"To make the desktop look really nice, you want the ability to theme a window (or sub-component thereof) as a whole. This could mean graphics that span multiple widgets, it could mean moving widgets around, it could mean changing the spacing between widgets, etc. To address this, I believe we'd need to rework GTK+ a fair bit" says Red Hat's Havoc Pennington.

Much of today's enterprise-level software on UNIX caters to the business needs of large companies. And so it must support emerging technologies and follow the rapidly evolving market trends, such as the proliferation of the powerful, flexible Linux operating system. Because much of this software is large, multi-threaded, and multi-process, porting it to Linux presents challenges.

StarOffice 8 Beta available For Public Download. At HUP they installed SO 8 beta and grabbed some nice screenshots.

Arch is a very capable distro. If you want a fast, lightweight distro that puts you in the driver's seat, Arch is your best bet, says the review at NewsForge.

Here's a story that the next generation of Windows spyware and exploits are starting to make use of "kernel rootkits". A paper at Microsoft Research has details on a prototype detection tool.

Sun Microsystems has sent some of its operating system staff packing as it finishes up a long period of layoffs. Sources have informed The Register that a larger number of staffers in Sun's operating platforms group have been shown the door.

I was quite excited about the release of Slackware 10.1, the same way I was excited about 10.0 and versions before that. As a self confessed 'Linux Desktop Dabbler', to date, I've found Slackware my favourite Linux flavour to Dabble with.

Boo is a new object oriented .NET language, heavily inspired by Python's syntax, that supports static typing for speed and duck typing for dynamic late-binding, python-style coding; there is full type-inference and closure supoprt, also.

Believe it or not, a Windows Web server is more secure than a similarly set-up Linux server, according to a study presented yesterday by two Florida researchers. The researchers, appearing at the RSA Conference of computer-security professionals, discussed the findings in an event, "Security Showdown: Windows vs. Linux." One of them, a Linux fan, runs an open-source server at home; the other is a Microsoft enthusiast. They wanted to cut through the near-religious arguments about which system is better from a security standpoint.

Today the Mono project release news versions of the stable and developer's branches. Now there are encouraging devs to switch to the 1.1.4 release over the 1.0.6. The OS X Mono framework now includes a functional Cocoa#. On Linux the number of dependencies was reduced. New Managed WinForms are now installed by default.

Nat Friedman discusses Hula and other linux issues on the latest episode of The Linux Link Tech Show: episode 71.

On drobe.co.uk, Chris Williams again investigates the role of RISC OS and RISC OS machines in the real world. At stake is traditional claim of platform fans that running a RISC OS system is cheaper than other systems - something that may have been true during the 90s, but perhaps now has the platfom at a disadvantage. Decide for yourself in Chris' article.

Michael Carrillo has written a small first impressions review and report after being voted AmigaWorld.net's 'Moderator Of The Year' and winning a new MicroA1. However for more in depth pre-release information turn to the recent Ars Technica review. And for Amiga users who need to use Windows but don't want to leave their Amiga environment there's a new Remote Desktop client available (Screenshot).

Its all over the blogosphere: 25,105,560 downloads in just 99 days! Even Scoble's congratulated the project: "In just a few months your app has become one of the most used Windows applications in the world. My hat's off to you!"