Today in Open Source: Download Ubuntu 13.10 betas. Plus: Big Data and Linux, and Back to School open source apps! Download Ubuntu 13.10 Betas Beta downloads for Ubuntu GNOME 13.10, Lubuntu 13.10, Xubuntu 13.10, and Xubuntu 13.10 are available for download. The Unity version of Ubuntu will be available later this month. I recommend taking your favorite beta for a spin in VirtualBox. VirtualBox is free, open source software. It’ll give you a taste of what the beta has to offer, without actually installing it on your daily use computer. Today marks the Beta 1 milestone in the Ubuntu 13.10 development cycle. Downloadable images for various Ubuntu flavours, including Lubuntu and Ubuntu GNOME, are now available. Ubuntu proper (i.e. the one with Unity, Mir & Ubuntu One) is scheduled to take part in the next beta release due later this month. Beta releases are not recommended for use as your main OS. More at OMG Ubuntu! Here are the download links for each beta: Ubuntu GNOME 3.10 Kubuntu 13.10 Lubuntu 13.10 Xubuntu 13.10 Big Data and Linux eWeek has an interesting article that explains why Linux is right for Big Data. Big data analysis needs computing that’s scalable, flexible and reliable—at a cost that won’t impact IT budgets immensely. It’s a familiar combination that made Linux the leader in high-performance computing and high availability years ago. In addition to 94 percent of the Top 500 supercomputers in the world, both the world’s fastest (Titan) and most famous (IBM Watson) supercomputers run on Linux. With the help of SUSE, eWEEK lays out 10 reasons Linux should be the operating system of choice for big data environments. More at eWeek The article makes a compelling (but not very surprising) case for the use of Linux in Big Data. However, was it really necessary to break the article up into a slideshow? Come on eWeek, why not at least offer a link to view it in article format? I understand the need to generate ad revenue, but slideshows should only be used when the format really lends itself to the information being presented. For this one a regular text article would have been much easier and faster to read. Five Back to School Open Source Apps Open Source has a list of five open source apps for the back to school crowd. Here’s the list: Xournal Kazam Screencaster LibreOffice MuseScore Kojo Learning Beyond cost savings, open source software empowers students to take ownership of their work and be free of software licensing treadmills. And, perhaps the ultimate educational opportunity is the ability to examine, analyze, and contribute to open source software and tools like these. More at Open Source While I’m glad to see this list, I’m sure are plenty more applications that could be added to this list. There’s such a rich diversity of open source applications available. Perhaps next year they could bulk up the list to the top twenty? If you know a good open source education application, please post it in the comments below. Maybe we can build on this list and help a few parents out there. Thanks in advance for all suggestions. Open Source