Linux will become ubiquitous in the year 3000. Okay, that was a horrible joke. Linux is just a kernel, the engine that runs an operating system. By itself, it is essentially useless. Kernels shouldn't be discussed or noticed by normal users. And as such when providing these users with reviews, previews and "professional" opinions, computer consultants, computer reviewers and computer journalists should not spew headlines like "Linux is not ready for prime time", "Linux on the desktop by XXX", "Linux to takeover Windows", "Linux is not ready for desktop" and so on.

This article describes how to install and deploy the Sun Fire Link product so that it can be securely managed and operated. This is the second article in a two-part series, this article provides recommendations for securing the Sun Linux 5.0 operating system. This article provides a technical overview of the Linux operating environment and compares and contrasts it with the Solaris OE.

Poul-Henning Kamp has uploaded his paper about the new GEOM-based disk encryption service in FreeBSD, which is a good read for everyone with an interest in information security and encryption.

Warpstock 2003 in San Francisco, taking place the weekend of October 18th, will host an important presentation previewing the newly announced support for OpenOffice.org on OS/2 and eCS. More info.

It seems that the release of Panther is not far away. The latest seeded build does not have the Pre-Release status in the About box. Additionally, Apple looks poised to refresh its famous logo.

"The news is a credible, coherent Linux desktop from a major player. Despite their big bets on Linux, neither HP or IBM has ventured into this territory. The combination of the desktop, the pricing model, and Sun's promise to gut the middleware market is bad news for Microsoft, IBM, and anyone else that makes money from the complexity of enterprise systems. If this strategy gains even a little traction, it will start a pricing downdraft through the whole industry." Read the article at NewsForge.

The second Slackware release in the 9.x series (based on the GCC 3.2.3 compiler), Slackware Linux 9.1 continues the ten-year Slackware tradition of simplicity, stability, and security. OSNews featured a preview of Slackware 9.1 two days ago with many screenshots. Buy for only $40 or download for free.

yellowTab announced the "Complete Zeta Solution": Both in laptop (Centrino) and desktop form (P4 and AthlonXP), yellowTab will sell, to Europe only, complete and compatible hardware systems. All systems come with a 2 year warranty and estimated delivery is 10-14 days. The systems will ship with YellowTAB Zeta 1.0-RC1, and buyers will be able to upgrade to 1.0-Final for free (only shipping will be paid extra). Also, as a launching promotion, and for a limited time only, you can order the Deluxe Edition Special Bundle, where along with Zeta Deluxe Edition 1.0-RC1, you also receive a free Zeta t-shirt. UPDATE: YellowTAB sent us a screenshot of Zeta. Font rendering is much improved since the betas.

Windows is often the whipping boy when it comes to server platforms. But many in the industry now admit that Windows Server 2003 offers some significant breakthroughs over earlier versions of Microsoft's server software -- a change that could help Microsoft compete more effectively against Unix and Linux servers, eCommerceTimes reports.

OS/2 Servers have been a stable and powerful platform more many years and are depended upon by many businesses. This is especially true in the banking industry where OS/2 Servers are trusted to run the software that supports the branch office environment. However, as the industry looks to renew its branch office operations, many banks are looking to make a transition from there OS/2 Servers to a platform with wider industry support.

Here's a review of SciTech's new SNAP Graphics 2.0 for GNU/Linux. It's a hassle-free video driver program for X that gets excellent 2D performance. When SciTech implements hardware 3D rendering it's going to revolutionize XFree86 Linux drivers. Read the review for the benchmarks and details.

The recent paper that claimed that Microsoft's dominance poses a risk to US national security has come under fire by the groups Americans for Technology Leadership as being a shameless attempt by Microsoft's business rivals to promote their own products. Interestingly enough, Microsoft is one of the founding members of Americans for Technology Leadership, so this looks like this may be a bit of a "Battle of the Trade Groups."

Thanks to OSNews reader "Cyber Jackle", here are nine shots of Fedora test: 1, 2, 3, 4...

The next generation XFce is now out, v4. Read the release notes, the press release and download.