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Ultimate guide to Raspberry Pi operating systems, part 1

Raspberry Pi
Since we published a roundup of 10 Raspberry Pi operating systems the number of choices has exploded. In this piece I’m including every option I could find (and for you pickers of nits, yes, I’m counting individual Linux distros as individual operating systems, so sue me). If you know of anything I’ve missed or a detail that’s wrong, please drop me a note at feedback@gibbs.com and I’ll update the piece and give you a shout out.

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Now on with the awesomeness …

Adafruit – Occidentalis v0.3
Occidentalis v0.3 is the result of running Adafruit’s Pi Bootstrapper on a Raspbian installation to build a platform for teaching electronics using the Raspberry Pi. Arguably not a true distro (the previous versions were) it’s included because it’s kind of cool.

Arch Linux ARM
Arch Linux ARM is a fork of Arch Linux built for ARM processors. This distro has a long history of being used in a wide range of products, including the Pogoplug as well as the Raspberry Pi. It’s known for being both fast and stable. There is no default desktop but above, I show the option of Openbox.

BerryTerminal
BerryTerminal has not been updated for several years: “BerryTerminal is a minimal Linux distribution designed to turn the Raspberry Pi mini computer into a low-cost thin client. It allows users to login to a central Edubuntu or other [Linux Terminal Server Project] server, and run applications on the central server.”

DarkELEC
DarkELEC: “None of the currently available solutions do a perfect job running XBMC on the Pi, however OpenELEC comes by far the closest, in spite of its locked down nature. [The DarkELEC] fork aims to remedy the very few flaws in its implementation and to focus 100% on the Pi, while also sticking to the upstream and incorporating its updates.”

Debian 8 (“Jessie”)
Debian 8 (“Jessie”) is the latest and greatest version of Debian and Sjoerd Simons of Collabora appears to be the first person to get it running on the Raspberry Pi 2 back in February this year. As of this writing, there isn’t an “official”release of Debian 8 for the Raspberry Pi so, if you go down this path, expect a few bumps (and complexities) on the way.

DietPi
DietPi: “At its core, DietPi is the go to image for a minimal Raspbian/Debian Server install. We’ve stripped down and removed everything from the official Raspbian image to give us a bare minimal Raspbian server image that we call DietPi-Core.” DietPi is optimized for all Pi models and has a 120MB compressed image, fits on a 1GB or greater SD card, has only 11 running processes after boot, requires just 16MB of memory after boot, and, “unlike most Raspbian minimal images, ours includes full Wifi support.” An LXDE desktop is optional.

Fedora Remix (Pidora)
Fedora Remix (Pidora): Pidora is a Fedora Remix, a customized version of the Unix-like Fedora system, running on the ARM-based Raspberry Pi single board computer and it moves faster than a politician taking a donation. First released in 2003 Fedora has a long history and is noted for its stability. Given that there are thousands of packages available in the Pidora repository you’ll be able to find pretty much any functionality or service you need for your project.

GeeXboX ARM
GeeXboX ARM is a free and Open Source Media Center Linux distribution for embedded devices and desktop computers. GeeXboX is not an application, it’s a full-featured OS that can be booted from a LiveCD, from a USB key, an SD/MMC card or installed on an HDD. The core media delivery application os XBMC Media Center 12.2 “Frodo”.

IPFire
IPFire is a specialized version of Linux that operates as a firewall. Designed to be highly secure and fast, it’s managed through a Web-based interface.

Kali Linux
Kali Linux is one of my favorite flavors of Linux because of its excellent collection of penetration testing and diagnostic tools (plus it has a great logo). Being able to run this bad boy on a Raspberry Pi means you can have your own custom pen tester in your pocket.

Lessbian 8.1 (“Raptor”)
Lessbian 8.1 (“Raptor”): A stripped down bare minimal Debian “Jessie”. The goal of Lessbian is to “provide a small and fast jessie image for servers and wifi security testing without the madness of system.” This release is described as “A bootable wifi system optimized for throughput, performance, and encryption”and it’s a great platform for running a Tor Relay.

