnation doesn’t cover enough Linux articles.  Well here’s the solution:  Make a list yourself!  Here’s a list for the past week with my own comments.  Buy me a beer (located at the end of this post) and I’ll think about making it into a weekly video.

1. PC World refuse to repair hardware fault, because of Linux
   • Update:  Linux does not actually void the warranty.  Problem has been fixed.
2. Fix a Frozen System with the Magic SysRq Keys
   • Alt and SysRq (Print Screen) and then typing REISUB will reboot Linux properly after a crash when the commonly used Ctrl-Alt-Backspace or function keys don’t work.  Great Tip! 
3. OOXML: nice little standard? [PIC]
   • OOXML is well documented.  🙂
4. Microsoft starts a “Get the Facts” campaign…against itself
   • Vista TCO is lower than XP.  I don’t believe that for a second!  This appears to be Microsoft doing what they do best, sponsoring surveys and such to get the results they want to be able to publish.
5. Valve recruiting Senior Engineer port Windows-based games to Linux
   • This is great news.  Surely a job posting is not a news release, but now there is some hope that Valve will be porting Steam and their games to Linux.
6. Vietnam Says Buh-bye to Microsoft Office, Chooses OpenOffice.org
   • 20k upgrades to Office 2008 is more expensive than OO.org.  Who knew?
7. AMD Releases 900+ Pages Of ATI GPU Specifications
   • With these specifications, ATI drivers will likely improve in quality on these specific GPUs.  ATI/AMD driver hackers rejoice!
8. Latest VirtualBox 1.5 runs Windows apps directly on your Linux desktop
   • VirtualBox Windows Emulator has a new version, still looks like Win95, but works well.  This does seem a little bit better than running in VMWare since you can run the program in its own window which is decorated by your window manager.
9. AMD: GPU Specifications Without NDAs!
   • Same story as number 7.  Dupe!
10. Lenovo Interested in Linux, Opens Poll for Distro
    • Surprise!  45% of all surveyed want Ubuntu supported on a Levono Thinkpad laptop, then secondarily they want Debian with 11%.
11. How Linux is being subverted.
    • Somehow, somewhere, whenever a company that does business with Microsoft (in this case, Novell) they’re up to some evil plot and want to take over the world.  I don’t quite think this is true, but it’s a good headline.
12. IBM dives into OpenOffice.org development
    • IBM is paying some people in Beijing to work on OO.org.  Not a big deal IMO.
13. Ubuntu Linux Training Software that runs on Windows and Mac only
    • Hmm…. so lemme get this right:  Some folks decided to make training materials for Ubuntu (which they have no relation to as far as i know) and sell it for 89 pounds a pop?  Go them!  Minor problem, it doesn’t run on Ubuntu.  Well… maybe next time guys.
14. Super-Easy Ubuntu Setup From Windows – For Windows Users Eager To Try Linux
    • Goto http://wubi-installer.org/ and install it if you’re running Windows.  I might tie this into my article about distributing Linux via physical medium.
15. Edit PDF Files For Free With PDFedit -OpenSource PDF Editor (Ubuntu Feisty)
    • PDFEdit is actually pretty terrible.  The GUI is total shitty and nearly unusable.  I can say this with much certaincy since I actually tried to use it last night for my Tux Mask.  Using a graphical editor and exporting to PDF from OO.org actually works MUCH MUCH MUCH better.  PDFEditor is not worth the time spent downloading it right now, in my opinion.

So there you go, 15 articles that made the biggest splashes on Digg.com this week and a short summary of each.