Digital Media

Linux users are known for being a somewhat finicky lot. Despite broader application support for Windows and a better user experience in Mac OS X, Linux "desktop" users swear by the open-source operating system (and sometimes swear at its competitors).

It's therefore somewhat telling that Linux users overwhelmingly choose Google as their preferred search engine, according to data released today by Chitika, an online advertising network. Chitika analyzed data from 163 million searches across its advertising network between July 30 and August 16, and came up with the following:

(Credit: Dan Ruby, Chitika)

Despite the concerns about Google and privacy and despite Microsoft's rising relevance in search through its Bing "decision engine," Google wins over Linux users 94.61 percent of the time. While it's not surprising that Linux users would shun a Microsoft-sponsored search engine, it is surprising that they so heavily congregate around just one search engine.

After all, this is the crowd that has created (literally) thousands of Linux distributions. For a community so devoted to choice, it's telling that such a disparate community would unify on Google search. Perhaps Yahoo's apparent willingness to prostrate itself before Microsoft has turned off the Linux crowd, but there are other alternatives.

Open source, after all, is all about alternatives. There are open-source alternatives to Google Analytics (Piwik, Open-Tube, etc.), Google Search Appliance (Lucene/Solr), Google Docs (OpenGoo), Google Earth (World Wind), and more.

But for search, the Linux contingent of the open-source community seems settled on Google.

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Adobe Systems on Wednesday is taking the Linux version of its Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) product out of beta, and bringing it up to speed with the versions available for Windows and Mac users.

The new version differs from previous beta versions of AIR for Linux by fully supporting Flash 10 which includes such niceties as 3-D effects, high resolution text rendering, custom filters, and support for digital rights management (DRM). These features are important for media intensive applications like photo and video editing tools, and applications like Adobe's AIR-based media player software, which make use of the DRM support to serve up protected content.

The update is also an important step toward unifying AIR across all three major computing platforms. The Windows and Mac versions of AIR were able to take advantage of certain features that the Linux version could not--it fragmented which apps Linux users were able to run. Most recently this happened with the popular Twitter client Twhirl, which became unusable for Linux users after requiring the latest spec of AIR to run special Flash 10 features.

Adrian Ludwig, Adobe's product manager for platform, says his company intends to keep all three versions up to date, and roll out future updates at the same time. In practice this will let developers write an application that does not require any special coding to get it to run on all the platforms. More importantly, it would keep situations like the one with Twirl from ever happening again.

Additionally Ludwig says one of the hurdles of developing for Linux has been compatibility. "Less than 2 percent of clients are using Linux," he said. "It's challenging to deliver applications to such a small market." Ludwig says he thinks that having such a platform that offers cross compatibility like AIR offers will bring in new developers that might have previously never thought of building their applications for something other than Windows.

Ludwig says the next frontier for AIR is getting it into handheld devices, starting with "mid-mobile" devices, something that was outlined at last month's Adobe Max Conference. Also worth noting is that this new Linux version is only compatible with three variants of the operating system including Ubuntu 7.1 and higher, Fedora 8.1 and higher, and Open SUSE 10.3 and higher.

Here's an old photo of Hans Reiser from his Stanford days. A San Francisco Chronicle reporter said at his sentencing Friday, however, Reiser's hair was grown out and he looked more like Art Garfunkel.

(Credit: via Stanford University)

In what appears the final chapter of the Hans Reiser crime saga, the Linux programmer convicted of killing his wife was sentenced Friday afternoon to 15 years to life in prison under a deal he worked out with prosecutors in exchange for leading police to his victim's body.

Reiser--known to the technology world as the founder of the ReiserFS file system software--was found guilty in April of first-degree murder in the 2006 killing of his wife, with whom he was undergoing a bitter divorce. The jury convicted him largely on circumstantial evidence and despite the fact that Nina Reiser's body hadn't been found before trial.

First-degree murder carries a sentence of 25 years to life, compared with 15 years to life for second-degree murder. But in anticipation of his sentencing, Reiser, 44, brokered a deal with prosecutors that went generally like so: If he brought police to his wife's body and he gave up his appellate rights, he could plead guilty to second-degree murder and get 15 years.

And that's what happened in an Oakland, Calif., courthouse Friday, after Reiser pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, according to media reports. He'll be eligible for parole in about 13 years, having already served two years since his October 2006 arrest.

Nina Reiser

(Credit: California Department of Justice)

Throughout the drama-filled six-month trial, Reiser maintained his innocence. Arguing the so-called geek defense, his attorney said that while Reiser may be strange, arrogant, even abnormal, his odd behavior following Nina's disappearance wasn't evidence of murder. On trial, Reiser smeared the mother of his two children, alleging, among other things, that she was likely hiding out in her native Russia with money she stole from his now defunct company, Namesys.

Nina Reiser's remains were found in Oakland's Redwood Regional Park, about a half a mile from where she was last seen. Click image for full map.

(Credit: Google)

Reiser, handcuffed to his attorney, did in fact bring authorities to a grave site Monday containing his wife's remains in a heavily brushed, secluded area about 40 yards off a road in Oakland's Redwood Regional Park. The grave site was located about a half mile from where Nina was last seen in 2006 at Reiser's mother's house, where he was living.

It's unclear whether the cause of death was ever determined through an autopsy. But Wired reported that after the sentencing, prosecutor Paul Hora revealed some of the details from Reiser's confession. Reiser first punched Nina in the mouth, then strangled her to death, Hora said. Hora added that Reiser "stored the body in the bathroom, then moved it to his car, where it stayed for two days while he searched for a place to bury her," according to Wired.

Wired's David Kravets added that before he was formally sentenced, Reiser vowed to make up to society for what he had done and said he was putting Namesys and ReiserFS into a trust fund for his children. Reiser added that he hoped to earn money for his kids while in prison, assuming he's "able to get access to a computer and the Internet," according to Kravets.

Zimbra, the open-source e-mail software that Yahoo acquired for $350 million last year, is officially coming to Ubuntu Linux.

Coinciding with this week's LinuxWorld conference in San Francisco, Zimbra has announced a partnership with Ubuntu parent company Canonical.

Ubuntu users have been able to access Zimbra for the past year. But now, the e-mail software will be in the Ubuntu Partner Repository, providing easy access to both offline and online Yahoo Mail, Gmail, AOL Mail, and any IMAP or POP e-mail accounts. Zimbra also offers document and spreadsheet functions, as well as mashup features with services like Flickr, Amazon.com, and Yahoo Maps.

Offline e-mail and documents are one area where Yahoo has beaten Google to the punch--but there have been strong hints that engineers at the latter may be rolling out something similar soon through Gears.

"Since we first announced general availability of Zimbra for Ubuntu last year, we have seen incredible adoption within the Ubuntu community," Andy Pflaum, senior director of business management for Yahoo's Zimbra division, said in a statement. "We are eager to offer our world-class collaboration experience, Yahoo Zimbra Desktop, to the vibrant community of Ubuntu users worldwide."