Minepeon
Minepeon: There’s gold in them thar’ BitCoin mines! You can get it out using the Minepeon operating system based on Linux and running on a Raspberry Pi. Of course you’re going to need a lot of machines to get your digital “quan”given how much more “work”is needed to mine BitCoin today, but given the price of the Raspberry Pi you won’t go broke assembling a roomful of miners. Show me the digital money!

Moebius
Moebius: A minimal ARM HF distribution that needs just 20Mb of RAM for the entire operating system and fits on a 128MB SD card. Version 2 is current stable version. An LXDE desktop is optional.

nOS
nOS: Based on Ubuntu and the KDE, this distro has been abandoned: “Development of nOS has stopped, existing versions will continue to work and receive updates from the package manufacturers until April 2019. The only things that will no longer be issued are updates for nOS specific software and the monthly image releases (they haven’t been going for a while anyway).”

OpenELEC
OpenELEC, an acronym for Open Embedded Linux Entertainment Center, is a Linux-based OS that runs the popular XBMC open source digital media center software. The first release of OpenELEC was in 2013 and, according to the OpenELEC Wiki, “Installing OpenELEC for Raspberry Pi from a Linux computer is a very simple process and whether you’re new to Linux or a hardened *NIX user, you shouldn’t have any problems.”

OpenWrt for Raspberry Pi
OpenWrt for Raspberry Pi is “a Linux distribution for embedded devices.” Systems based on OpenWrt are most often used as routers and, with something like 3,500 optional add-on packages, its features can be tailored in pretty much anyway imaginable. Want an ultraportable, incredibly tiny wireless router that can be run anywhere? OpenWrt on a Raspberry Pi running off a battery with a USB WiFi dongle can only be described as “epic.”

Raspberry Digital Signage
Raspberry Digital Signage is based on Debian Linux running on a Raspberry Pi and used in Web kiosks and digital signage (including digital photo frames). A really well thought out system, Digital Signage is designed to be easily administered while being as “hacker-proof”as possible.

Raspberry Pi Thin Client
Raspberry Pi Thin Client: Creates a very low price thin client that supports Microsoft RDC, Citrix ICA, VMWare View, OpenNX and SPICE.

Raspbian Pisces R3
Raspbian Pisces R3: Another non-official distro, Raspbian Pisces created by Mike Thompson, is an SD image of Raspbian and creates a minimal Debian installation with the LXDE desktop.

Raspbian Server Edition
Raspbian Server Edition: A stripped-down version of Raspbian with some extra packages that boots to a command prompt. It is an excellent tool to use for testing hard float compilations and running benchmarks.

Raspbmc
Raspbmc: Yet another distro that is designed for the popular XBMC open source digital media center, Raspbmc is lightweight and robust.

RaspEX (Edition 150706)
RaspEX (Edition 150706): RaspEX is a full Linux desktop system with LXDE and many other useful programs pre-installed. Chromium is used as Web Browser and Synaptic as Package Manager. RaspEX uses Ubuntu’s software repositories so you can install thousands of extra packages if you want.

Raspian Debian 7.8 (“Wheezy”)
Raspian Debian 7.8 (“Wheezy”): The Raspian Debian “Wheezy”distro for the Raspberry Pi is a fully functional Debian Wheezy installation containing the LXDE desktop, the Epiphany browser, Wolfram Mathematica, and Scratch. It supports the Raspberry Pi and the Raspberry Pi 2 and is the current Debian version supported by the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

Red Sleeve Linux
Red Sleeve Linux: “RedSleeve Linux is a 3rd party ARM port of a Linux distribution of a Prominent North American Enterprise Linux Vendor (PNAELV). They object to being referred to by name in the context of clones and ports of their distribution, but if you are aware of CentOS and Scientific Linux, you can probably guess what RedSleeve is based on. RedSleeve is different from CentOS and Scientific Linux in that it isn’t a mere clone of the upstream distribution it is based on –it is a port to a new platform, since the upstream distribution does not include a version for ARM.”

