Until the last few months, buying a PC that was running Linux was a bit hard. Today, Linux is a wealthy and powerful alternative to pre-installed Microsoft’s operating systems. However, one cannot restrain from wondering what’s behind this growing interest towards open source, and I have no valid answer for you yet.

Drawing a line, last year, only 39% of new computers went on sale with Windows Vista pre-installed, compared to 67% for Windows XP in 2002 (a first year of full availability).

It’s not just consumers that are seeking alternatives to Windows. Last week, the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency advised schools in the United Kingdom not to upgrade their PCs to Vista, suggesting they instead eye lower-cost Linux systems the next time they need new computers.

With a host of new Linux PCs hitting the market this year, U.K. schools — and other buyers seeking computing alternatives — will have more options than ever should they decide to steer away from Microsoft.

Between January 17 and January 19, the KDE community will hold a releasing event for KDE 4.0 inside the Google HQ (Mountain View, CA). This event’s main purpose is meant to spread the word about the newest KDE release and its impact on the Free Desktop applications.

This looks like an informative and productive event altogether, therefore the schedule reflects that. The event will contain many interesting presentations related to technical and non-technical areas of interest. Over 200 members from the IT business and mass-media will attend and it will all end with a course with many members of the North-American KDE community.

Of course, all of the major keynotes will be available to watch live over the Internet.
The hopes for this event are to strengthen the KDE community from the United States and increase its popularity.

Tags: kde,, google,, googleplex