I was a bit distracted from the Apple iPad news due to the marathon Oracle conference last week on its shiny new Sun Microsystems acquisition. However, the more I thought about it, the more these two companies are extremely well-positioned to actually fulfill what other powerful companies tried to do and failed.

Few, if any, photo viewing apps on any platform provide a perfect photo management experience. However, F-Spot Photo Management for Gnome gives Linux users a fairly complete set of photo tools. F-Spot ranks among the most well-known photo apps for Linux. In many ways it is similar to Google's repackaged Picasa Photo Organizer and the popular GIMP photo program.

Fresh off the introduction of its Nexus One smartphone, hailed by some tech analysts as the first real iPhone killer candidate, Google has debuted mockups of a possible tablet device running its yet-to-be released open source Chrome OS. The mockups, posted on Google's Chromium Web site, depict a device that might have a 5- to 10-inch screen, an on-screen keyboard, and a touch interface.

An IDC study predicts that open source software will grow at a 22.4 percent rate to reach $8.1 billion by 2013, says eWEEK. Meanwhile, in an SEC filing, Microsoft has added Linux vendors Canonical and Red Hat to its list of as rivals, and acknowledges the growing threat of Android.

A lobbying group has been launched by more than 70 companies, academic institutions, and communities, to promote open source software as a "transparent and cost-effective option" for U.S. government agencies. "Open Source for America" counts AMD, Canonical, Google, Novell, Oracle, and Red Hat among its members.

Google followed up on Thursday's announcement of a Linux-based Chrome OS for netbooks by listing nine technology partners that are supporting the open-source platform. Meanwhile, one report claims that Intel, which is not on the list, is collaborating with Google on Chrome OS.

Google announced an open source operating system aimed at netbooks that combines the Linux kernel with its Chrome browser. Google expects to release open source code for the Google Chrome Operating System later this year, and will ship a final version in the second half of 2010, says the company.

Database giant Oracle has agreed to purchase Sun Microsystems in a deal worth $7.4 billion, according to a story in eWEEK. Oracle wants Sun more for its hardware than its software, and may choose to jettison Sun's open source offerings, including MySQL, says eWEEK.

Sams Publishing has published a 2010 version of its book Ubuntu Unleashed for Karmic Koala and Lucid Lynx releases. The publisher also launched an Ubuntu Linux Starter Kit combination book and boxed distribution, and has updated A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming.

The second alpha of Ubuntu 10.06 boasts 15-second boot-time, says an industry report. Meanwhile, the Ubuntu project posted a controversial survey about which proprietary apps might be considered for inclusion with the distro, and Canonical announced a support plan for IBM's Ubuntu/Lotus "Smart Work" cloud distribution.

Chromium hacker Hexxeh has released a faster, USB-bootable build of Google's Chrome OS called Chromium OS Zero. Meanwhile, ArsTechnica interviewed Google's Engineering Director for Chrome OS, Matthew Papakipos on the past and future of Chrome OS.

Canonical announced that Mark Shuttleworth will be stepping down as CEO in March to be replaced by Canonical COO Jane Silber, reports eWEEK. Meanwhile, the Ubuntu project has released its first alpha of Ubuntu 10.04 ("Lucid Lynx"), which speeds boot-time while kissing the GIMP editor goodbye.

Jolicloud released a public beta version of its Ubuntu-based, cloud-oriented Jolicloud Linux distribution for netbooks. The free, open source distro offers fast boot-ups, a netbook-optimized interface, social networking features, and Intel GMA500 graphics chipset support, while running both web-based and native Linux apps, says the company.

Dell announced new Ubuntu Linux-ready OptiPlex desktop PCs, including a power-efficient model claimed to be the "world's smallest fully functional commercial desktop." In addition to the 9.4 x 2.6 x 9.3-inch OptiPlex 780 USFF desktop, Dell announced a 13-inch Vostro V13 laptop that also offers Ubuntu.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin says that Chrome OS and Android are likely to merge at some point, say reports. Meanwhile, we sample the response to Chrome OS from across the Googleverse, and explore whether calling the cloud-oriented, Linux-based OS "underwhelming" is a diss or a kiss.

Hackers have compiled bootable images of the code released by Google's Chrome OS project. We tested out one of the images on VirtualBox, and despite the limitations of the early code, we found a flexible, extensible web browsing environment that runs well in 256MB of RAM.

Google unveiled its Debian Linux- and Chrome browser based "Chrome OS" today and announced the open-sourcing of the project. Due to ship on netbooks in late 2010, the lightweight, cloud-oriented Chrome OS offers seven-second boot-ups, works only with flash storage, and borrows from projects including Moblin.

The Linux Mint team has announced the first (RC1) release candidate of the Ubuntu 9.10-based Linux Mint 8. Meanwhile, the Fedora community has released the final version of Fedora 12, and an eWEEK review praises the release for its improved system privilege management and virtualization features.

Dell announced a miniature PC using single- or dual-core AMD processors, available with Ubuntu Linux. Starting at approximately $230, the Inspiron Zino HD sports up to 8GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive, comes in ten colors, and is available with discrete graphics, says Dell.

Google's phone struggles but wins convert in Linus Torvalds