RISC OS Pi
RISC OS Pi: Originally developed and released 1987 by UK-based Acorn Computers Ltd. RISC OS is, as the RISC OS Web site claims, “its own thing –a very specialized ARM-based operating system… if you’ve not used it before, you will find it doesn’t behave quite the same way as anything else.”. RISC OS Pi has been available on the Raspberry Pi since 2012.

SliTaz GNU/Linux Raspberry Pi
The SliTaz GNU/Linux Raspberry Pi distribution is “a small operating system for a small computer! The goal is to provide a fast, minimal footprint and optimized distro for the Raspberry Pi. You can setup a wide range of system types, from servers to desktops and learning platforms.”

Windows 10 IoT Core Edition
Windows 10 IoT Core Edition’s GUI stack is limited to Microsoft’s Universal App Platform so there’s no Windows desktop or even a command prompt. With PowerShell remoting you get a PowerShell terminal from which you can run Windows commands and see the output of native Win32 apps. Currently available as a preview version, there’s no support for Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

outro
In our next installment of Network World’s Ultimate Guide to Raspberry Pi Operating Systems we’ll be covering a whole new collection: Bodhi, Commodore Pi, FreeBSD, Gentoo, ha-pi, I2Pberry, Kano OS, MINIBIAN, motionPie, Nard, NetBSD, OSMC, PiBang Linux, PiBox, PiMAME, PiParted, Plan 9, PwnPi, RasPlex, Slackware ARM, SlaXBMCRPi, slrpi, Tiny Core Linux, Ubuntu, Volumio, XBian, and more.

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Want more Pi? Check out 10 Reasons why the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B is a killer product and MIPS Creator CI20: Sort of a challenge to the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B. What could be the next RPi? Check out Endless: A computer the rest of the world can afford and How low can we go? Introducing the $9 Linux computer!


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The paranoid’s survival guide, part 1: How to protect your personal data

Who says privacy is dead? While it’s true that marketers, the government, data aggregators and others are gathering and analyzing more data than ever about every individual, you can still exert some control over what’s out there, who’s tracking you and what they do with that information.

From the NSA’s admission that it is capturing and analyzing metadata on every American to Facebook’s appropriation of users’ posts, likes and images for use in product advertising endorsements, privacy concerns are now top of mind. According to a December Harris Interactive survey commissioned by privacy consultancy Truste, 74% of Internet users are more worried about privacy now than they were a year ago. Some 74% also say they are less likely to enable location tracking on the Web, 83% are less likely to click on online ads and 80% say they are less likely to use apps they don’t trust.

Consumers’ privacy concerns
What people are most afraid of. All percentages are up compared to last year. The study was conducted by Harris Interactive, on behalf of Truste, with more than 2,000 U.S. internet users polled in December 2013.

Online shopping – 93%

Online banking – 90%

Using social media – 90%

Using mobile apps – 85%

Truste 2014 Consumer Confidence Privacy Report
Computerworld asked nine people who live and breathe privacy what steps they recommend to get a handle on your personal data footprint — both offline and online. Some steps are easy, while others require both time and expertise to set up.

The key, these experts say, is to know what your goals are and go for the low-hanging fruit first. “If your goal is perfection, you’ll end up doing nothing. Look for good enough,” says Jules Polonetsky, executive director of the Future of Privacy Forum.

There are three primary reasons why people want to reduce their footprint, Polonetsky says. One is to hide from marketers. Another is personal security. Some people have good reason to be cautious about their identity, including those worried about domestic violence or stalkers. That takes a bit more work.

But the most extreme measures are generally reserved for people who have reason to worry that they might be targeted by the NSA, or by law enforcement, or be the subject of civil proceedings. For the latter group, Polonetsky says, the required measures are more difficult to set up and use — and the techniques may degrade the user’s experience online.

Fortunately, most people don’t need to go to these extremes. “Complete privacy is very difficult and expensive to achieve. But reasonable privacy — minimizing your footprint — is easier to achieve than you might think,” says Rob Shavell, co-founder and CEO at privacy software vendor Abine.

