Sun Microsystems Inc. last week rolled out two new commercial versions of the Trusted Solaris operating system for the x86 platform. The decision to make Trusted Solaris available on Intel-based servers is part of a larger overall strategy to renew the company's commitment to the Unix-based OS on that platform.

Today, we host a mini-interview with Fink's project leader, Max Horn. The Fink project wants to bring the full world of Unix Open Source software to Darwin and Mac OS X. They modify Unix software so that it compiles and runs on Mac OS X and make it available for download as a coherent distribution. Fink uses Debian tools like dpkg and apt-get to provide powerful binary package management and you can choose whether you want to download precompiled binary packages or build everything from source.

Sun looks to spice up its product lines with new "Enchilada" servers, a storage management component for its N1 Data Platform and collaboration software that includes its own instant messenger. Can CEO Scot McNealy chart his company out of the shadows?

Dirk Meyer helped rescue Advanced Micro Devices from a tight spot once before. Now the company is hoping he can do the trick again. In his interview to ZDNet, he talks about the Opteron version of Windows, the Linux support for it, Athlon64 and more.

KernelTrap offers an in depth look at the recent efforts to port OpenBSD's stateful packet filter, pf, to other operating systems.

FWB, in response to Microsoft's acquisition of Connectix, has announced that it will again produce its Windows emulation product, RealPC, with the first release to be expected within 30 days.

This (quite long) article has been written by me for two primary reasons: One, to hopefully save someone else the time and hassle associated with trying out various Linux distributions, and two, to promote some discussion and feedback regarding what a modern Linux distribution should be, and of course to contrast this with what is currently available. I am exploring the offerings of MS Windows, BeOS and MacOSX, and then taking on a number of well-known Linux distributions.

Tests of final code show Microsoft's latest operating system is appreciably faster than its predecessor.

"Using open-source software like Linux is a no-brainer for many companies. It's stable and can be fixed easily if bugs appear, and you can't beat the price. But some companies and government organizations are taking their commitment to open source a step further by actively participating in the open-source community." Read the article at ComputerWorld.

"We often forget that that idea of software as a boxed, mass-market, proprietary product is only about 30 years old. During these three decades, the software industry has made a number of individuals wealthy. But this era may be over. The future of software may not have room for new billionaires, even though there is a growing demand for new software, and opportunities for people who write that software will continue to grow along with that demand." Read the article at NewsForge.

A key code for installing Microsoft's Windows Server 2003 has leaked onto the Internet, a loss that could lead to widespread piracy of the OS. In the meantime, the battle for "Trustworthy Computing" is still on.

Mandrake Linux 9.1 is in virtual lockstep with Red Hat and SuSE but offers cleaner fonts and support for partitioning NTFS drives, C|Net says.

Today, Red Hat Linux 9 has been "officially" released to the masses via the FTP servers, and we host here a mini-interview with Matt Wilson, Manager, Base Operating Systems at Red Hat, Inc.

The non-commerical (NC) download of QNX 6.2.1 has offically been released today. Commercial developers can also now apply to get an evaluation copy of the pro (PE) edition of QNX. Be sure to use the new 6.2.1 online 3rd Party software repository once you are up and running.