OpenSolaris has started branching into the mobile computing domain. That's a notable step given that Solaris is generally designed for much more powerful servers. The OpenSolaris Laptop Community website was launched earlier this month. It features support for Atheros' 802.11b/g wireless networking chip and said that drivers for Intel's wireless chips is "being evaluated." In addition, Sun engineers are working on adding Solaris support for various power-saving techniques important to the battery-constrained world of mobile computing.

"In accordance with its commitment to empowering users worldwide with the most innovative Linux operating system, Mandriva today released Mandriva 2006. The new version of the company's flagship product merges pioneer technologies from Conectiva and Lycoris, as well as spanning for the first time a one-year release cycle." Buy it from the Mandriva store, or wait until the download version is released. Update: Gael Duval, the founder of Mandriva, just notified me that Mandriva 2006 can be installed via ftp. Mirrors are here, choose "public ftp mirrors". CD images are not yet available.

Pier Luigi Fiorini is the lead developer of Mockup. Mockup is an open source effort to create a modern desktop operating system. It is based on Linux 2.6 and supports native POSIX threading, hardware detection, automatic device creation and automatic network configuration. The user interface, written using Qt 4, runs on Xorg, but will also support the framebuffer in future versions. Read on for an interview. Note that Fiorini is not a native English speaker, so forgive any spelling/grammar errors.

"When Windows first shipped, 20 years ago this month, it was considered nothing more than a slow operating environment that had arrived late to the party, well behind the industry leaders, Apple and Xerox PARC. Now, it's the operating system used on nearly 95 percent of all the desktops and notebooks sold worldwide. Take a look at Window's past and present, and what lies ahead in the future, including an interview with Mr. Bill Gates himself."

SecurityFocus interviews three OpenBSD developers about their network stack protection against DoS ICMP attacks, a short comparison with Linux' stack, and some thoughts on OpenBGPD.

Throughout the software industry, there are a lot of great ideas on how to effectively develop software, and a lot of knowledge around technologies, such as J2EE, and .NET, various tool environments. This article introduces the need for an open source process framework and the benefits of such a process to different audiences. It elaborates on the proposal to create an Eclipse technology project.

"A feature mimicking Apple's 'widgets' scheduled to appear in Microsoft's Windows Vista will also show in the current Windows XP operating system, a Vista product manager said. According to Sean Alexander, a group product manager with Microsoft, the so-called 'gadgets' in Vista will be produced for Windows XP as well." In related news, here are some new screenshots of the latest Office 12 build.

It seems like all hell has broken loose in the internet services and instant messaging arena. Just yesterday, Microsoft and Yahoo announced that they will make their IM technology work together, and now Google and ComCast have shown interest in AOL. All this just shortly after Google and Sun teamed up.

This tutorial shows how to develop sockets-based networking applications (free reg. req.) using the Ruby language. You learn Ruby basics as well as the most important classes for sockets programming, and then look at a working chat application that illustrates these fundamentals. The tutorial finishes by exploring the higher-level classes that make it easy to build dynamic Web servers, mail servers and clients, and other application-layer protocols.

The Ubuntu team is proud to announce Ubuntu 5.10. This is the official Ubuntu 5.10 release, and includes installation CDs, live CDs, and combination DVDs for three architectures. In addition, Kubuntu 5.10 has also been released. You can download Ubuntu here, and Kubuntu here.

The DragonFly project has been making progress of late adding features desired for their upcoming release. In addition to the ongoing work to prepare the system to run free of the MP lock, a number of smaller, but important subprojects are nearing completion.

At a special press event Apple unveiled several new products today. They updated the entire iMac line, equipping them with 1.9 to 2.1 Ghz G5 processors, iPod-like 6-button remote control, built-in iSight and thinner enclosures. Apple also introduced new iPods, capable of playing 320x240 MPEG4/H.264 video, and it has a video-OUT. iTunes 6 is available now, and already there are 2000 music videos available in the iTMS. You will also be able to buy TV shows from the iTMS. Update: Sad news for the fans of the original CRT iMac: it seems that the eMac has been phased out. It is no longer available on the Apple Store website.

Enterprise Linux software maker Red Hat Tuesday announced that it has appointed Brian Stevens as its new chief technology officer and vice president of engineering.

"SWT is a growing Java GUI toolkit that is making inroads into commercial and corporate development because of its cross-platform interface to the operating system's native GUI toolkits. However, deploying SWT applications across an enterprise environment can be tricky and tedious if not done correctly. Using Java WebStart can bring these great looking applications to the desktop while eliminating manual deployment and updates for the IT department and end users."