Mozilla Sunbird is the latest stand-alone application from the Mozilla foundation that follows in the footsteps of now revered browser Firefox and email client Thunderbird. OSDir reviews their first public release, version 0.2.

This article describes the steps of a basic installation of Linux on an IBM eServer BladeCenter JS20 blade server, starting with the BladeCenter Management Module and ending with the installation of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 8.

Instead of reducing the number of plug-in formats, Mac OS X has added one more to the mix. Furthermore, many Windows-based developers have not found the AU format easy to develop for, and the rollout of AU plug-ins has been slow. Finally, as with other plug-in formats, not all AU plug-ins function equally well in all host applications. Read the article here. Also, make sure you read MacDevCenter, as it contains a number of interesting Mac development articles lately.

"We evaluated the security features of Windows XP SP2 on a test machine, following a clean install of XP Pro with no configuration changes and no third-party software or drivers installed. We installed XP with the NTFS file system, choosing all of the factory defaults, then patched it with each recommended security update including SP-1 (required), before installing SP2." Read the rest at TheRegister.

"SkyOS is aimed at the desktop user, the SkyOS team has always stated that SkyOS 5.0 is aimed at the desktop user, but what is a desktop user? In my opinion a desktop user is someone who doesn’t know how the kernel interacts with the graphical interface or how the kernel loads modules. The average desktop user is just that... Average." Read the rest of this editoral here.

Redhat Network Account users appear to now have access to the Enterprise 3 Update 3 release. Updates appear to only be available through the up2date feature. ISO's are not listed on the RHN Download site at this time.

Sun released Java J2SE 5.0 Release Candidate 1, while NetBeans was releasing v4.0b today.

Purchasing decisions today are "based upon business metrics -- not how good the technology is," says Dan Kusnetzky of IDC. "If the business decision maker is unaware of a company or its products, the products won't be considered. If the products aren't considered, they certainly won't be selected." So, if Mandrakelinux is so user-friendly and powerful, why is it not a household word -- even compared to other Linux flavors? In a word: marketing. There is a widespread, if not universally shared, perception that Mandrakesoft's marketing efforts are far less sophisticated then its technical attributes.

This article offers feature suggestions to budding OS developers looking for that neat edge. This osnews mini-series is a series to give people developing hobby operating systems - for fun - ideas that take their OS from a kernel to a 'system'.

Release Candidate 1 marks the start of the Hard Code Freeze, on the way towards the final GNOME 2.8 release in a couple of weeks.

"Last week's announcement of the changes in Longhorn were interesting: the backporting of Avalon and the removal of WinFS from the mix. It was clear that the only way to get Avalon adopted was by backporting it in some capacity to older OSes." Read Miguel's take on Longhorn's delays here.

Apple Computer Inc.'s Senior Vice President of Hardware Product Marketing, Phil Schiller, officially kicked off Apple Expo Paris this week introducing the iMac G5 during his keynote address. Analysts are unanimous in their support for the new consumer machine and the strategic ties Apple has drawn between the iMac and the iPod in marketing the computer. Read the interview here.

Linux is evolving as the predominant operating system of the new millennium, and legacy operating systems such as OS/2 are being gradually phased out. This series of articles helps the developers involved in the tedious process of migrating/porting the OS/2 system drivers and applications to Linux. In this last of three installments, the authors focus on how to do timer calls and DLL calls in OS/2 and Linux, with a view to mapping between the two systems.

We are pleased to announce a new stable release of Valgrind, version 2.2.0.