There have been many recent pieces written about how a resurgent Mac is a threat to Linux. This particularly hit fever pitch when Apple decided to jump ship to Intel CPUs. The notion that the Mac is either a short or long-term threat to Linux is wrong for a number of different reasons. 10 in fact.

The FreeBSD operating system is the unknown giant among free operating systems. Starting out from the 386BSD project, it is an extremely fast UNIX-like operating system mostly for the Intel chip and its clones. In many ways, FreeBSD has always been the operating system that GNU/Linux-based operating systems should have been. It runs on out-of-date Intel machines and 64-bit AMD chips, and it serves terabytes of files a day on some of the largest file servers on earth. Elsewhere, here is a guide to PC-BSD.

Sun Microsystems president and COO Jonathan Schwartz on Thursday cited the company's plans to eventually offer all of its software for free as a way to build communities around its technologies.

Vulnerabilities in USB drivers for Windows could allow an attacker to take control of locked workstations using a specially programmed Universal Serial Bus device, according to an executive from SPI Dynamics, which discovered the security hole. However, SPI tested attacks on Windows systems, but any operating system that is USB-compliant is probably vulnerable.

Microsoft confirmed that it will deliver the beta 1 version of Longhorn Server on August 3, along with the beta 1 release Internet Explorer 7. They'll be available along with the beta 1 version of Windows Vista, the next-generation Windows formerly known as Longhorn, which Microsoft announced friday morning.

Mozilla 1.7.10 (release notes), a security update to the Mozilla Application Suite, is now available for download. There was no Mozilla 1.7.9 release: it was cancelled after it was discovered that changes in the equivalent 1.0.5 releases of Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird caused some problems.

The guide to podcasting for Linux, Unix, and Mac OS X users describes what podcasting is, what a podcasting client does, lists some available clients, and provides information on how to create a podcast under Linux, Unix, and Mac OS X. The guide also discusses what content is available as podcasts and gives some suggestions on finding feeds.

Solaris Express 7/2005 (a.k.a. Nevada Build 17) was posted today, providing MESA support, observability enhancements, and roughly 500 bug fixes. You can obtain a free download. An overview of new features is also available.

6 months ago N. Blachford wrote an article based on the 2002 Cell processor patent application. Since that original document, the Cell evolved considerably in both hardware and software. This new version has been rewritten to cover those changes. New sections have also been added to cover Cell software development and the design of the architecture.

Apple is the world's most innovative company, according to BusinessWeek. A stunning 24.84 per cent of 940 senior business executives from across the planet who voted chose to recognise Apple as the world's most innovative company.

It's only a matter of time before Sun Microsystems starts helping AMD enhance the Opteron chip, at least according to Sun. David Yen, executive vice president of the scalable systems group at Sun, said that the collaboration between the two will lead to cooperative efforts on AMD's flagship processor.

Some third-party applications are encountering problems introduced by the cumulative Windows 2000 Update Rollup that Microsoft introduced in late June.

This article discusses audio production on Linux. The author identifies two problems: integration and usability. "I am convinced the the problems discussed here have readily available solutions, but I think opening some dialog with the providers of different parts of the stack needs to happen to allow the solution to develop."

Not too long ago Sun Microsystems proudly sold Linux on its x86 line systems, but Wednesdays press release has settled any qualms about whether this Linux-loving era has come to an end.