Linus Torvalds tells the story of how he went from writing code as a graduate student in Helsinki in the early 1990s to becoming an icon for open source software by the end of the decade.

As a Linux Journal editor, I'd love to claim that in my college years I realized the oppression stemming from proprietary operating systems. I'd love to confess that Linux was the natural choice amongst a sea of other options. Heck, I'd even like to say back then Linux was my first choice. For me, however, the story played out a bit differently.

When I demonstrate software for Linux Journal, I tend to use Ubuntu as my operating system. The reason is simply because Ubuntu is extremely popular, but it begs the question, should the Linux community standardize on a single distribution? Let's look at some of the pros and cons: Advantages of a Single Linux Distro

BONUS: Video interview with Benjamin Mako Hill, and bragging rights if you can identify the birds twittering in the background... A couple weeks back, I headed down to Penguicon 6.0. It's a Linux convention, but also a Science Fiction convention. Really, it's like a geeky version of, "Hey your chocolate is in my peanut butter."

Have you ever uncovered Linux hidden in a place you didn't expect or have you implemented it covertly? Here are some interesting stories from readers. This submission comes from Andy in Vermont, USA:

There are two kinds of Linux people in the world, those that will help people fix their Windows spyware problems, and those that will not. I land squarely in the former camp, and I think that it's important for us all to consider doing the same.

Yesterday, I read Doc's interview with Bob Frankston in the May 2008 Linux Journal. That, in turn, got me reading other things that Bob has written. Finally, that inspired this NicaLiving post.

Free Geek is a not-for-profit community organization that recycles used technology to provide computers, education, Internet access and job skills training to those in need in exchange for community service.

Just a little something to end your work week with:

We're back in the office after having a great time in Austin, TX for the South by Southwest Interactive Conference. While there we met some pretty great people who are using open source technology to achieve greatness, entertain, take over the world and what have you.

Sometimes we get the bug to be cheeky. Enter TuxParty.com.

Linux Journal's James Gray recently spoke with Tyler Mitchell, Executive Director of OSGeo, about his organization's efforts to promote open geospatial technologies.

Linux Journal recently caught up with Intel's Arjan van de Ven. Van de Ven leads Intel's green Lesswatts.org initiative and is the developer of PowerTOP, one of the most acclaimed power management tools on the Linux platform.

Choice is an important element of free software, so it's perhaps no surprise that even at the level of the desktop environment there is more than one offering. But the main alternatives – KDE and GNOME – represent more than just a way of placing icons on a screen. Nowhere is that more evident than in their respective views on Microsoft's OOXML document standard, which are very far apart – perhaps dangerously so.

One of the most important recent events in the world of free software has been the release of version 3 of the GNU GPL. There were fierce arguments about its utility while it was being drawn up, and although the rhetoric has abated somewhat, there is still a big question mark over its eventual success.