Imagine this scenario: you need to run your favorite application under Linux but the application has not been ported to Linux yet and there is no other alternative that would completely suit your needs. Or you need to work with several operating systems.

The XFce Team is pleased to announce the release 4.0.5 of the XFce 4 Desktop Environment and Development Platform. As usual, this is a maintenance release, aimed at bug-fixing; no new features are being added to the 4.0 branch. The main purpose of this release is compatibility with the recent GTK+ 2.4.x release along with other fixes. Download locations can be found on this page, and the changelog is available here.

The new MenuetOS 0.76 release offers DHCP and NNTP news clients, Improved process and memory management, RT improvements and faster userspace drivers. Screenshots here.

Joe Barr writes: "Here is our promised in-depth look at the latest SUSE 9.1 beta. I found a little more flakiness than I would be comfortable with long-term, but I have been using this near-final version in my day-to-day work for nearly a week now and see no reason to go back to my previous installation."

Fans of the C# language will find much to like in Visual C# 2005. Visual Studio 2005 brings a wealth of exciting new features to Visual C# 2005, such as generics, iterators, partial classes, and anonymous methods. While generics is the most talked-about and anticipated feature, especially among C++ developers who are familiar with templates, the other new features are important additions to your Microsoft .NET development arsenal as well. Read more here.

Apple Computer Inc. is seeking Common Criteria evaluation of Mac OS X, which could open government doors wider to open-source software. Apple wants a Common Criteria Evaluated Assurance Level 3, which "costs big bucks," said John Hurley, Apple’s security policy architect. "It's a pain in the neck to spend that money." Elsewhere, C|Net has two more Apple-related articles here and here.

As part of the Lindows-to-Linspire name change promotion, a new ISO image of Linspire 4.5 has been made available for free download, DistroWatch reports.

For the first time, Apple sold more iPods in a quarter than it did Macs--and Apple CEO Steve Jobs is happy about it, MacMinute reports. "We feel great," Jobs told the New York Times. "We sold a lot of Macs, but we've sold more iPods in the quarter than all the Macs put together."

I created the Casper project because I needed a way to organize my growing collection of CD-R/RWs which holds a lot of music and images, but there was no such solution available for my OS of choice, the BeOS.

Athene 3.4 is now available for download. The major new feature is backwards compatibility with X11 programs. This is achieved by running a rootless X11 server, the same technique employed by Mac OS X & QNX. The need for a separate window manager has also been eliminated by merging the window management functionality into the server itself. Screenshots demonstrating all this are here and here.

And our winner for the $3000 prize worth of the Aspire Swatter (Enterprise Edition with 25 client licenses) competition is Amit Bahree and his soon-to-be-published article "Exception Management in .NET". Amit won amidst 6 more submissions. Congratulations Amit!

Microsoft gives its Java virtual machine technology a three-year reprieve in the wake of its antitrust settlement with Sun Microsystems. But don't expect any new MSJVM enhancements. On other Java news, NetBeans IDE 3.6, which includes two-tier J2EE 1.4 support, became generally available today. NetBeans is a pure Java, open source development environment for Windows, *nix and MacOSX.

Opera software releases today the new Opera 7.50 preview version for Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris (*nix), Mac OS X and Windows. Elsewhere, OmniGroup recently released OmniWeb 5.0b5 for testing.

Mandrake Linux 10.0 is now available to club members and in packaged sets. According to the press release, "Mandrakelinux 10.0 Official offers the most advanced Linux features currently available. 10.0 Official provides increased performance with Linux kernel 2.6, an enhanced desktop experience with KDE 3.2, GNOME 2.4 and Mandrakegalaxy II, unbeatable hardware recognition, and support for Serial ATA, USB2 and IEEE 1394." The Mandrakelinux 10.0 Official FTP tree will be released this week, and public ISO images will be released later.