J. Vidrine says he is about to commit a new name service switch (NSS) implementation for FreeBSD.

Simple Message Queue Protocol (SMQP) is a publish/subscribe specification that is currently being reviewed by the IETF since September of 2001. Several revisions of the protocol have also been submitted based on people's comments, and recommendations. This article is to further introduce readers/developers to the protocol and encourage additional input to the specification.

Sun Microsystems announced another milestone in its x86 computing strategy with support from leading independent software companies for the Sun Solaris 9 OS, x86 Platform Edition. Brooks Automation, Check Point, MatrixOne, RSA Security, and SunGard joined the growing list of Sun iForce(SM) partners such as Sybase supporting Solaris-based x86 platforms.

MacNN reports that the Darwin team today posted the Darwin 6.5 source code, corresponding to Mac OS X 10.2.5. "Darwin 6.5 is what we call an 'on-cycle' source-code release, where the corresponding Darwin source is made available soon after a new release of Mac OS X to customers." Several projects (e.g., gcc, gdb, CUPS, Rendezvous) will continue to do 'off-cycle' releases, according to the developer, whereby the source code is updated more frequently than our commercial releases.

"Two of the most critical parts of a kernel are the memory subsystem and the scheduler. This is because they influence the design and affect the performance of almost every other part of the kernel and the OS. That is also why you would want to get them absolutely right and optimize their performance. The Linux kernel is used right from small embedded devices, scaling up to large mainframes. Designing is scheduler is at best a black art." Read the article at LinuxGazette.

There is a Linux distro for any possible need and CollegeLinux is geared towards students and schools! Today, we interview Prof. David Costa of the Robert Kennedy College in Delémont, Switzerland regarding their initiative behind CollegeLinux.

As expected, yesterday Microsoft announced that the company is renaming its .NET Enterprise Servers to the Windows Server System, in keeping with previously announced plans to drop the .NET moniker from most of its product names. Additionally, the released the adminpak, which allows administrators to install the Windows Server 2003 management tools onto a Windows XP Pro or Windows Server 2003 family machines to perform remote server management functions.

The Australian hacker has been working on pushing Samba beyond the POSIX world and figuring out what work needs to be done to get Samba to support new filesystems such as XFS, ext3, and Storage Tank. The answer is nothing less than a complete rewrite of Samba's smbd code, which has become his latest pet project. Here's an interview with Andrew Tridgell on his latest Samba rewrite.

Several days ago I wrote a rather scathing article about my utter dismay and disappoint with Mandrake 9.1 and by association, Linux as a whole. Since then I have had many many flames and equally as many agreeing emails (is there a simple opposite word for flame?) Since then I have been trying, really really trying to get my system working fully. But time and again I'm coming up against the same brick wall of (un)usability, computer esotericism and down right idiocy.

Since Keith Packard's XWin.org went live a lot of people seem to join the discussion on how to make XFree86 better. Some, even write some code! Gilbert Baumann writes: "I hacked an X server which uses OpenGL for what would be the graphics card driver. We render windows to textures and then assemble them on the screen getting translucent windows for free. Although currently not done, the idea is that we will use OpenGL for rendering the X primitives." Check his screenshots!

Put yourself in his/her shoes. You're a budding young technical writer and the one word you hear popping up in almost every tech-related conversation is, you guessed it, Linux. Now look in the mirror and try to tell yourself you're more than a writer. After all, you write about technology because it not only interests you, but you're accurate and fair enough to tell it like it is. Maybe not.

With Windows Server 2003 development coming to a close earlier this year, Paul Thurrott had the chance to sit down with Brian Valentine, Senior Vice President of the Windows team at Microsoft, and discuss the company's most complex and customer-driven Windows Server version ever.

Novell will take the "immature" Linux operating system and turn it into a" robust, reliable and scaleable" enterprise-class operating system. Read the interview with Novell CEO, here. Update: Two more Novell-Linux articles here and here.

In the previous article, our computer newbie family, Mike, Diane, Mary and Carla, had decided they wanted GNU/Linux installed on the new family/business computer. Debian, via Libranet 2.0, was installed on the system, with appropriate business/office software, as well as the Gnome desktop environment. The next steps involved getting the system configured for easy use and adding various minor tweaks. Mike, Diane and the kids were not involved during the configuration phase of the system.