Absoft Corporation has announced the availability of Visual Numerics’ IMSL Fortran Numerical Library version 5.0 bundled with its new high performance Pro Fortran compiler suite version 9.0 for Windows which was also announced today, along with MATFOR 3.

MontaVista Software has announced the immediate availability of an early access version of MontaVista Linux Professional Edition (Pro), based on the latest 2.6 Linux kernel.

Ubuntu Linux 4.1, released yesterday, is the one of the first distributions to ship with the newly released Gnome 2.8. OSDir has taken a number of screenshots. PPCNerds.org also features an Ubuntu slideshow. We featured an interview with Jeff Waugh of the Ubuntu team yesterday.

Gentoo Linux is the BSD of GNU/Linux distributions; it's elegant and customizable and you know exactly what you're getting when you install it. If you do it right, Gentoo is usually faster than your average GNU/Linux distro because everything can be compiled with higher compiler optimizations. The 2004.2 edition of Gentoo Linux lacks the improvements I had hoped to see, but this is still the best community GNU/Linux distribution for desktop tinkerers. Some even say that it makes a good server, too. Linux.com has the full review.

Microsoft is refining its "Get the Facts" Linux attack, taking specific aim at Red Hat, Novell and IBM rather than the broader movement around the open-source operating system.

The Debian-based Ubuntu Linux was unveiled today and a preview release is available for download. Ubuntu uses Gnome 2.8, kernel 2.6.8.1, OOo 1.1.2 and comes with a text-based, but dead-easy, installation procedure. Ubuntu has disabled the root user (sudo is used, same way as OSX does it) and it endorses the "less is more" philosophy. There are still bugs on the preview release, but the team welcomes feedback via their mailing list. Read more for an interview with team member Jeff Waugh (also of Debian and Gnome fame). Screenshots also included, and more are here to be found.

Panther server can be used as a Primary Domain Controller and host both Macintosh and PC clients. This is an excellent solution for small offices looking to support a mixed-client environment with limited resources, for large installations using mostly Mac clients or for any installation that does not have a PC server in place.

Gumstix is something I've ran into during my ever-continuous search for high tech gadgets in the embedded world. I like staying up to date with Via Mini- and NanoITX boards, iPaq's running Linux and things like Sony Librie and their restrictive DRM. It is an ever changing world out there, especially with the recent rise of iTunes and the MS-music store. These too try new techniques for a good balance between security and piracy. But I wasn't going to go into this. Too deeply. To get back on the road I'll tell you a little secret.

As users chose to supplement their RISC OS computers with a second machine, there grows a need to manage files over a network. With this in mind, Paul Stewart guides us through evaluating and configuring NFS with RISC OS and Windows.

In need of a modern graphing calculator application for its Mac OS X distributions, Apple stopped coding and went shopping overseas.

Gnome Desktop Environment 2.8 was released today, on schedule. Including a slew of new features and the much anticipated Evolution 2.0, Gnome 2.8 achieves several milestones. Release notes can be found here, and a number of screenshots here. In other Gnome news, a new Gnome news site, gnomejournal.org, was announced today.

The ZFS, breakthrough file system in Solaris 10, delivers virtually unlimited capacity, provable data integrity, and near-zero administration.

With pro features like 16-bit per channel support, camera RAW and the healing brush, Adobe announced Photoshop Elements 3.0 today. Digital photo users in particular now have the choice of this powerful application that has little competition in its range, be it the free Gimp or the similarly priced PaintShopPro. Picture Window Pro is the only photo application that can outfeature Elements (and depending on the case, even Photoshop itself sometimes). Picture Window Pro is one of the favorite applications of photography professionals and it's at the same price range as Elements, 90 USD.

An upgraded GNOME desktop environment for Linux and Unix is due for release this Wednesday, with its authors pitching enhanced features for end-users and a commitment to make hardware "just work".