http://www.desktoplinux.com/?kc=rss All About Linux on the Desktop en-us Andrew Tridgell has published a patch that could make the Linux implementation of the FAT filesystem impervious to Microsoft patent claims of the kind that forced a settlement from TomTom. The patch alters the VFAT code so that it does not generate both short and long filenames, says Tridgell. http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS4980952387.html?kc=rss As the Debian project releases a second update of its Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 ("Lenny") distribution, a controversy has broken out over the next version, "Squeeze." GNU guru Richard Stallman has warned that by including a Mono-based note-taking application called Tomboy, Debian runs the risk of Microsoft litigation over C# patents. http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS4526886823.html?kc=rss Sugar Labs has issued a LiveUSB version of its "Sugar" Linux distribution and educational software, used by One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)'s XO-1. "Sugar on a Stick v1 Strawberry Learning Platform" can be plugged into any netbook or PC, offering 40 activities designed for K-12 students. http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS6361072979.html?kc=rss The Sun-sponsored VirtualBox project has released a beta 3.0 version of its free, x86-oriented virtualization software. The Linux-compatible xVM VirtualBox 3.0 adds support for guest Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP) with up to 32 virtual CPUs, as well as support for version 2.0 of the OpenGL graphics acceleration standard, among other features. http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS7451157436.html?kc=rss The OSCON (Open Source Convention) conference will present over 200 sessions between July 20-24 in San Jose, Calif., covering a variety of desktop and embedded Linux topics. Meanwhile, SourceForge.net has opened voting for its 2009 Community Choice Awards, with winners to be announced at OSCON. http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS7834225573.html?kc=rss ThinkFree announced the availability of a Linux-compatible office productivity suite designed for netbooks. ThinkFree Mobile Netbook ESD version offers word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation applications, with "round-trip" Microsoft Office compatibility, synchronization and online document collaboration features, and 1GB of free online storage, says the company. http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS6215271075.html?kc=rss Xandros-owned email and groupware vendor Scalix released Scalix ActiveSync 1.0, a push email and synchronization add-on to Scalix Server that implements Microsoft's Exchange ActiveSync protocol for wireless message synchronization. Scalix also released Scalix Server 11.4.4, touted for its over 200 improvements. http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS3601344903.html?kc=rss IDG World Expo has announced speakers for its inaugural OpenSource World 2009 show (formerly LinuxWorld) on Aug. 12-13 in San Francisco. California Secretary of State Debra Bowen will keynote the conference, which will feature presentations on Linux desktops, netbooks, Android, mobile devices, enterprise, security, troubleshooting, and numerous "cloud" topics. http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS6961951468.html?kc=rss A community site dedicated to offering previews of open source applications has now added Ubuntu Linux 8.04 to its catalog. Click2try now offers over 40 virtualized open source applications in its online catalog, with both free and paid subscription plans available, says the company. http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS2744623711.html?kc=rss Linus Torvalds (pictured) announced Linux kernel 2.6.30, adding several new filesystems, including the NILFS2 log-structured filesystem. Linux 2.6.30 enhancements include a local caching layer for NFS data, the RDS server cluster communications protocol, the Tomoyo security module, and support for LZMA and BZIP2 compression algorithms. http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS7212048164.html?kc=rss