The new Absolute Linux, based on Slackware, provides the IceWM stacking window manager with improved multimedia support. Version 13.0.9 this time fixes more than just a couple of small bugs.

The new POWER7 processor has eight cores each running four threads. The biggest of the new POWER7 servers has almost 64 processor cores. An additional TurboCore mode can see to even better performance.

The openSUSE project has started its 2010 survey.

Inventory management software Tellu has been completely reworked and is now available in version 3.0.0.

Linus Torvalds's foundation is doing a sequel this year of its creative community ad campaign for Linux with a second video contest. The winner will receive a laptop loaded with Linux and a trip to LinuxCon in Boston in August.

Ubuntu's Community Manager, Jono Bacon, has announced the Opportunistic Developer Week, to take place from March 1 to 6, 2010. The distance learning course will deal with the speedy creation of applications on the Linux desktop.

At FOSDEM 2010 in Brussels, software that was declared dead was resurrected (Hurd), known combatants sat down at the same table (openSUSE, Fedora and Debian) and almost forgotten entities raised their hands again (openSUSE for PowerPC).

Following the withdrawal of Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth from the day to day running of the company, and his replacement by Jane Silber, Matt Asay has now moved into the free post of chief operating officer.

Under the motto "Reuse components, don't reinvent the wheel," Friedger Mueffke, founder of OpenIntents, described his project and its next steps. Using so-called intents, Android apps can provide services to other apps.

Spanish company eBox Technologies has released version 1.4 of its Linux server for small to medium sized enterprises.