Mandrake's latest beta is up on Bittorrent ISOs will be on normal FTP mirrors soon. Some features: kernel 2.6.2 rc3, Mozilla 1.6, kdebase 3.2 pre, XFree86 4.4 pre. Drakconnect, testzilla available for testing. See the new menu structure, now in final version.

tcb was the first of many readers to submit the news that KDE 3.2 is out. KDE 3.2 included a number of new features and bug fixes as well as speed improvements. Please use mirrors to download. Update: Here is also the KDevelop 3.0 release anouncement.

FLTK-based Equinox Desktop Environment (EDE) 1.0.1 is released. Current released features: Small memory footprint; Fast loading, comparing to other window managers; Theme support; Window decorations support; Xft support (text anti-aliasing support); Wallpaper support (support for may image formats); Taskbar with configurable menu, cpu status, easy keyboard type switching; Localisation support; Graphical front-end for: xscreensaver configuration, software installation (.rpm, .deb, .tgz), time and time-zone configuration fast file and directory finder.

DesktopOS hosts a short review of Xandros 2.0 Standard. Expect ours on Wednesday.

FHS 2.3 include important changes like /media, /svr etc. The filesystem standard has been designed to be used by Unix distribution developers, package developers, and system implementors. However, it is primarily intended to be a reference and not a tutorial on how to manage a Unix filesystem or hierarchy.

Mono 0.30 has been released. This release includes four components at once: the Runtime and Software Development Kit, the Documentation browser, and the ASP.NET server with its Apache module. Packages for various distributions are also available from our download page. This is mostly a fine-tuning release: bug fixing and performance improvements are the major benefits, but new classes and new features are also included. See the rest of the notes for details.

OSU Open Source Lab wanted to take the concept of benchmarking a little bit further with the Beaver Challenge 2004. In this competition they will be allowing a community of experts in each OS to tweak their configurations to ensure maximum performance.

MacMinute reports that Apple has released Java 1.4.2 for Mac OS X 10.3 Panther. According to the release notes, the update provides support for Sun's Java 1.4.2 APIs, and includes enhancements to drawing performance and stability for both Java applications and Java applets. Java 1.4.2 is available via the Mac OS X Software Update preference pane. Apple on Monday also released Safari 1.2.

MandrakeSoft today announced a major evolution in the way that future Mandrake Linux distributions will be engineered and released. The purpose of this new development process is to provide the highest level of new features, as well as maximizing the quality of new products. This new release road map will be effective for the upcoming Mandrake Linux 10.0. Read the rest at mandrakelinux.com.

Safari 1.2, or v125, includes several new features, some of which have been anticipated in the past. The new version also boasts performance improvements as well as bug fixes. As expected, Version 1.2 features the ability to navigate between hyperlinks using the keyboard. Elsewhere, OmniWeb 5.0-b1 was released. Highlighted new features in this version include a tab drawer, saved browsing sessions, updated bookmarks, page marking, improved shortcuts, site-specific preferences, and more.

In this interview, Jan Holesovsky, author and leader of the KDE.OpenOffice.org project, now employed by SUSE, gives a glimpse of what to expect in terms of OpenOffice.org integration on the KDE desktop.

A service domain applies autonomic computing principles for aggregating Web services and grid services. The service domain technology provides a service grid and can create, filter, discover, cluster, organize, select, route, recover, and switch Web services and grid services autonomically. Using service domain objects enables you to implement business solutions easily and quickly. In this article, we discuss how to invoke and access a service domain to start the operational phase.

Today Lindows is giving away again their LindowsOS 4.5 totally free if you use the special Google text-coupon code "FreeLindowsGoogleDay" on their online shop. Read more at Overclockers Club.

Every C++ program -- and every networking app -- needs a good logging mechanism. ACE provides you with more than one way to handle such things. Consider your application and how you expect it to grow over time. Your choices range from the simple ACE_DEBUG macros to the highly flexible logging service. Regarding .NET, exception handling is more than just throwing and catching objects. There are many design elements in providing a robust system, and providing a sound exception handling, logging, and tracing schema are among the first steps. In this chapter from ".NET Patterns: Architecture, Design, and Process" book, you'll learn best practices for determining when to throw, catch, and log your errors.