Recently, I took an interest in poking at Gentoo a bit. In the eyes of many desktop Linux users, it's considered a rite of passage to install this historically significant distribution. This curiosity sent me on a much more interesting Linux safari to explore what truly differentiates distributions. What follows is the classification field guide I wish I had when I began my Linux journey.

MakuluLinux is an unusually creative operating system that developer Jacque Montague Raymer is constantly changing with each major upgrade. Some of these changes are radical and innovative. Trust me on this point. I have had my hands on so many Linux varieties that the really good ones are in a league of their own. MakuluLinux is at the top of that list.

Those familiar with open source know that it works and comes with many benefits. A testament to the rising adoption of open source is the recent moves by software giants such as Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle into the open-source community. This corporate migration to open source is continuing as many organizations, both large and small, turn to open source in tough economic times.

Trisquel Linux is one of those computing staples you wished you knew about much sooner. This Linux distribution has been around literally for years and is extremely polished. It offers a family of Linux editions that meet or exceed the needs of home users, small enterprises, and educational centers. Trisquel can also be an ideal platform for multimedia workstations.

Last week was particularly interesting. Microsoft had two big announcements with Mesh and Viva, while Huawei showcased a strategy for a universal OS that covers PCs, smartphones, tablets, TVs, and IoT devices to perfect integration across them all. Let's talk about both this week -- and work in Microsoft Mesh as the product of the week.

As I study tech sector innovations, I see signs that the old traditions are fading. I'm not one to sanctify tradition for tradition's sake, but I see merit in maintaining a traditional approach to computing tasks that encourages shrewdness. To illustrate what I mean, these are some ways we are straying from the Unix way, and my view on why we should return to the path.

Apple's plan to release its App Tracking Transparency (ATT) privacy enhancement feature in early spring has set the ad industry on its ear. ATT requires apps to get a consumer's authorization before tracking them or the devices they are using. Ray Wang, principal analyst and founder at Constellation Research, told the E-Commerce Times that "at least 40 percent of consumers will say no."

Nearly 30,000 Macs have been infected with a new malware strain. Discovered by researchers at Red Canary, the malware has been sitting on it hosts waiting for a payload that never arrived. In a statement provided to TechNewsWorld, Apple said that upon discovering the malware, it revoked the certificates of the developer accounts used to sign the packages, preventing new machines from being infected.

Desktop as a Service provider Shells offers a new component to virtual cloud computing. It brings Linux distros and Windows 10 to any computer, mobile device, and some game consoles, via any Web browser. The U.S.-based startup went online in the first quarter of last year. Since then, CEO and founder Alex Lee has been drumming up favorable responses from businesses, casual users, and Linux developers.

Linux began its life as a humble experiment in Unix porting, but from there it quickly became a popular kernel for server OSes due to its low cost and customizability. From there it morphed to power network appliances and Android, proving it was lean enough for a whole gamut of embedded systems. It's easy to forget that Linux's proliferation to every class of computing device has not concluded its evolution.

GeckoLinux is a unique distribution that goes a long way towards unifying the often-confusing array of workstation choices available to business and mainstream consumers looking for an alternative to other computing platforms. This distro is fully functional, offers some of the best Linux desktop environments available, and avoids the pitfalls of distros that make using Linux bothersome.

In spite of being a beloved companion to computer hobbyists the world over, the Raspberry Pi doesn't get enough credit. In fact, single-board computers of all stripes haven't gotten their due -- I just happen to have a Raspberry Pi. It was upon casting a stray glance into the corner of my room where my Pi is, churning away on the previous task I assigned it, that I pondered all the loftier projects I have in mind for it.

Buying Linux-powered laptops should be easy, especially on big-name manufacturers' websites. But it isn't. You must employ workarounds to succeed or spend caches of money! Some computer makers sell Linux-only hardware. Only a few of the major computer manufacturers cater to providing Linux Inside. The challenge is finding both those that do and being willing to pay a higher buy-in price.

This piece is a demonstration of one means of setting up file-level encryption which is widely available for Linux desktop users. To offer a similar encryption scheme to as many users as possible, we'll walk through how to use fscrypt to create an encrypted filesystem. While simple, fscrypt offers multiple configuration modes.

Linux users love to chat, and few topics are so prevalent among users as distributions. A big one is a distro's suitability for beginners. Drawing in eager new users is the only way to grow the Linux community. Successful recruitment often hinges on making sure that newcomers start with a distro that will give them an ideal experience.

