"The objective of this whitepaper is to explain some of the features and benefits provided by FreeBSD, and where applicable, compare those features to Linux. This paper provides a starting point for those interested in exploring open source alternatives to Linux."

One of the worst kept secrets in the Linux industry was revealed at LinuxWorld this week with the announcement that a group of Debian-based Linux vendors have formed an alliance to promote the enterprise use of the Debian GNU/Linux package.

NetBSD has been ported to toaster. At the LinuxWorld Expo in San Fransisco, the NetBSD Project showed off a toaster running NetBSD.

The LinuxWorld Conference & Expo here this week has drawn fewer people who came to learn what Linux is all about and more who are ready to buy Linux products that can deliver cost saving, performance and reliability. That was the view expressed by several LinuxWorld attendees who took time out to talk about what they saw and liked at the show.

Do you think the pixel is the only unit of measurement for building graphical displays? Come on, you can measure better than that! This article offers tips for user-friendly HTML layout and interface design, and explains why pixels aren't always the best unit for the job.

Xandros Business Edition provides a desktop environment, Xandros is easy to install and maintain. As an added bonus, Xandros Business Edition includes the full edition of CrossOver Office 4.2. That means that if there is a major Windows software package that you can't live without, chances are you will be able to install and run it on Xandros through CrossOver. Read the full review at NewsForge.

A common reason why more governments and enterprises around the world are moving to open source software is unhappiness, it was revealed during a panel discussion at the LinuxWorld Conference in San Francisco yesterday.

Singularity is a research project at Microsoft to write an OS using managed code. Although it will probably never be seen out in the wild, it incorporates some interesting ideas nonetheless. Read about it here and here (ppt).

GNOME 2.12 Beta 2 has been released. Download: platform, desktop and bindings.

KDE 3.5 Alpha source tarballs are up on the FTP servers. This release is "really alpha quality", so no big announcement is planned. To get this release, you can either use Konstruct, or download the Klax KDE 3.5 Alpha Live-CD. Update: Here's a screenshot gallery of this release.

Microsoft unveiled details of its Strider HoneyMonkey research, a project that sniffs out sites hosting malicious code, and hands the information to other parts of the company for patching or legal action. The technical report (pdf) outlines the concept of cruising the Web with multiple automated Windows XP clients - some unpatched, some partially patched, some patched completely - to hunt for Web sites that exploit browser vulnerabilities.

Opera released a mini/lite version of their 8.0.1 browser for all Java-enabled phones. On a similar note, the current leader of mobile phone browsers with 52% of market share, Openwave Systems, shipped one billion handsets with their browser in it.

Scyld Software today announced an agreement with Cluster Resources, an innovator in advanced workload and resource management software. The two companies have joined forces to extend the virtualization and system management capabilities of Scyld Beowulf Linux clustering software to include a powerful workload management toolset.

The first draft of the next version of the General Public License should be released for public comments in early 2006, according to a key player in the effort to modernize the foundation of the free and open-source programming movements.