FreeBSD 5.1 Release Schedule; Bluetooth Stack Update

BSDForums reports that the FreeBSD Release Engineering Team has posted the schedule for the Release of FreeBSD 5.1 late spring. FreeBSD roadmap, posted earlier at BSDForums.org, outlines the future of FreeBSD-5 stable releases, specifically 5.1 and 5.2. Also, Maksim Yevmenkin has announced another set of updates to Bluetooth stack for FreeBSD. He has made many code fixes, added new firmware driver support for Broadcom BCM2033 based devices, updated man pages and more. The Bluetooth stack is developed only for the 5-CURRENT branch. OSNews featured an in-depth interview with the FreeBSD Core team a few days ago discussing the 5.x branch among other topics.

J2EE and .NET Servers Weigh In

The verbal punches tossed in the clash between Java and .NET may never end -- but for now it seems that the app servers supporting these software environments both have a place. Evidence suggests that most large companies will support both Java and .NET. The 'battle,' in reality, falls short of the hype. The scene is almost like that in a heavyweight prizefight, where the weigh-in holds more terror than the fight itself. Read the rest of the article at ADTMag.

Windows Server 2003: Incompatible, Fast & Confusing

"Is Server 2003 fast? Yes, it's easily outdistances anything that Microsoft has ever shown us before. And, yes, it's faster than Linux. It is stable? Based on about two weeks of testing with the final release, I would say that it's also the most stable Microsoft operating system I've ever seen. But then again, I'm not asking it to do much besides basic file/print. The functionality servers that any business needs are largely not there. Ironically, this reminds me of the old claim against Linux that it didn't have any applications. That was never true of Linux, but it is true of Server 2003." Read the article at Practical-Tech by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols.

The Must-Fix List For 2.6.0

Andrew Morton posted a lengthy list of items that need to be done before the 2.5 development kernel tree should be turned into the 2.6 stable kernel tree. He prefaced his list by noting that 2.6.0 does not mean, "it's finished, ship it", alternatively offering, "I'd propose that 2.6.0 means that users can migrate from 2.4.x with a good expectation that everything which they were using in 2.4 will continue to work, and that the kernel doesn't crash, doesn't munch their data and doesn't run like a dog. Other definitions are welcome."

My (Ongoing) Linux Odyssey

Compelled by the endless debate of whether Linux is ready for the desktop, I wrote my own rant. It morphed into some kind of "my experience with Linux". This is some kind of long term review of Linux, from the very specific viewpoint of someone who uses it to do research about computers and networks. It is not a distro comparison, or Linux vs Windows TCO comparison, or any such thing. It is just a story about a guy who found Linux.