unix - News, Features, and Slideshows

Features

• For an old or slow PC, try Puppy Linux 5.2

  There's no doubt Canonical's popular Ubuntu Linux distribution gets the majority of attention in the Linux world these days, but there are myriad others equally worthy of consideration.

• 5 things Linux does better than Mac OS X

  Were it not for Windows' long-standing installed base and overwhelming market dominance, it seems unlikely that anyone would argue seriously for the merit of the operating system, plagued as it is by high prices, security problems and vendor lock-in.

• Chrome patches show the power of open source--and Google

  Google's patching of vulnerabilities in its open source Chrome Web browser last week wasn't so much notable in itself; Microsoft, to be sure, is forever issuing patches for the many bugs that afflict its products.

• 11 free Linux apps your business needs now

  Despite the wealth of free applications out there, many small business owners continue to spend an inordinate amount of their all-too-scarce resources on software.

• Is Linux really harder to use?

  Not surprisingly, the misperception that Linux is harder to use than other operating systems is also one that competing vendors routinely use to scare potential new users away from Linux.

• CIO Blast from the Past: 40 years of Multics, 1969-2009

  October 2009 marked an important milestone in the history of computing. It was exactly 40 years since the first Multics computer system was used for information management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In this edition of Blast from the Past we talk to Fernando Corbato on the early days of Multics, why it was so influential, open source and software development practices, and how cloud computing is a modern incarnation of Multics’ time-sharing philosophy.

• SLIDESHOW: CIO Blast from the Past - 40 years of Multics

  2009 marks 40 years since the first release of Multics, the groundbreaking operating system that pioneered time-sharing and paved the way for the development of Unix. In October 1969 the first production Multics system began operations at MIT. Take a tour of the past four decades of Multics with CIO.