Some Friday fun: OSDir has some sweet screencaps of Ubuntu 6.06 RC, Kubuntu 6.06 RC, Xubuntu 6.06 RC, and Edubuntu 6.06 RC. Along with Fedora Core 5 and SuSE 10.1, this generation of desktop Linux distros has really stepped up the polish. Updated by AS: Added Xubuntu and Edubuntu links.

"The NetBSD Project is proud to announce the list of projects accepted for this year's Summer of Code. While the list of proposals was impressive and of particularly high quality, a choice of eight applications had to be made Details about each project will be posted to the NetBSD SoC SourceForge website."

"The Ubuntu team is proud to announce the Release Candidate for version 6.06 LTS of Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Edubuntu - codenamed 'Dapper Drake'. The Release Candidate includes installable live Desktop CDs, server images, alternate text-mode installation CDs and an upgrade wizard for users of the current stable release."

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer denied reports that Vista will be delayed by a few weeks. In the meantime, a day after Microsoft announced availability of Windows Vista Beta 2, the first testers are overcoming download bottlenecks and obtaining bits. While many are finding the latest build to be more stable and better-performing, they also are still hitting driver and application compatibility issues, among other system problems.

The numbers in the Unix market may be flat, but Hewlett-Packard sees a bright future for its HP-UX operating system. The company this fall will release HP-UX 11i v3 - the first major revamp of the OS in three years - with enhancements in its virtualization and automation capabilities, according to Don Jenkins, vice president of HP's Business Critical Servers unit.

The Mozilla Foundation has said it is committed to rewarding the community that helps develop its software. Mozilla's suite, which includes the Firefox Web browser, is partly developed by unpaid programmers, often working in their spare time. Mozilla on Wednesday said it could not afford to pay all of its voluntary contributors, but instead may contribute by providing hardware to some developers.

Don't expect Microsoft to talk much about the Basic edition of Windows Vista when the operating system ships. The software maker wants you to go Premium. Microsoft is readying its marketing efforts for Vista, the successor to Windows XP slated to be broadly available in January. In its consumer campaigns, the company plans to highlight specific uses - which it calls 'scenarios' - of the operating system. In each case, Windows Vista Home Premium will be the product Microsoft tries to sell.

The AROS team posted its latest monthly update. Several applications were ported or updated, including Lunapaint (read an interview with the developer, or take a look at some screenshots), a Commodore 8bit emulator, and various CD/DVD burning tools. Other than that, various bugfixes and such have also been implemented. For some screenshots of new applications and AROS features check the AE Gallery.

"Since the second computer was built, users have compared the performance of different computers. Performance matters. Sometimes, a performance difference is just a question of whether a job will be done sooner or later; in other cases, a performance difference might prevent a job from being done at all. Measuring performance of a particular task is not too daunting, but developing a prediction of how quickly other tasks will run can be nigh impossible. A benchmark is a task designed such that a measure of performance on this particular task will be a good proxy for performance across a wide variety of tasks."

Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced the availability of a Linux Device Driver Kit; a CD image with a copy of the "Linux Device Drivers" book, pre-built copies of all in-kernel docbook documentation, and a copy of the Linux kernel source to build external modules and to take a look at the source. In coordination with the FreedomHEC, the attendees at said conference in Seattle will get a free copy.

At WinHEC, Microsoft CEO said Vista might be pushed back a few weeks, depending on the feedback received on Vista Beta 2. "We think we are on track for shipping early in ," the Microsoft CEO said. "We've talked about the month, but we get a chance to critically assess all of the feedback we'll get from this beta release then confirm or move a few weeks. We put the beta out today... So we should start getting feedback right away." Other than that, Bill Gates said Microsoft will focus its products on 64bit, starting later this year.

"Earlier this month, Intel held a 'reviewer's workshop' event where they invited a number of representatives from hardware review sites to spend a few days benchmarking and learning about their new Core 2 microarchitecture. The star of the show was Woodcrest, which is the top end of the Core 2 lineup and will be replacing the last Netburst-based Xeon processor in June. The participating reviewers got to benchmark both Dempsey and Woodcrest, and the results of those benchmark runs are now available. In all, Woodcrest looks like a stellar performer that massively improves on its predecessors in both raw horsepower and power efficiency."

"eWEEK Labs' evaluation of Microsoft's Office 2007 Beta 2 unearthed compelling features and tools, and reminded us why enterprises continue to rely on the productivity suite. During tests of the second beta of Office 2007, we were impressed with the suite's collaboration features. In fact, we believe they will be the impetus for dedicated Windows shops to upgrade when Office 2007 ships later in 2006. The suitewide attention to collaboration will enable users and enterprises as a whole to work with information in new and more creative ways." My take: I've been testing Office 2007 for a while now, and all I can say is this: the new interface is excellent. Try it before judging it, please.

Belenix 0.4.3a has been released. "Another release of the LiveCD this month. The significant feature of this release is the inclusion of JDK 1.5 under the new Distributors License for Java as announced by Sun on May 16th in JavaOne. See the JDK Distros Project for more details."