The information out there about you out falls into three basic categories, Shavell says:

Data that’s implicitly collected, such as the many services that track your browsing activity online

Data that’s explicitly collected, such as when you knowingly give out your email address and other data when signing up for a service online

Publicly available information about you that can be harvested by data collectors online, such as your phone number and address, Twitter feed, Facebook profile and public posts, court and property deed records and so on

The first step toward minimizing your online footprint is to know who’s tracking you. Tools like Disconnect and Mozilla’s Lightbeam, which visually show who’s tracking you as you visit different websites, can help, says Sid Stamm, senior engineering manager for security and privacy at Mozilla.

Mozilla’s Lightbeam
Tools like Mozilla’s Lightbeam visually show who’s tracking you as you visit different websites.

“The second thing is to figure out what the risks are that you’re trying to protect yourself from,” he says. Do you care who reads your Facebook updates? Or if someone you don’t know can read your email? The more data you want to protect, the more work you’ll need to do.

“The third layer is control, and that’s the hard part,” Stamm says. For example, if you want to hide all of your Internet traffic and your identity, you’ll need to use Tor or a VPN all the time. Most people, however, just want a reasonable amount of privacy.

Ready to minimize your data footprint? Here’s where to start.

The basics: Six standard operating procedures for online behavior

Draw the line: Decide what’s personal
The traditional definition of personally identifying information (PII) — health records, credit card numbers, social security number, etc. — is so 20th century. The big data age of the Internet is upon us, and even data not previously considered to be PII can feel very personal when viewed in a broader context. “Bits of data, when combined, tell a lot about you,” says Alex Fowler, chief privacy officer at Mozilla. Those aggregated bits, which constitute the new PII, may include such information as your email address, browsing history and search history.

“The definition of PII — information that a person has a legitimate interest in understanding and protecting — is going to be broadened as we move further into the information society,” says Fowler. “It’s a different footprint than what your parents ever thought about.”

“Think about what you consider personal information,” Fowler adds. “You need a working definition.”

Don’t share your personal information — even when asked
Are you responding to surveys by phone or online? Filling out warranty cards? (You need only your receipt to make a warranty claim.) Providing optional preference and demographic information when signing up for an online service? “Most of us give out information trivially,” says Abine’s Shavell, not understanding that all of that information ends up in profiles that may be used by the collector and later shared with data aggregators and others.

When you absolutely must remain anonymous
Tor is an essential tool to use when the sender needs to disseminate information and anonymity is essential. “It is the perfect tool for political dissidents who don’t want their names attached to information,” says Robert Hansen, a security researcher and director of product management at the vendor WhiteHat Security. (Tor also appeals to organized crime and other people who don’t want the law to catch up with their activities.)

But, there’s a cost to using it. “It’s a hassle,” and it can degrade a person’s Web experience, says Casey Oppenheim, CEO at anti-tracking software vendor Disconnect.

Tor consists of an open source browser you can download and a network that acts on your behalf to conceal your identity by preventing others from tracing network traffic back to you.

“Tor tunnels your traffic through a volunteer network of 5,000 relays spread around the world. Tor protects your content in transit by wrapping layers of encryption around your data without modifying or touching your data in transit,” explains Andrew Lewman, executive director of the Tor Project.

Your data keeps hopping from one node to another until a limit is reached. At that point it exits the Tor network and continues on to its destination. (The last node to handle the data is called the exit node). “Tor is essentially a very large, distributed VPN that’s free,” and it works well when used properly, Hansen says.

But it can also be dangerous if you don’t understand how to use it properly, as the Tor Project’s warnings make clear. “Tor can help you remain anonymous — if the account you logged into on the other end isn’t tied back to your real identity,” Hansen says.

“That last machine, the exit node, knows who you are if you submit your information in plain text, and that can break your privacy.” Users should understand that all of the nodes in the Tor network are operated by volunteers, Hansen says. If you’re logged into a service such as an online loan application, the owner of the exit node may be privy to all of that information.

It’s also not a good idea to use Tor to download an executable unless you can verify it hasn’t been tampered with, Hansen says, because the owners of the exit node could, if they wanted to, modify the content and change it to a malicious binary. But, Lewman points out, “Tor exit nodes are no more risky than your ISP’s caching proxy servers and other points along the path.”

