Xfce 4.2 includes many new features and several new applications, as you can see here. You can download the test it here and rate the desktop environment here. Xfce Window Manager also includes an embedded compositing manager for the newer X.org 6.8.x (screenshot).

This story lists a number of problems with IE and suggests to switch to Firefox. Elsewhere, Neowin interviews a member of the Firefox team.

The pre-rc2 release is a preview of new features for the new Debian installer. Have a look at these screenshots and read more.

Just came back from a conference with guest speaker Bill Gates. Gates touched a number of subjects and we quickly report and comment on them below.

HP has sent a letter to Sun that complains about the inflammatory nature of Jonathan Schwartz's Weblog entries, according to this report. Apparently it is in response to Schwartz saying that HP's Unix operating system is dying.

Novell plans to launch its first Linux desktop offering, which incorporates technology it acquired from German Linux vendor SuSE last year, within the next month. The vendor says it is combining its own proprietary technology with open source software in an “enterprise-ready” desktop operating system that will be a low-cost alternative for most organisations.

Philip Charles has announced the availability of the K7 series of Debian GNU/Hurd CDs. He says: "The main feature of the K7 set is its quality. I would say it is the best set to date. IMHO, this set could be used to promote GNU". This version features XFree86-4.3 for the first time, resulting in greatly improved X11 support. It is also the first version featuring the hurd package itself built against a recent glibc (current Debian unstable).

Mepis is making the transition to a full-fledged easy-to-use desktop and general-purpose Linux distribution. The following is both an overview and review of this excellent new Linux distribution.

Maintaining and deploying useful FAQs can be a very tedious process. Luckily there are a number of open source FAQ generation and management tools out there that exist to try and make it a bit easier. In The FAQs on FAQs we take a look at some tools and what FAQs demand of administrators.

The Austin Game Conference has emerged as one of the primary conferences for game designers, developers, and entrepreneurs in North America. This year, more than 1400 professionals from over 350 companies attended the conference to discuss the technical and business challenges that face today's game industry.

Sun's 3D desktop dubbed Project Looking Glass, was released under the GPL a few months ago. However, it now seems Sun is looking to patent the Project Looking Glass interface according to this report.

A senior IT executive at a major pharmaceutical company summed up the challenge for Linux at the ZDNet UK IT Priorities conference when he asked one simple question: what are the benefits in migrating from Microsoft to Linux at the desktop?

In Russo's A Response to the Paradox of Choice, I interpret this paragraph to be the crux of his essay:

Newly released is the Platform SDK for Windows XP Service Pack 2 support (includes MDAC 2.8, Tablet 1.7 and Windows Installer 3.0).