Everyone knows and loves Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux. Mark Shuttleworth, the creator of Ubuntu Linux, is pretty famous. Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation and creator of the GPL, is equal parts famous and infamous. But surely there is more to Linux and Free/Open Source software than these three. And indeed there are thousands upon thousands of people toiling away fueling the mighty FOSS engine; here is a small sampling of these important contributors who make the FOSS world go 'round.

Contributing to the documentation of a free software project is a good route for those who want to get involved but don’t know where to start (or how to program), and want to know how it’s done. Richard Hillesley explains…

It is going on a year since showing how Unity, Compiz, GNOME Shell & KWin affect graphics/gaming performance, so here is an updated 2012 look. In this article are a variety of OpenGL benchmarks run under the current latest desktops as will be found in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS: Unity, Unity 2D, GNOME Shell, GNOME Classic, KDE Plasma, and Xfce. AMD and NVIDIA graphics were tested with both the latest closed and open-source drivers.

This guide shows how to create your own standalone Compiz session in Ubuntu (the instructions below are for 11.10, but they may work in other Ubuntu versions). Using a custom Compiz session gives you flexibility to load only what you want, so you can get a lightweight session, while still using Compiz.

Out of the box Gentoo-based distro focuses on performance, and more explains project lead Fabio Erculiani

The folks behind DuckDuckGo have been deftly positioning the search engine as one you should be using, if you are tired or want to avoid snooping by Google and others like it. It is a message that I have bought into, and I think you will too, once you get to know how Google and other search engines track and bubble you. Ok, so Chromium’s developers have not recognized DuckDuckGo as a major search engine, but that should not stop you from adding it to the list of search engines in Chromium and making it your default (search engine). This brief tutorial shows you the simple steps to make it happen.

SDG Systems has announced the availability of a Linux-based version of its Yuma rugged tablet computer, part of its Trimble product range. According to SDG Systems President Todd Blumer, the company decided to offer a Linux option based on feedback from its customers; previously the device only shipped with Windows 7 Professional.

This tutorial will show you how to reroute all traffic for a virtual machine through the Tor network to ensure anonymity. It assumes a standalone machine with a Linux OS, and VirtualBox installed. In this case, we'll be using Ubuntu on the host machine.

When Microsoft first revealed that the Explorer file manager would be outfitted with a ribbon-style toolbar in Windows 8, responses were loud, passionate, and frequently negative. The company recently described changes that it has made to Windows 8's Explorer in response to the feedback. These include some small modifications to the ribbon experience along with some other refinements of Explorer's new features. Though the changes themselves have been welcomed, the continued hostility toward Explorer's redesign remains. [size=10]I know this isn't, strictly speaking, a Linux/FOSS story -- but Gosh! Doesn't this story sound awfully familiar? Perhaps this will make some of us feel just a little better about some recent trends, Or not. - Bernard[/size]

ReactOS, the open-source operating system project that's been aspiring to be Microsoft Windows NT binary compatible for more than a decade, is out with a major release -- the first in nearly one year. ReactOS 0.3.13 was released in March of 2011 while coming out today is ReactOS 0.3.14. For those not familiar with (or have since forgotten about) ReactOS it's the free software operating system project that tries to be binary compatible with applications and device drivers targeting Microsoft Windows NT 5.x and later (what is effectively Microsoft Windows 2000 and beyond).

Expanded open source adoption across industries spurs demand for scanning and cloud tools. A testament to the ever-growing popularity of open source, OpenLogic continues to be successful across a wide variety of industries. While technology and financial services companies continue to be OpenLogic’s top two customer verticals, 2011 was marked by rapid growth in three new industries: manufacturing, government, and media.

Red Hat has appointed former Fedora program manager Robyn Bergeron to that distro's next project leader – and she has plans to make the operating system more focused on cloud services. Bergeron takes over from Jared Smith at an interesting time in the market, with the industry increasingly looking beyond the basic client/server environment into cloudier areas, and with a greater variety of computing systems to choose from. One of the areas she’ll be examining is the usefulness of Fedora for cloud services, she explained to The Register on Tuesday.

We all need to look for word definition. Online dictionaries and wikipedia are great but we are not always connected to the net. sdcv is a console version of StarDict dictionary. Using sdcv you can search for definitions while still offline. So here are the step to install and make use of this great program.

Microsoft's complaint against Barnes & Noble's Android-based Nook devices has been narrowed down to just three patents, with the US International Trade Commission having to decide whether Nook devices infringe on several patented methods of interacting with and downloading electronic documents. Barnes & Noble is also asking the ITC to declare the patents invalid because they cover obvious and trivial functionality.

Google has just released Chrome browser for Android phones and tablets. Unfortunately it's only available for Ice Cream Sandwich. It has some good features though. Take a look at some screenshots and a video.

There's some more exciting Intel news to report this week that will please plenty of Linux and open-source fans: Intel is planning to drop their use of Imagination Technologies PowerVR graphics within future-generation SoCs...

Is Compiz dead? I don't really know. Will it ever go away? No. Compiz is still supported by Canonical for Ubuntu, and as long as that remains the case Compiz isn't going anywhere. Has the C++ port had a negative impact on Compiz's userspace? Possibly. Rewrites can and do negatively impact users if they mean long periods without updates. Personally, I think the port opened up development to a wider group of people.

Well, I have a lot of updates to share for this project. First and foremost, I now have a dedicated domain for the project at http://www.rapiddisk.org. This is a Wiki site documenting everything that I can think of relating to the project in a nice and organized manner. This site also includes a bug tracker: http://bugs.rapiddisk.org for bugs, feature requests and or documentation/website errors. I have also decided to use this Google+ Page as the official blog for the project from this point on. Some other changes include...

Well, I have a lot of updates to share for this project. First and foremost, I now have a dedicated domain for the project at http://www.rapiddisk.org. This is a Wiki site documenting everything that I can think of relating to the project in a nice and organized manner. This site also includes a bug tracker: http://bugs.rapiddisk.org for bugs, feature requests and or documentation/website errors. I have also decided to use this Google+ Page as the official blog for the project from this point on. Some other changes include...

Linux Mint team has done a commendable job with Cinnamon project where they are trying to help those users who are not comfortable with Unity. It's great to see a project putting its users above everything else. Despite being a small team, Linux Mint successfully delivered Gnome+ Cinnamon and has now released a great KDE edition.With Linux Mint KDE you get the best of both worlds. What more can one ask for. Go ahead and give Linux Mint KDE a try, trust me you won't go back.