Virtualization software that's all the rage today - chiefly VMware, Microsoft Virtual Server, and Xen - lets a single computer run multiple operating systems. Now, a newer variety of virtualization is emerging that employs a lighter-weight approach so that a single operating system can be sliced into independent sections. While details of the concept are just beginning to emerge, it's likely only a matter of time before it shows up in Windows and Linux.

GNOME 2.14.1 has been released, as the first maintenance release in the 2.14 series. Download the tarballs of the platform, desktop and bindings.

Will the delay in Microsoft's Windows Vista have a domino effect on other planned releases of Windows? Partner sources close to the company said that Microsoft has sketched out plans for Windows 'Fiji' (also referred to by some Microsoft watchers as Vista R2) - the version of Windows set to follow Vista - as for Windows 'Vienna', the successor to Fiji, partner sources close to the company said.

Sun Microsystems has begun selling a lower-end server using the UltraSparc T1 'Niagara' processor and has passed an important milestone in the development of the chip's successor. Its Niagara II, now officially named UltraSparc T2, is due to arrive in servers in the second half of 2007, and a higher-end cousin code-named Rock is due to arrive in servers in 2008.

"From time to time over the last few months, I’ve heard an argument along the following lines, often from people who should know better. 'Operating systems are commodities. There’s no special value in them. Operating system A may have a small technical advantage in one area, and operating system B may have a small technical advantage in another area, but there’s little to choose between them.' But there are many, many things wrong this argument."

TuxMachines reviews the SuperGamer-1 DVD, a live-DVD based on PCLinuxOS, optimised for gaming (incl. 3D drivers), and concludes: "The Supergamer-1 DVD performed very well. I had no stability issues and lag was very minimal. Only after long periods of inactivity or loading a new gaming level did I experience delays while the DVD was spun and accessed. Hardware detection was spot-on with, just to name a few, the net connection, graphics, and sound automagically enabled. It was a completely enjoyable experience and I can't find anything to complain about."

"Last summer, IBM set up Power,org, to promote its PowerPC chip as what it called 'open hardware.' This year, Sun launched the OpenSPARC.net open source project around the source code for its Niagera microprocessor. But what does "open" mean in the context of hardware? You have to pay to participate meaningfully in Power.org, as well as pay royalties to implement - it's built on a traditional RAND consortium model. To use the Sun code, though, its just download the code under an open source license, and you're good to go to use anything except the SPARC name. All of which leads to the questions: 'what does open mean in hardware, and which approach will work?"

The first-mover advantage is well chronicled, but it didn't help Netscape when Microsoft launched Internet Explorer. What drives technology adoption, and do browser upstarts such as Firefox stand a chance? A Q&A with professor Pai-Ling Yin of Harvard Business School. On a related note, a development version of Firefox now passes the Acid2 test.

"Be nice to your computers and examine some general guidelines for tuning server performance. A computer is like an employee who does tasks for you - it's a good idea to keep from overburdening them. One way to keep this from happening is to carefully tune the processes that run on it. The UNIX nice command is useful for doing just that."

Gentoo/FreeBSD is a Unix-like operating system developed by Gentoo Linux developers in order to bring Gentoo Linux design principles such as Portage to the FreeBSD operating system. Gentoo/FreeBSD is part of the larger Gentoo/BSD project. Read the interview here.

Serenity Systems has released beta 2 of eComStation 2.0. Improvements include, but are not limited to: ACPI which now works better; SNAP Graphics boots directly from the CD; support for JFS booting; Firefox/Thunderbird replaced Mozilla; Cairo has been added; and much more. eComStation betas are available to registred customers.

"Red Hat's Fedora Core 5, which hit the Internet late last month, shines in the server and developer roles with which Linux has come to be identified. In addition, for many scenarios, Fedora has matured enough to perform well as a mainstream corporate desktop. During tests, eWEEK Labs was impressed with the fast-moving distribution's updated SELinux and Xen virtualization components, broadened programming language and tool support, and hot-off-the-compiler GNOME 2.14 desktop environment."

"Steve Wozniak says he never intended to change the world. That was the other Steve, Steve Jobs. He just wanted to build computers. Oh, and he really - really - wanted to spend his career as an HP engineer, a position he reluctantly left. Life turned out differently for the self-trained electrical engineer. In 1976, he and Jobs started Apple Computer, which would help launch the personal-computer revolution. Wozniak recently sat down with the San Jose Mercury News to talk about Apple's 30th anniversary in his home perched in the Los Gatos hills. Here is an edited version of that interview."

"Last November, KDE 3.5.0 was released. Since then, many users have been waiting for the next big steps. While most of the core developers are working on the first iterations of KDE 4, the KDE 3 developer platform is more vital than ever, resulting in new and exciting applications. 'All About the Apps' puts the spotlight on the classics of KDE's applications as well as new and promising applications from the KDE community that can make your KDE desktop more productive. We will also keep you informed about development in current KDE 3.5 series."