Two Linux distributors from China and Japan are building a common open-source platform for Asian companies. China's Red Flag Software and Japan's Miracle Linux aims to develop a common Linux platform to make it easier for Asian companies to switch to the open-source camp. The two Linux distributors said in a statement they will make use of Oracle's software development centre in Beijing to jointly create a new Linux-based server operating environment called "Asianux".

"SUSE 9 offers a superb printed manual, a great installation interface, a modern KDE system in addition to the more standard, older GNOME interface, and a new kernel build. It's easy to see why Novell thought enough of the software to buy the company" says InternetWeek in their review.

Linux can be made profitable and it can be made so without going the enterprise route or by relying on the traditional services an support model-- as long as technology companies are willing to sell the operating system on their own highly optimized and performance enhanced proprietary hardware.

Linus Torvalds released the final 2.6.1 Linux kernel. This release has a lot of changes since 2.6.0, many things have been merged from the -mm tree. This release includes a patch for the mremap() vulnerability.

Long-term strategy overhaul may alter SuSE relationship: "I guess we're a little bit disappointed with SuSE's performance in the marketplace," said Schwartz. Asked if Sun would revive its own Sun Linux distribution that it discontinued last year, Schwartz said, "That's an interesting question."

When Microsoft pulls the plug on Windows 98 support next Friday, it will offer a free CD designed to help users "make the most" of the aging operating system, without any further assistance from the software giant.

This month is the 20th anniversary of Apple Computer's Macintosh. To mark the occasion, Wired News is running several stories this week about the groundbreaking machine, the people who created it and the Mac's impact on computing and culture in general.

DragonFly BSD was announced in July of this year, with Matt Dillon the originator and main weightlifter of this project. Development has been proceeding at a good clip, with a first release expected in 2004. Here's some data on the amount of activity in the DragonFly source, as of the end of December 2003.

This article discusses a small-scale benchmark test run on nine modern computer languages or variants: Java 1.3.1, Java 1.4.2, C compiled with gcc 3.3.1, Python 2.3.2, Python compiled with Psyco 1.1.1, and the four languages supported by Microsoft's Visual Studio .NET 2003 development environment: Visual Basic, Visual C#, Visual C++, and Visual J#. The benchmark tests arithmetic and trigonometric functions using a variety of data types, and also tests simple file I/O. All tests took place on a Pentium 4-based computer running Windows XP. Update: Delphi version of the benchmark here.

Xandros does Linux sans Tux, but the big question remains: Does being fast, easy, and astonishingly elegant buy it success on a down and dirty desktop? Asks Open Magazine.

While light on Gates-baiting at this year's confab, Steve Jobs still gets his digs in: "Microsoft is copying us again, and it's fun!"

Linus Torvalds has released Linux Kernel 2.6.1-rc3. This release includes mostly small bug fixes.

NetBSD's Luke Mewburn announced today that it is now possible to cross-build XFree86 4.x on NetBSD-current using the "build.sh" framework, taking advantage of such features as: cross compilation, read-only source tree, unprivileged builds. You can find more details about the build.sh framework in Luke Mewburn and Matthew Green's paper and presentation on the topic at BSDCon 2003.

Windows Server 2003 for 64-Bit Extended Systems provides high performance for both 32-bit and 64-bit applications on the same system. The underlying architecture is based on 64-bit extensions to the industry-standard x86 instruction set, allowing today's 32-bit applications to run natively on 64-bit extended processors such as AMD Opteron. At the same time, new 64-bit applications are executed in 64-bit mode, which processes more data per clock cycle, allows greater access to memory, and speeds numeric calculations. Read the newly published information here.