ReadWriteWeb

Canonical and the Ubuntu folks have taken a lot of risks in the Unity interface that ships with Ubuntu Linux. One of the things that the company has been leading towards is the Head-Up Display (HUD), a new tool for controlling applications that moves away from the traditional menu interface that debuted decades ago with the Xerox PARC GUI.

Canonical's Mark Shuttleworth blogged about the new interface design today, with a description, screenshot and a video demonstrating the use of HUD.

The long evolution of Tizen continues and is about to get its biggest boost yet. Samsung is going to merge its Bada platform with the Tizen project, bringing the Linux-based operating system to more smartphones and developers across the world.

Tizen is the Linux smartphone operating system that was once called MeeGo that, in turn, was once the confluence of Maemo and Moblin from Nokia and Intel. Nothing tangible has ever really come out of the Tizen/MeeGo project except for a few demo phones and the Nokia N9 and N950. With Samsung throwing its manufacturing weight behind the Tizen development project, that may be about to change.

It's been a long, strange trip for SUSE. What started in 1992 as a small German company (SUSE was an acronym derived from "Software und System Entwicklung," or "software and systems development") with a derivative of Slackware Linux became a mighty Linux distribution in its own right. Money problems led to a sale to Novell in 2003, which had its own share of troubles.

Finally Novell was sold to Attachmate in a deal that closed in April of this year. Attachmate then decided to spin SUSE off into its own business, and tapped Nils Brauckmann as president and general manager of the unit.

News surfaced yesterday that Canonical, the makers of Ubuntu, will bring its Linux-based platform to mobile devices sometime within the next several years. The popular desktop browser alternative has long been thought to be a good candidate for tablet devices but ZDNet reports that the company would like to take it to smartphones and smart TVs as well.

Canonical is entering a complex ecosystem. Creating a new platform for mobile devices is more than just rallying developers to the cause (that certainly does not hurt). Commercial uptake has a lot to do with what the original equipment manufacturers and mobile carriers want and how they can implement a platform. As we have seen with Android, that is a tangled web to weave.

Intel is trapped with dying mobile OS MeeGo and has very few options to develop it. That does not mean Intel is completely out of luck in the mobile world. An announcement is expected soon that Intel will partner with a global Linux consortium called the LiMo Foundation to develop Meego. LiMo's major partners include Samsung, Panasonic, NEC, Vodafone and NTT Docomo, the largest cellular carrier in Japan. What could be up the sleeves of the LiMo consortium by getting into MeeGo at this late hour?

Samsung may hold the key. There are multiple routes that Samsung could travel with LiMo. It could passively support MeeGo's development from afar or actively throw resources at it to provide a framework for its own mobile OS Bada. One thing is clear: Intel cannot completely abandon MeeGo.

Microsoft has put up a post about secure boot in response to concerns about its effects on Linux and other operating systems. Microsoft has provided a very detailed explanation of what UEFI secure boot is, and what its benefits are. What Microsoft hasn't done is to actually respond to concerns raised by Matthew Garrett about its secure boot policies. In short, while Microsoft is requiring secure boot to be enabled, its policies do not require that users be able to turn the feature off. As Garrett says, "end user is no longer in control of their PC."

Microsoft is trying to lock down system firmware to prevent malware and pirated copies of Windows. Unfortunately, this may have some undesirable side effects for Linux users and anyone else that wants to boot an operating system not officially blessed by Microsoft and OEMs. This poses a problem for hobbyists and large organizations alike.

This was discovered by Linux developer Matthew Garrett, who's been doing a lot of work with EFI booting in general for his day job. Recent UEFI specifications have allowed for "secure boot" that requires an OS to have a signed key in system firmware to work.

The site that hosts the Linux kernel's source code, Kernel.org was compromised earlier this month. The discovery was made on August 28th, and steps are being taken now to enhance security for the site and recovery is underway. The kernel code repositories are believed to be unaffected.

According to an unattributed post on the front page of Kernel.org, intruders managed to gain access via a compromised user credential. It's currently unknown how the attacker managed to escalate to root access.

It's not unusual for Apple to dominate the news, but this week it was inescapable. Steve Jobs' decision to step down as CEO sent shockwaves through the industry. Jobs' decision doesn't come as a surprise, exactly, but the timing was unexpected. Scott Fulton looked back at Jobs' history with Apple and lessons learned from that. Fulton's coverage on Jobs' departure was joined with four things entrepreneurs should ignore when examining Jobs' legacy.

In honor of the 20th anniversary of Linux, we also contrasted the Linux community's approach and achievements with those of Jobs. After the jump, you'll find more on this week's top news stories from ReadWriteWeb's Enteprise, Cloud, Mobile, and Hack channels.

Yesterday, Steve Jobs officially stepped down as CEO of Apple. Today, the Linux kernel turns 20. That makes it as good a time as any to look back and assess – which has shaped computing, and the world, more? Linus Torvalds' "hobby OS," or Steve Jobs?

This might seem like an unfair comparison, one man versus an army of programmers and companies. But that's at the core of the question. Is it Jobs, a leader who pays close and particular attention to detail and focuses on a single mission? Or the Linux community's collaborative but uncoordinated approach that gives free reign to companies to do what they will with the operating system?