After several years of trying to find a good note-taking solution, I’ve finally settled on a local installation of MediaWiki on my Ubuntu laptop for managing information relevant to my academic and personal pursuits.  Below, I outline my experiences with the software, and explain why the ease of deploying it and similar packages on Ubuntu is one of the platform’s greatest, and perhaps most under-appreciated, strengths.

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Barton George, an open source expert whom I met at Ubuntu Live in 2007, has resigned from Sun Microsystems to join a software company in Austin, Texas. I wish George well in his new position. At the same time, I increasingly wonder if Sun can solidify its open source strategy and turn around the company. Barton isn’t the only open source expert to leave Sun in recent days, notes our sister site, The VAR Guy.

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The VAR Guy (www.thevarguy.com) is investigating a rumor that Sun may replace CEO Jonathan Schwartz. Sun’s stock is tanking and the company is struggling. But Schwartz has open-source smarts and he orchestrated the $1 billion takeover of MySQL. And don’t forget these two items: Sun actually offers Ubuntu on its servers. And MySQL has been one of the most vocal supporters of Ubuntu.

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The Ubuntu Live conference doesn’t kick off until July 21, but The VAR Guy is already booking his flight to the Portland, Oregon-based event. Here are five key trends our guest blogger expects to track at the event.

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