According to Distrowatch an evaluation edition of the Lycoris Desktop/LX 1.4 has been released. The edition only contains GPL components and the license prevents its use after the initial 45-day evaluation period. Get more information via their press release here and their sneak peak page. Update: 100 Lycoris screenshots.

The second beta of Arch Linux 0.7 code named Wombat has been released for public consumption and testing. Kernel 2.6.9 is included. Get it from the download mirrors.

Release announcement of the FreeBSD 5.3-RC2 release available here.

Here's the only recent and still valid book for Mono: "Mono: A Developer's Notebook" by Edd Dumbill and Niel M. Bornstein. The book is under O'Reilly's "notebook" series, which are meant to be books mainly consisted by notes. Here's our quick review.

According this article Solaris 10 beta7 aka. build 69 available for download from Sun Microsystems.

The NetBSD project has chosen their new logo. High-res version available too.

The long anticipated update to Portable.NET has been released. The new version features important patches and fixes for Serial I/O, threading support, sockets and many more - read the full announcement for details or download the source code now (binaries will be available shortly).

The Darwinports project recently announced the 2000th package has been added to its collection.

When on Unix/Linux I mostly use Gnome, and so here are some of the best third party GTK+ applications around I have found.

Viruses could stop you getting cash from an ATM Cash machine networks could soon be more susceptible to computer viruses, a security firm has warned. The warning is being issued because many banks are starting to use the Windows operating system in machines.

DesktopLinux has published a detailed and lengthy eight page review of SimplyMEPIS 2004. In the review, SimplyMEPIS is declared "the absolute masterpiece of desktop Linux distributions." There are several screen shots to go along with the article. Update: More Mepis screenshots here.

Apple's worldwide market share fell to 1.8% in the third quarter of this year from 2.1%, and dropped to 3.2% from 3.6% in the U.S., according to figures from research company Gartner. The numbers also showed dramatic declines in the quarter-to-quarter growth rate of Macs sold while Apple's Windows-based competitors saw double digit increases in the U.S and an almost 10% rise worldwide.

The X Window System, which is the foundation of graphical displays on Linux, Unix, BSD, and optionally on Mac OS X/Darwin, has long stayed submerged in the public consciousness just as it has been submerged under window managers and heavyweight desktops.

The Office of Government Commerce's report into the viability of using open-source software in the public sector was toned down in its praise of Linux security before release, silicon.com has discovered. A copy of the report, seen by silicon.com with amendments still visible, shows changes were made to the government's stance on the particular advantages of Linux versus proprietary software regarding security.