Once in a blue moon, one will experience sheer terror at the hands of a buggy Linux system. No amount of battle-hardiness can keep you completely safe, either. I know this because not too long ago, a fear-inducing Linux bug came for me. I wanted to share this true Linux story, so that you may be informed and entertained.

More than 90 percent of IT leaders surveyed for a recent report expect to expand their cloud services in the next one to three years. Despite this testament to the benefits of cloud adoption, enterprises may find a lack of qualified IT workers to fill those positions. A majority of cloud team leaders identified a lack of internal skills and knowledge as a top barrier to cloud success.

Red Hat, a major provider of open source solutions, has never had a comprehensive document guiding associate participation in open source projects, until now. Perhaps under the influence of its recent purchase by IBM, Red Hat recently announced the external publication of its open-source participation guidelines. The company released the guidelines on GitHub under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.

We neglect our OS at the risk of radically underutilizing the incredible tools that it enables our device to be. Most of us only come into contact with one, or possibly both, of two families of operating systems: "House Windows" and "House Practically Everything Else." The latter is more commonly known as Unix.

Even in these changing times of shuttered shops and pandemic-driven corporate layoffs, a flood of tech jobs goes unfilled due to a lack of Linux skills among IT workers. That combination is contributing to a slowdown or delay in enterprise plans to migrate their local computing base to public cloud operations, as an already existing Linux tech pool gap has widened since the pandemic.

As the next step in its Linux expansion program, Lenovo has launched Linux-ready ThinkPad and ThinkStation PCs pre-installed with Canonical's Ubuntu technology. The company also now brings Linux certification to its ThinkPad and ThinkStation Workstation portfolio, along with easing deployment for developers and data scientists, as it moves to certify the full workstation portfolio for top Linux distributions from both Ubuntu and Red Hat.

MakuluLinux Shift is a well-designed Linux distro that blends several mainstream design concepts with performance features not found elsewhere. One of Shift's unique traits is its ability to modify key design elements effortlessly. Hence, its name. A few other Linux distros have mechanisms to alter the look and feel of the desktop, but they work less ideally.

When Linux was born on Aug. 25, 1991, it was little more than a hobby for then 21-year old Linus Torvalds. Today the Linux community is estimated to be more than 86 million users strong. Awareness of Linux in the enterprise was nonexistent 29 years ago. Since then Linux has become the backbone of many large and small enterprises.

Since its early inception open source has been embraced by technologists the world over. Let's examine five ways that Fortune 1000 and Global 2000 enterprises can take advantage of open source software to provide technology solutions to the enterprise -- and best practices for corporate IT to consider when adopting open source for their business needs.

Last week was the 25th anniversary of the biggest and most critical launch in computing history. The year running up to the Windows 95 launch was a fantastic mix of media showcases, previews, speculation and excitement. From the standpoint of demand, nothing that preceded the product even came close; and since then only Apple has been able to drive the same level of excitement.

Earthquake alerts are being incorporated into Android, Google's mobile operating system. The feature will be included in a refresh of Google Mobile Services, so a full operating system upgrade won't be necessary. That means the new addition will be available to most Android users -- except those in China, which doesn't use GMS.

Calculate Linux is an impressively different Linux operating system. This is a distribution designed with home and SMB users in mind. It has expanded its user interface into an appealing selection of desktop choices over the years. Calculate is particularly appealing to small businesses that want a rock-solid system with the flexibility to meet a variety of needs. It is optimized for rapid deployment in corporate environments.

If you are a Windows or Linux user, brace yourself for a long siege of vulnerability nightmares. The fix will be long and treacherous and could brick your computers. Eclypsium researchers have detailed a set of newly discovered vulnerabilities dubbed "BootHole" that opens up billions of Windows and Linux devices to attacks.

Rancher Labs and Fujitsu on Tuesday announced an alliance to hasten the adoption of Kubernetes container orchestration technology industry-wide, starting within public sector institutions in the U.K. and Ireland. The alliance was forged partly in response to the growing requirement by the U.K.'s Government Digital Service for public organizations to embrace a 'cloud first' policy.

Windows 10X began as a streamlined operating system for the Surface Neo, a premium mobile device with two screens that opened like a book. Now Microsoft seems poised to use the OS to power laptop competitors to Google's highly successful Chromebook portables. Absent however is ContainerOS, the technology used to run 32-bit Windows applications under Windows 10X, according to a report.