The first security and critical bug-fix update to Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 "sarge" has been released: "This is the first update of Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 (codename 'sarge') which mainly adds security updates to the stable release, along with some corrections to serious problems."

PearPC, the PowerPC processor emulator capable of running Apple's Mac OS X on x86, has released version 0.4.0 after more than a year's wait. "This is the first release with G4 support by Daniel Foesch (you have to enable it in your config). Other features include support for native CD-ROMs (no need for images) and endianess safety (i.e. you can run PearPC on big-endian systems)." The full changelog is here, downloads are here.

In order to see what is needed in book writing applications, you need to look carefully at the desk of someone who is actively writing a book. You will most likely see piles of paper, often cut up and marked with pencil, and if you examine those of the papers that are in piles, you will see that the pagination is all over the place because pages have been reordered. Read on...

Unix isn't a flashy market. But what distinction there is has been going to Sun Microsystems lately, by making its Unix-based Solaris operating system available as open-source software. Last week, IBM moved to put its AIX Unix operating system back on everybody's radar by revealing plans to create a development center on its Austin, Texas, campus to speed up AIX development.

Aaron Siego of KDE: "It would be very nice if our X server could use OpenGL directly for its display and composition. Because then we could have hardware accelerated effects that are not only cool looking, but also very useful. Well, there is just such a project underway, called XGL. But don't hold your breath. The development of XGL has been largely removed from the community and is being done behind closed doors. Who is this company, you ask, that would take the development of something as potentially important as this out of the community and put it behind closed doors? Novell."

According to these blog posts from SUSE/Novell KDE developers that include bootcharts showing KDE startup, recent performance improvements in fontconfig and KDE/Qt have a noticeable effect on startup times. KDE can even match Xfce startup time (both 5 seconds on a 900MHz laptop) when some KDE features are turned off to match Xfce more closely in terms of functionality.

"The SeaMonkey Council announces a new developer release, SeaMonkey 1.0 Beta. Compared to the Alpha version released in September, SeaMonkey 1.0 Beta enhances the product with new features like tab drag and drop, but also is the first release branded with the new SeaMonkey logo, which was unveiled earlier this month. While much of the core code is shared with the popular Firefox 1.5 browser, SeaMonkey comes with the the look and feel familiar to users of its ancestors, the Mozilla Application Suite and Netscape Communicator packages."

MorphZone presents an article from the 'Amiga Professor' Peruggi in which he explains the managing of TrueType webfonts on MorphOS and all other Amiga-like systems. It is a complete tutorial with AREXX scripts on how to adjust webfonts to obtain correct aspect ratio of HTML pages in Amiga browsers.

"Due to the recent upgrade of gcc and the subsequent full rebuild of everything that gets built with gcc, including java stuff with gcj, and the need to further test package selection windows in Anaconda, system-config-packages for upgrades, and the development tree in general once we settle down the rebuilds, we have decided to delay test2. Here is a new schedule that we will be working toward."

"Last week i was able to register with OASIS, as a non profit, The OpenDocument Foundation, inc. The Foundation is a USA 501c(3) non profit incorporated in California, and duly registered with the IRS. OASIS has been kind enough to expedite the registration, and hopefully Foundation members will be able to join the ODF TC and the newly formed OASIS ODF Adoption TC."

Fresh from attending the Manchester leg of this year's Christmas RISC OS roadshow, David Llewellyn-Jones reports on the developments and products he saw on display yesterday evening. "It seemed like a good event with what could be described as a good atmosphere. The room was quite small - apparently smaller than the usual Birmingham venue - so that it was quite cramped with all of the exhibitors present. It was difficult to get a feel for the number of people attending, and I hesitate to speculate. You can get an idea of how busy it was from the photos below. There was a list for visitors to fill in and sign on arrival, so presumably RISCOS Ltd have a relatively accurate figure."

PalmSource officials insist there is a future for the veteran handheld operating system, but some industry experts say deploying Palm OS-based handhelds is risky. Access, which is best known for its NetFront cell phone browser, has yet to provide a detailed road map for Palm OS.

"There is a lot of confusing information about the GNU/Linux operating system, open source and free software, and related issues in the press today. Many of these technologies and concepts are difficult to understand because they deviate from the standard historical traditions of the software industry. There are also a number of sponsored reports and other corporate propaganda published around the Web that smear the image of Linux and free software. In the interest of making a few basic concepts clear, this article will bring light to the darkness perpetuated by uninformed journalists, campaigning CEOs, and misleading advertisements."

The 'People Behind KDE' interviews the people resposible for Qt and KDE packages in the Debian project. "More work needs to go into a definitive set of new and improved hardware configuration tools. Work is being done, fortunately, so I'm optimistic."