Archive for January, 2008

Linux has taken its time to get established on the desktop, but over the past twelve months I’ve been seeing it all over the place.

My wireless router is Linux-based, and even admits as much on the packaging. My Nokia N800 internet tablet runs Linux too.

Wal-mart has been selling a budget PC that runs Linux, and Asus is offering the Eee-PC budget Linux laptop. The one-laptop-per-child project runs Linux too.

My kids often berate me for running a strange operating system which makes it hard for them to use the same software as their schoolfriends. They were as surprised as I was, on a ThomsonFly flight last year, to watch the seat-back entertainment system booting up and proudly announcing that it was running Red Hat Linux 9.

But what startled me even more than that was the February 2008 issue of MacFormat magazine. As usual, it includes a DVD. And what should be on the DVD but Fedora Linux! Here’s how they explain it:

Linux on your Mac? Yes please. Don’t fancy getting Leopard? Then why not try Fedora? It’s a free Linux-based OS that can be used in conjunction with Parallels Desktop for Mac (which is also available on the DVD).

Yep. Linux has arrived.