MINIX originally was developed in 1987 by Andrew S. Tanenbaum as a teaching tool for his textbook Operating Systems Design and Implementation. Today, it is a text-oriented operating system with a kernel of less than 6,000 lines of code. MINIX's largest claim to fame is as an example of a microkernel, in which each device driver runs as an isolated user-mode process—a structure that not only increases security but also reliability, because it means a bug in a driver cannot bring down the entire system.

• Price (starting at free)
  
• Quality (excellent code, Unix-based design)
  
• Hardware Support (most all modern quality gear is supported)
  
• Open Source (open to tinkering -- and redistributable)

Open core is a game on rather than a valid expression of software freedom, because it does not cultivate software freedom for the software user. In an open core business, there is a core package which is open source and which delivers basic functions. That package can be used freely under the terms of an open source licence, and there's no issue involved at this point...

There are literally thousands of Linux books which are available to purchase from any good (online) book shop. However, the focus of this article is to highlight champion Linux books which make an invaluable contribution to learning about Linux, and which are also available to download without charge.

We have tried to select a fairly diverse selection of books in this article so that there should be something of interest here for any type of user whatever their level of computing knowledge. This article should be read in conjunction with our previous article on free Linux books, entitled 20 of the Best Free Linux Books.

Whether a switch is worth your effort is usually calculated in terms of Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). As the term emphasizes, TCO includes not only the cost of buying and installing the software, but also the cost of hardware to run it, administering it, training employees to use it, and maintaining and supporting it. Sometimes, TCO is divided into first year costs and yearly costs, to reflect the extra expenses of setup and configuration, and the presumably lower costs of running an ongoing system. But, however TCO is calculated, what matters is that making the switch is not just as simple as assuming that, because GNU/Linux has no licensing fees, you will automatically save money.

In case you don't already know about it, the whole purpose of mono for Linux (hereafter just mono) is simply to allow microsofts self serving language and sub-standard net protocols to work under Linux. This project is hosted by Novell which entered into a partnership with microsoft because they were spooked by the whole license and litigation saber rattling of a few years ago.

PCLinuxOS 2010 KDE features the Linux kernel 2.6.32.11-bfs, KDE 4.4.2, Nvidia and ATI fglrx driver support, and enhanced multimedia, wireless, and printer support. Something that caught my eye right away was the MyLiveCD feature that allows users to take a snapshot and burn it to a CD essentially creating a custom live CD based on PCLinuxOS 2010. Also new, parental controls and an updated control center.