Hansen’s recommendation: “Use Tor only over HTTPS, and only when you don’t want your name associated with whatever is going to happen over HTTPS.”

Even then, he says, it is important to remember that some entities out there, such as certain government agencies, may still be able to decrypt the message and identify you.

— Robert L. Mitchell

Lie. About. Everything.

Many online services demand that you divulge some information about yourself if you want to do business with them. If you don’t want to share, you can either choose not to use that service — or you can provide false information. Don’t use your real birthday, email, address and phone number on social network sites, and don’t use real answers when creating answers to challenge questions, says Robert Hansen, a security researcher and director of product management at the website security consultancy WhiteHat Security.

“Never give out any real information about yourself unless absolutely necessary. Lie about everything. That’s basic operational security,” he says.

You may, of course, need a working email address to validate an account. You can create a webmail account specifically for this purpose, or you can use a service such as DoNotTrackMe, which creates “disposable” proxy email addresses and phone numbers for this purpose. Yahoo Mail also offers disposable email addresses.

Create personal and professional personas
Stamm creates and maintains separate personal and professional online profiles for browsing the Web. Specifically, he uses separate instances of Firefox for each persona. “The experience is less noisy,” he says, because his personal and professional web histories aren’t mashed together.

Casey Oppenheim, CEO at anti-tracking software vendor Disconnect, recommends using one browser for Web surfing and another to log into your online accounts like Facebook, Google or Twitter — to reduce cross-site tracking.

Understand how much you’re paying before signing up for “free” apps and online services
By now most people realize that the price you pay for using “free” online websites, apps and services is measured in data collected about you. The question you need to ask is: How high is the price?

Understand exactly what data you are giving up and weigh that against the value of the app or service you’re receiving in return. For example, you might need to share an email address for your Facebook account, but you don’t need to share your telephone number and location data, or allow search engines to index and link to posts on your timeline. You can lower the price somewhat by taking advantage of available privacy controls that let you limit the types of data collected or how it’s used and shared.

But privacy policies can change at any time, and no one knows what will happen to that data in the future. If the developer of an app goes out of business, for example, your data may be sold. Which is why you should always…

Delete your unused online accounts
Do you leave a trail of orphaned accounts behind you as you try different online services? Close them down, or that trail of digital relationships might come back to haunt you. “There are dozens of social networks that came and went over the years, and I think I signed up with every one of them along the way,” says Mozilla’s Fowler.

Many of the services you sign up for eventually disappear. “When they do, that information about you will be sold to someone at some time as an asset,” he says, and the value of those assets is based on how many users they had and what they know about them.

The deeper they got with their customers, the more valuable the assets. “You have no idea how it’s getting used or where it might resurface at another point in your life, so it’s important to take this seriously,” he says.

Tips for surfing the Web silently

Block “third-party” cookies
The publisher of the site you visit isn’t the only organization that knows about your online browsing activity. Many pages have third-party widgets on them that track your computer’s online activity as you move from one site to another on the Web. They do this to sort people (or more specifically, the cookie IDs associated with each person’s computer) into groups that can be targeted with “behavioral advertising” based on interests gleaned from your Web-surfing habits.

One way to minimize your exposure to this kind of marketing and data collection activity is to turn on third-party cookie blocking in your browser. Safari enables this feature by default, while Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox and other popular browsers offer it as an option. If you prefer not to have your browsing activity tracked for behavioral advertising purposes, you should also turn on the “Do Not Track” option found on all popular browsers. This feature sends a “DNT” signal from your browser to Web publishers when you visit their sites.

Go private with your browsing
If you want to minimize your data footprint at home or in the office, or wherever others have physical access to your computer, consider using a secure browser such as WhiteHat Aviator, Dell’s Kace Secure Browser and Comodo Dragon. Alternately, you can use the secure browsing mode in Chrome, Firefox, Safari or IE. This will block third-party cookies, delete first-party cookies at the end of a browsing session and leave no trace of your browsing history and search history on your computer.

“Blocking cookies and clearing them regularly stops most cross-site tracking,” says Brookman.

