FreeBSD's Jeff Roberson says that the ULE scheduler has entered into its probationary period as the default scheduler on FreeBSD. He says that if all goes well, it will remain the default through the rest of FreeBSD 5.x releases. The ULE scheduler was designed to address the growing needs of FreeBSD on SMP/SMT platforms and under heavy workloads. It supports CPU affinity and has constant execution time regardless of the number of threads.

LinuxBeginner.org reviews SuSE Linux 9 after a week of usage.

ReactOS 0.2 Final is now available. ReactOS is an Open Source operating system that aims to be compatible with Microsoft(R) Windows(R) applications and drivers. The main functionality change is that of booting into the graphical ROS Explorer. The changelog details the complete list of changes for this release and screenshots are available.

The previously mentioned Independent Qt Tutorial has been updated with two completely new chapters dealing with files and XML. The Independet Qt Tutorial aims at providing a readable introduction to Qt programming. Qt is available for a number of platforms such as win32, Mac OS X and X11.

Today marks the twentieth anniversary of the Apple Macintosh computer.While the original Mac is certainly meager by today's standards, thereare few that would argue against its revolutionary status in the earlyyears of personal computing. In commemoration of that event, today also marks the launch of OfB MacFor.Biz, the new section of Open for Businessthat will cover the Mac in much the same way OfB covers GNU/Linux andBSD. In this premier piece, they will examine the latest Mac OS X, 10.3 "Panther," on two separate generations of Macintosh systems. Read more at MacFor.Biz.

The new Linux-based InstantOn software -- designed to help Windows XP Media Center Edition PCs boot more quickly -- is aimed at taking advantage of the power of Intel's Pentium processors, not at fixing fragmented hard drives. The software integrates into the computer's BIOS and the OS.

Twenty years ago, on January 24, 1984, Apple launched the Macintosh. The machine—which introduced the first mass-market graphical user interface, mouse and 3.5-inch floppy drive—revolutionized the computer industry and changed millions of lives. Find over at MacMinute a collection of articles and special reports on the 20th anniversary of the Mac.

Jayacard is the open source smart card operating system focused on contactless products. Some of the supported norms include ISO 7816-3/4/8, ISO 14443, ISO 15693 and x509. Current version is a cleanroom development that has been ported to some secure microprocessor under NDA ; but opensource roadmap is to have this software also freely available for flashable microprocessor like the ATmega161 from Atmel.

Desktop-Linux.net put up their own review of XandrOS Desktop 2.0 Deluxe Edition too.

Here's a review of this year's Linux World convention. It's from a frog's-eye perspective, a guy with a free "exhibitions-only" pass.

Nicholas Blachford just had a presentation posted to MorphZone. It's aimed for ex-Amiga users and people who know nothing about MorphOS so it doesn't go into technical details but lets you know the capabilities of the system and what it's all about. There's also .zip and .lha versions for download.

The text coupon ("IReadOSNews") that entitles you to freely download the LindowsOS 4.5 Developer Edition will expire today, Friday, January 23rd, at 2:00 PM Pacific Time, so you only have an hour (as I write this) to get it (you can download it later, but you need to go through the procedure of getting it before time's up). More information about the text coupon and how to use it, read our recent interview with Kevin Carmony of Lindows.com. Update: Time's up folks!

Open source advocate Bruce Perens tells BBC technology correspondent Clark Boyd why the real threat to Linux and the open source movement is not from the SCO lawsuits, but from software patents.

A federal judge on Friday said she was satisfied with Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) efforts to comply with its landmark antitrust settlement after the company announced new steps, including free access to some of its Windows operating system code. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said the 2002 settlement with the government was working despite concerns from the Justice Department about one key provision.