Ubuntu:  free, open-source software, great operating system, very widely-used Linux distribution for the desktop.  Highly usable, highly installable.  The name means "humanity towards others."  What's not to like?

The original idea was to update it every six months to keep things running smoothly and consistently.  The latest launched yesterday with the completely awesome name Karmic Koala, and features more radical changes than usual.

Karmic Koala offers better security, faster booting, and an updated kernel-based mode setting and Intel graphics driver, solving previous graphics complaints.  See the lengthy article at the H-Online for a thorough run-through of updates.

Also in the news: Sweden.  One missing dot during routine maintenance brought down the whole country's internet.  Of course they had people on it right away, but while the root of the problem was fixed pretty quickly, externally cached ISPs are probably even now experiencing the residual effects of that mistake.  Quite the Halloween horror story.

-Elizabeth English

photo by Brian Giesen under flickr creative commons license