Be aware, however, that some sites, such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, offer single sign-on for all services. So when you sign onto your Gmail account, for example, all of your information — user name, password, webmail, images uploaded, etc. — persists on the provider’s servers.

In addition, your search activity can be tied back to your account and the search history maintained, along with your activity on all other services — unless the provider’s privacy policy precludes it or the vendor offers privacy controls you can use to prevent that information from being stored.

Bottom line: Once you log into a service, all of your activity across all related services from that provider — from webmail to searches — can be tracked back to your account. So log in only when you need to, and be sure to log out when you’re done.

Use anti-tracking software
Unfortunately, blocking third-party cookies doesn’t block the activities of all tracking scripts, and many advertisers ignore the DNT signal, so Hansen recommends installing anti-tracking browser add-ons.

“Something like Disconnect blocks ads plus third-party tracking pixels” and has the added benefit of speeding up Web page load times by removing all of that extraneous tracking activity, Hansen says. Disconnect, Abine’s DoNotTrackMe, Ghostery and other consumer-friendly anti-tracking tools don’t block everything — doing so can break things you want to use — but try to strike a balance for the best user experience. For example, Disconnect doesn’t block Google’s third-party advertising network DoubleClick when you’re using Google services. “Google is already tracking you when you log into google.com, so blocking the doubleclick.net request wouldn’t stop any tracking, and is likely to break the page,” says Casey Oppenheim, Disconnect’s co-CEO.

If that’s not good enough for you, Hansen says, “The extreme level is to use NoScript or RequestPolicy. “Flash, Java, whatever it is, [these tools] block it if it’s cross-domain. It’s uber-draconian, and it breaks just about everything, but it’s very effective,” he says.

These tools also offer greater security because they block malware that attempts to compromise your computer by way of JavaScript include or iframe injection attacks. However, it’s up to users to whitelist content that they want to get through. “You have to know what you’re doing, and it requires a big expenditure of time,” he says.

Secure your searches
Use a search engine such as DuckDuckGo or Startpage — in other words, one that doesn’t retain your search history. (The WhiteHat Aviator browser uses DuckDuckGo as its default search engine.)

Or use a proxy search service such as Disconnect Search, which sits between your browser and the popular search engines so that your search history can’t be tracked. (Ixquick, located in the Netherlands, works in the same way and also has the advantage of being out of reach of the U.S. Patriot Act and the FISA court.)

If you prefer to use a commercial search engine, you may be able to turn off search and browsing history. For example, in Google you can turn off search history from the Google Dashboard, while the Chrome browser offers Incognito mode.

Use HTTPS whenever possible
All data that passes between your browser and the Internet is unencrypted and open to snooping, unless you’ve entered an encrypted session with the service you’re communicating with on the other end. Some sites, such as your bank, will encrypt your communications using the HTTPS protocol by default, while others, such as your webmail, may not. For example, Gmail enabled HTTPS by default three years ago, but Yahoo Mail only began supporting HTTPS one year ago, and it’s not turned on by default. If you’re not sure, check first before you use the service.

You can use the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s HTTPS Everywhere browser extension to make sure you’re using HTTPS when it’s available, but some sites don’t offer HTTPS, says Joseph Lorenzo Hall, chief technologist at the Center for Democracy and Technology. In that case, he says, you may want to consider using a virtual private network (VPN) service.

Sign up for a VPN service
Your IP address gives Web publishers and e-commerce sites an identifier that provides clues to your location. It allows Web publishers to deliver geo-targeted content, such as your local weather, but they can also target you in less pleasant ways. For example, some online retailers have moved to geotargeted pricing, which determines the price you see for an item based on your location and how many brick-and-mortar competitors are nearby. Depending on your location, this could be a good thing or a bad thing.

And if you’re browsing the Web using a public Wi-Fi hotspot, it’s not just your IP address you need to worry about. If your browsing session is unencrypted, all of that data — including user account names and passwords — could be snatched literally from the airwaves.

The solution in both cases is to use a virtual private network (VPN) service such as Astrill, Anonymizer, IPVanish or AnchorFree. These tools not only protect your IP address, but encrypt your communications, which are routed through the VPN service’s servers before going on to the intended destination. “People can’t eavesdrop on what you’re doing, or steal your login credentials and impersonate you,” Hall says.


