"Writing a tips article is tricky. Especially for such a hallowed and 'hardcore' distribution as Slackware. Veteran users want incredibly good tips. New users considering giving Slack a whirl, and who may be afraid of the BSD-style and command line mystique, want tips that bring accessibility and understanding to Slackware. Find that balance here. From simple bash techniques, to assuring your anonynimity on public Wi-Fi, this article will walk you through the Slackware tips most valuable to you."

The 5th beta of FreeBSD 6.0 has been released to mirrors. There is no official announcement yet, however. Pick a mirror near you.

Graphics drivers developed for Vista, Microsoft's next generation operating system, will be far more stable than their Windows XP-based counterparts, and not crash the operating system anymore, an executive of graphics chip developer ATI said.

This simple guide will go over the basics of setting up and running KDE on MacOSX. You'll need at least Mac OS 10.3, Fink, and some experience with the command-line.

ExtremeTech concludes its Hacking Firefox series with a how-to on tweaking navigation and tab browing settings in Firefox. Some hacks are pretty basic; other hacks involve a little programming.

As early as May 1995, three months before Netscape initial public offering sparked the dot-com boom, Microsoft executives were worried that the nascent WWW could one day become a significant threat to the Windows franchise. Another memo is also making the rounds. This internal memo, written in 2005, argues that Google threatens Microsoft and the company's crown jewel, Windows.

"Usually, a distro's most recognizable feature is the desktop environment. With SymphonyOS, the screenshots are the first hint that this is not your ordinary remix. SymponyOS is a bold step into a new desktop paradigm. It features such innovations as the Mezzo desktop environment, the Orchestra application environment, and the apt-plus software installation tool. Ryan Quinn, the lead developer of SymphonyOS, took some time out to talk with me about the distro and a few other subjects."

This is a series of articles exploring the new tools and APIs that developers will find in Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0, Visual Studio 2005, and the .NET Compact Framework version 2.0. The series begins with an introduction to Windows Mobile 5.0 and the tools needed to get started developing for Windows Mobile 5.0 today.

Castle have issued a new RISC OS 5 ROM for brave Iyonix users to beta test. Version 5.10 is mainly a bug fixing exercise, and coincides with a USB mass storage update that also corrects a few glitches. "It is intended that these updates will go in general circulation in a few days time, unless anything hugely untoward crops up. We have been running these for a while now," said Castle's John Ballance. This update also includes the updated GeForce 2 driver, bringing 3D acceleration to RISC OS.

"I've used Red Hat Network successfully in the past, so I was happy to get my hands on a demo of Red Hat Network 4, which is in the process of being released. Before I drill down into RHN4, I have to say RHN4's new features are cool, particularly the ones that enable you to manage Unix-based Solaris servers and monitor systems more effectively."

"The amazing thing isn't that Windows beat the pants off Unix; it's that so many of the Unix companies survived until today. Linux came into the field though with two big advantages over the Unixes. The first was that it was open-source. The second advantage was it had Linus Torvalds." In other news, here you can read what various people have to say about the restructuring operation at Microsoft.

The first snapshot release of Komodo, a next-generation Linux/.NET-based operating system, is now available. "A new desktop environment codenamed Dagon is now being developed with to bring a new face of Linux to users. The environment is being developed around the Emotion graphics/UI toolkit to best make use of these new display and communication technologies as well as to provide a solid and useable interface for casual users." Get the latest snapshots from their FTP servers. Read more information for developers, users and enterprise users.

A senior Sun executive has indicated versions of his firm's latest server chip that aren't fully functional could find their way into commodity servers as a cheap option. Sun's forthcoming Niagara chip has eight cores, but the company will sell versions with six or possibly even four, the company's top Sparc server executive said Tuesday.

Speaking yesterday at Apple's European conference, Apple Expo in Paris, Jobs said: "Microsoft is copying us with its operating system... Dell's trying to copy us with its hardware. That's fine but we'd like to not give them a map and show them where we're going to go. At least they can follow our taillights." Update: More from Jobs here.