"Lindows is sleak, flashy, fun, quick, and way easy to use!  If you are a computer user and are looking for an alternative to Windows, or just want to try out a user friendly Linux distro, try out Lindows.  If you are a Linux guru and are happy with your current distro, excellent, that is what make Linux great - variety.  If you are curious, give that 15 day trial period a try." Read the review at NeoLinkComputers.

FreeBSD's John Baldwin says he will be committing some very significant changes to the i386 interrupt and SMP code for FreeBSD. Some new features include runtime selection of using the I/O APICs or the AT PICs to route interrupts; SMP can now be enabled in GENERIC kernel and the SMP kernel config is no longer necessary. His new code can largely be pulled over to amd64 to support APICs and SMP based on that architecture.

In the past week a lot of discussion was around Windows Longhorn, as Microsoft revealed their upcoming OS to their developer's conference, officially presenting many new features.

In light to the announcement of Qt Phone Edition running on top of Linux, here is some related news: The new issue of LinuxGazette is discussing Linux as an embedded RTOS: "A real-time operating system (RTOS) is an operating system capable of guaranteeing timing requirements of the processes under its control. While a time-sharing OS like UNIX strives to provide good average performance, for a RTOS, correct timing is the key feature."

Here is a chat log of Microsoft/Neowin/Stardock chat regarding PDC and Longhorn. On the last day of the Microsoft Professional Developer Conference, Stardock's Brad Wardell, Jed and Jana from Microsoft and Creamhackered from Neowin hosted a Neowin.net live chat to answer questions and provide information on Longhorn, the next version of Windows due out in 2006. The chat is very interesting and should help more people understand --in plain english-- what Longhorn has to offer. Elsewhere, ExtremeTech posted a preview of Longhorn with screenshots. Update: Another preview.

Lycoris has released the download edition of Update 3, their third major version of their distro. Paying customers had access to it a month ago. Currently, not all mirrors are rsynced while the dev tools CD and source code haven't being uploaded as of yet.

Apple Computer said Friday that it plans to issue an update to older versions of Mac OS X to fix security flaws that were patched as part of the new Panther. Read on for more Apple news.

How did we get from there to here? The history of computing is marked by ages. In each age, the basic design of how we work with computers changes. Many people probably think we're in the brave new Internet age at this time, but considering the nature of computing, we're likely just at an intermediary stage. We're just now peeking into the next age -- the age of the truly distributed computing system --the coming of the grid.

Microsoft introduced the next version of Windows, code-named “Longhorn,” at its Professional Developers Conference this week in Los Angeles. Although Microsoft has leaked details of Longhorn before, the conference offered the first official look at many of the technologies coming when the operating system ships sometime in 2005 or 2006. Elsewhere: "Today was the 4th and final day of the Microsoft Professional Developer's Conference in LA. If you were there, things were a lot quieter than previously. Most sessions had to do with creating software with all the new goodies." Read it here.

Technically, the BSD operating systems are every bit as good as Linux, so why aren't they commercially successful? eWEEK.com Linux & Open Source Center Editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols and software consultant Brian Masinick explain why.

With Mac OS X Version 10.3, Apple delivers what's probably the most polished desktop operating system available today, says eWEEK Labs.

With Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), Microsoft is introducing a set of security technologies that will improve Windows XP-based computers' ability to withstand malicious attacks from viruses and worms. The technologies include: Network protection, Memory protection, Safer email, Safer browsing. This paper discusses the first two elements on this list.

Lycoris makes three tablet-specific tweaks to the OS, but it's not enough. The first Linux-based tablet, Desktop Evolution's $1900 De-Tablet, is a good effort, but its software needs additional refinements before it will please the tablet-toting masses, says PCWorld.

SuSE Linux, until now known mainly as 'that European flavor of Linux' with many Americans, is getting ready for a big push with businesses and government organizations, with the introduction of SuSE Linux 9 with 64-bit processing and 2.6 kernel enhancements to the Americas Thursday.