The next official release of Gentoo Linux will adopt a new year-based versioning scheme and will be called Gentoo Linux 2004. It will be released in January 2004. It will also mark their transition to a quarterly release schedule. Elsewhere, LWN featured recently an introduction to Gentoo Linux.

In this technical article titled "Scripting your Windows XP Embedded components", software consultant Hans de Vetten offers guidance on how to script Windows XP Embedded components. The article describes some steps that lead to more user-friendly components.

Lindows.com today launched LindowsOS Laptop Edition, the first Linux-based operating system tailored specifically for laptops. LindowsOS Laptop Edition includes improved power management, compatibility with WiFi cards and the ability to take advantage of keyboard shortcuts to browsers & email programs.

Here is an excellent OS-related case mod. Ingeniously simple and practical.

Since we bought that dual PowerMac G4 last month, Mac OS X has been used a lot more than before in our home. However, I tend to try out stuff a lot for reviews and other reasons and so I re-install Mac OS X quite regularly on my test Macs (three installations throughout November). Everytime though, I hurry to VersionTracker to download these following apps that I can't live without.

This article kicks off a six-part series that focuses on important data structures and their use in application development. We'll examine both built-in data structures present in the .NET Framework, as well as essential data structures we'll have to build ourselves. This first installment focuses on defining what data structures are, how the efficiency of data structures is analyzed, and why this analysis is important. In this article, we'll also examine the Array and ArrayList, two of the most commonly used data structures present in the .NET Framework.

The Amiga usergroup SEAL has posted some pictures of AmigaOS4 and AmigaOne demonstrations held at the MicroMart Computer Fair in Birmingham last Sunday. Alan Redhouse (Eyetech Group) and Fleecy Moss (Amiga Inc) were present. AmigaWorld.net has now posted the 24th Q&A session with Fleecy and has also started an AmigaOne-XE competition.

OReilly's OnLamp site has two articles, Part I and Part II titled "Real Desktop Linux". Elsewhere, Bruce Perens posted a white paper of his UserLinux initiative titled "UserLinux: Repairing the Economic Paradigm of Enterprise Linux".

As applications based on gtk-python, Gtk# and gtkmm become aplenty, many casual Gnome users find it difficult to install them painlessly as these GTK+ bindings are not part of the default Gnome distribution and they usually don't come with the distro by default. Gtkmm's Murray Cumming is now suggesting that the project creates a GNOME Bindings release set with all the needed libraries and deps in the "package" in a way that makes it easier for both distro maintainers and casual users to install them. If the idea takes off it can be very beneficial for all.

The Mono folks released new Mono, Monodoc, mod_mono versions. This release includes the PPC JIT engine running 'Hello World' and ASP.NET is considered feature-complete.

The latest beta releases of Microsoft Speech Server and development platforms add new features in preparation for a full launch in the spring.

This article intends to clear up some misconceptions about open source software development practices. It can help developers, IT and business managers transition from a closed development environment to an open one characterized by shorter time-to-market and lower costs. The author, Tom Adelstein -- an experienced CPA, code developer, project manager and consultant -- makes clear the notion that Open Source Software bears a mark of professionalism. Full Story

OSNews got their hands on the golden master of Java Desktop System (JDS) from Sun Microsystems and we gave it a spin. Here is our review and some screeenshots.

"What I wanted was very simple and very routine—so routine and simple that it's enabled with a single checkbox in Mac OS X 10.2 and 10.3. But I wasn't working with the client versions of Mac OS X. No, I was in server land. And I wanted Panther Server (Mac OS X Server 10.3) to hand out private Network Address Translation (NAT) managed addresses over DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol)." Read the tutorial at OReillyNet.