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What to expect at TechEd North America 2012

As anyone who’s been to TechEd will attest, the event is not a sprint; it’s a marathon. With hundreds of technical sessions, workshops, labs and vendors, the annual Microsoft event doesn’t lack quantity. But what’s actually worth paying attention to?

Thanks to the timing of the event, the published agenda and the tarot cards found lying around the TechTarget office, we have a few informed guesses regarding what attendees can expect to hear a lot about, and where Microsoft wants the industry conversation to go. Here are the top topics we’ll be watching:

Windows Server 2012
With the recent name change from Windows Server 8, there’s a renewed anticipation for Microsoft’s upcoming server OS – and heightened expectations for all the things the company claims it can do. Server and Tools Business president Satya Nadella will be one of the featured keynote speakers at the show, and he’ll likely hammer on all of the many documented improvements within Server 2012, from enhancements to Hyper-V and PowerShell to the new Resilient File System. There are also 72 technical sessions in the Windows Server track, which should sate folks eager to play with the Release Candidate, available now.
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Windows 8
It’s no secret that Microsoft is betting big on Windows 8, its “reimagined,” “fast and fluid” new client operating system. With the next iteration – dubbed the Release Preview – now available, you can bet it’ll be a major point of emphasis for many speakers, if not for the IT pros who remain skeptical of how the touch-centric interface will translate to the enterprise. The agenda includes technical sessions on Windows 8 deployment, Metro-style app delivery, Windows To Go and more. Developers will have plenty to chew on as well: Visual Studio corporate vice president Jason Zander will be speaking during Monday’s keynote session, and Antoine LeBlond, corporate vice president for Windows Web Services (with a focus on the Windows Store) takes the stage on Tuesday.

Certifications
Sure, IT pros have been able to take certification exams at TechEd every year. But this year adds some intrigue, given the recent changes to Microsoft’s program, including the return of the MCSE and a focus on the cloud. Many are wondering what the changes mean for them, whether they should get recertified and what the value of these things are, anyway. If there is any place to get answers, it’s here.

Device (or user) management
It’s pretty difficult to avoid the topic of consumerization and BYOD programs at any conference these days, and for good reason: Any organization that isn’t dealing with it now will soon need to or risk being beaten over the head by iPad-wielding employees. One of the main ways that Microsoft is addressing the new reality is through improved device management. The revamped Windows Intune, which will purportedly give IT the ability to manage and deliver applications to iOS and Android devices in addition to Windows devices, will be featured in demos and discussions throughout the week (as will System Center Configuration Manager 2012). Expect to hear about Microsoft’s “user-centric” management model a lot, and get explanations as to why Windows RT tablets don’t need to join Active Directory domains.

Cloud
The word “cloud” at a Microsoft conference usually means Azure. The public cloud platform will definitely be a major coverage area at TechEd, given both the timing – there was a recent branding brouhaha, and the company is scheduled to make a significant Azure announcement on June 7 – and the speaker slate (which includes sessions from Azure executives Scott Guthrie and Mark Russinovich, and purportedly something on the new Windows Azure Active Directory). But don’t discount Microsoft’s private cloud push, which includes System Center 2012 and Hyper-V.

System Center 2012
Though Microsoft’s updated systems management suite got plenty of time in the spotlight during the Management Summit in April, IT pros are looking to learn more about how to better monitor and respond to increasingly complex environments. Many of the suite’s most significant products, including Virtual Machine Manager, Operations Manager and Orchestrator, will get dedicated technical sessions, and should be touted as ways to tie together many of the topics mentioned above.

Office
We’ve heard very little about how things are going with Office 365, Microsoft’s answer to Google Apps, and maybe that’s for a reason. But the roadmap should become a little clearer during TechEd, as there are several sessions scheduled that cover the cloud-based productivity suite in depth, including its tie-ins to the Sharepoint collaboration platform (and we may get more details on the new government-specific version). Though there’s nothing listed, we might also hear something about Office 15, which will reportedly be delivered to Windows devices before anything else.

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