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.

AutoTux is a fully automated Linux distribution that is literally a hands-off event from start to finish. It goes a long way to adopting Linux a no-brainer for Windows and macOS converts. Its self-installing approach is also the kind of Linux operating system that makes you wonder why more developers do not use similar strategies to make their Linux offerings such a foolproof proposition.

The success of The Linux Foundation's first virtual summit may well have set the standard for new levels of open source participation. Summit masters closed the virtual doors of the four-day joint gathering on July 2. The event hosted the Open Source Summit + Embedded Linux Conference North America 2020 and ended with more than 4,000 registrants from 109 countries.

Austrumi Linux is an unusual distribution. With a little more polish, it could be a good tool for running the Linux operating system on any computer you touch without changing anything on the hard drive. There lies the reason for my disappointment. That hope for polish is still missing.

Apple's 2020 Worldwide Developers Conference will probably be known for two things: it was the first time the forum was staged virtually, and it's when Apple announced it would start making Macs based its own processor designs. "Now it's time for a huge leap forward for the Mac, because today is the day we're announcing that the Mac is transitioning to our own Apple silicon," Apple CEO Tim Cook said during the virtual keynote presentation.

Perhaps one of the most missed Linux desktop environments is Ubuntu Unity Desktop. It was either loved or hated by users otherwise endeared to the vastly popular Ubuntu Linux OS. An infant cottage industry of sorts has made a smattering of appearances and disappearances with replacement Unity integrations. That brings us to this week's Linux distro review of Ubuntu Unity Distro 20.04, developed by Rudra Saraswat.

Qualcomm has announced its Robotics RB5 platform, with 5G and 4G connectivity, on-device AI and machine learning. The platform's Qualcomm QRB5165 processor, which is customized for robotics applications, offers a heterogeneous computing architecture coupled with the 5th-generation Qualcomm AI Engine that delivers 15 Tera Trillion Operations Per Second (TOPS) of AI performance.

One of the great joys of constantly checking out new or obscure Linux operating systems is finding some insane innovations that stand out from the crowded collection of distros. The current release of PsychOS Linux, code-named "Insane," possibly might blow your mind. This distro is really an off-the-wall project with the potential to become a thing unto itself.

Apple plans to announce a new processor for its Mac computer line at its virtual World Wide Developers Conference later this month, according to a report. The company will begin using an ARM chip based on Apple's A14 processor, which will be featured in the next iPhone. The computers will continue to use macOS and not Apple's mobile operating system, iOS.

The Linux Foundation is priming the pump to help software engineers get cloud technology-certified through a self-paced bootcamp and discount pricing. LF last week announced the availability of the Cloud Engineer Bootcamp, its first-ever training bootcamp. This new offering enables individuals to go from complete IT beginner to certified cloud engineer in only six months.

Linuxfx 10 could provide businesses and consumers with a Windows 7-like experience that puts users on a smooth downhill path to Linux adoption. Distributions that tweak styles and desktop environment settings to create a Windows-clone type of familiar experience are now numerous, but they often fail to entice reluctant users to stay the course and remain with Linux.

Lenovo introduced innovations that push the limits of Chrome OS-powered tablets with a new 2-in-1 form factor in the IdeaPad Chromebook Duet. This new device mimics Microsoft's Surface Pro line, using the Chrome OS instead of Microsoft Windows. It redefines what the Chrome OS can do on a convertible tablet, compared to Android. So far, using it steadily has been mostly successful.

POP!_OS 20.04 has the potential to be one of the best starting points for any new Linux user. Given this distro's rising popularity, it will continue to hold that distinction. That is a bold statement, but developer System76, has made some bold moves in pushing this Linux distro to the forefront. The company preinstalls POP!_OS in its manufactured line of desktop and laptop computers.

If you are looking for a really cool Linux computing platform with lots of extras and a twist on traditional desktop design, check out Modicia OS Ultimate. If you distro hop or browse through traditional outlets for Linux operating systems, you probably will not stumble on this gem, but it definitely is a discovery worth finding. Modicia OS Ultimate is a general purpose optimized computing platform.

If you are looking for a well-designed Linux distro that is far from mainstream, loaded with performance features not found elsewhere, check out the 2020 upgrade of the MakuluLinux Core distro. It could change your perspective on what a daily computing driver should offer. Developer Jacque Montague Raymer recently released the 2020 edition of MakuluLinux Core OS.