"Lindows is heading in the right direction when it is going towards the home user market. Lindows is by far the easiest distro of Linux I have tried to date, and yes I've tried Mandrake 8.x/9.x and RedHat 8. Some aspects of Lindows are a bit confusing like the network printer share and no network wizard to share your internet connection." Read the short review at TheSoftwareCorner.

You may have noticed that we've implemented a system that allows readers to report comments that abuse our forum rules, in an effort to improve the quality of the conversation and make the job of moderating the comments a little easier for OSNews volunteers. However, this reactive solution is only half of the effort that will be required to make OSNews a better place for reasoned debate. The proactive, and more important, effort is the responsibility of all those who use the comments system. It involves showing a little restraint before being lured into the fray and contributing to a negative atmosphere.

This is the third milestone release towards Eclipse 3.0. Check out the new and noteworthy improvements this version brings. The group in charge of the open-source Eclipse project approved a three month long restructuring process this week that should reduce IBM's dominant role in the effort and make the project more attractive to Java vendors such as Sun Microsystems and BEA Systems. Also, they are thinking of changing the name of the project.

Linux 2.6 introduces many new features that make it an excellent operating system for embedded computing. Among these new features are enhanced real-time performance, easier porting to new computers, support for large memory models, support for microcontrollers, and an improved I/O system. This whitepaper at LinuxDevices.com describes the new functions and features of the latest Linux kernel of special interest to embedded system developers. On other Linux kernel news, Linus Torvalds released Linux 2.6.0-test5 for general testing.

You're working into the wee hours trying to fix that bug. But by time the debugger catches it the original cause has long since passed. How are you going to figure out just what went wrong a billion instructions earlier? It's at times like these that you need a reversible computer. The idea is simple: a computer merely executes a sequence of elementary instructions. If we could just run through that list of instructions in reverse we could work backwards and find the original cause of our error. But of course things are never quite that simple.

In an open letter, SCO Chief Executive Darl McBride tells open-source developers they need to do a better job of policing themselves and sets sights on SGI.

The fifth revision of Windows Update is set to enter beta testing, as Microsoft continues efforts to improve its facility for keeping customers' systems up to date. Windows Update V5 is slated to be a significant upgrade, eventually extending the service's reach beyond Windows to all Microsoft products. The company will initially support updates to Office 2003, as well as SQL and Exchange.

MacMinute reports that Apple today released Java 1.4.1 Update 1, a new version of its Java implementation for Mac OS X. The update adds the following enhancements: improved Java applet support for Safari and other Web browsers that support the Java Internet Plug-In; improved drawing correctness and performance; changes to Java 1.3.1 that provide support for Oracle11i client applications on Mac OS X; and improved stability, memory usage, and correctness. The update is available via the Mac OS X Software Update preference pane.

"The more interesting question is whether Apple's QuickTime will also be a part of Mad Hatter or other desktop Linux offerings," says Yankee Group analyst Dana Gardner. The end user ideally should be able to access content in any format with a minimum of hassles. Read the article at NewsFactor.

From NewMobileComputing: Operating systems do make a difference in mobile phones, writes Wireless Center Editor Guy Kewney—and Linux is looking stronger every day, eWEEK says. On other embedded news, LynuxWork's BlueCat Linux 5.0, based on a 2.6-series Linux kernel, is now available for public beta testing, with a projected final release date set for November. LynuxWorks claims this to be the first public availability of embedded Linux based on the new kernel. Key new features include: improved kernel preemption; 0(1) scheduler; improved POSIX threading support.

Intel on Monday released a pair of Itanium 2 processors designed for rack-mounted servers and clusters as it attempts to expand the chip family's reach. On other hardware releases, Apple released faster iMacs, bigger iPods.

SciTech Software, Inc. today announced a collaboration with Trolltech AS to provide desktop quality 2D graphics acceleration and great chip level compatibility for embedded Linux developers. As part of the announcement, SciTech has released SNAP Graphics IES for Qt/Embedded, Trolltech's embedded Linux GUI toolkit. Additionally, Trolltech now provides built-in support for SciTech SNAP.

SDL is now available for SkyOS. The popular cross-platform graphic/gaming library was ported to the operating system. Additionally, the complete TCP/IP stack was heavily bugfixed, resulting in much more reliable services like Web Browsing with SkyKruzer, domain name lookup and DHCP. Proxy support for SkyKruzer has been improved. Additionally, round one of the SkyOS GUI ReDesign Contest has begun. Over 30 entries were sent in, and the entries will be whittled down to 3 by way of an open community vote. Everyone is encouraged to view the designs and cast their votes.

Thanks to a provision in the 1976 Copyright Act, U.S. law allows the first purchaser of copyrighted material (a book, CD, etc) to subsequently re-sell that item without the copyright owner's consent. In this age of online distribution and the budding, halting attempts at legitimizing it, is the the right to re-sell going to be upheld?