The GNOME Desktop 2.4 Beta 2: "Subotai", is available for immediate download on ftp.gnome.org and mirrors since August 31st. The RC1 of Gnome 2.4 is expected to be released in a few days while work for the GTKFileChooser API has started (most possibly to be included on Gnome 2.6 next year).

"Whether X configuration is getting you down or you need a lightweight graphics solution for that embedded app, Richard Drummond thinks SciTech has the answer." LinuxFormat's complete review is posted at SciTech's web site in PDF format.

"Forget SCO & Microsoft. The single biggest thing keeping Linux from the desktop is Linux itself. It's time to stop adding new features, and finish what's there." Read the 3-page editorial at ExtremeTech. Our Take: While there is no such thing as "finished software", as software by definition can always be improved, it is true that Linux projects (especially desktop apps) need to outline and release full-featured, solid, well tested versions of their software and offer less smaller ones that require the user to constantly upgrade and be in a state of flactuation. What is needed in smaller projects are real release engineers that can outline goals and releases wisely (the Gnome project, PostgreSQL and Apache are good on that for example, smaller projects could learn a thing or two from these bigger projects).

PyGTK 2.0.0 and PyOrbit 2.0.0 are released, while the awaited gtk2-perl is on the final stages of its beta phase. Additionally, gtkmm 2.2.7 was released and the Gnome/Gecko browser, Epiphany 0.9.3, too.

From Mac news site MacMinute: "Victor Kulesh today announced the release of Veta Universal Palm Edition, which will turn a Bluetooth-enabled Palm PDA into a wireless remote control for your Mac. "Now users can use their Tungsten T Palms to remotely control many applications such as iTunes, Keynote, DVD Player and even the mouse on their computers." Veta Universal Palm Edition is priced at US$10."

Aiming to provide Linux users with industry acclaimed quality network services, Conectiva, leading company in Linux services in Latin America, has just announced partnership with Novell. From now on, Novell Nterprise Linux Services, which provides file, printing, message and directory management, will be supported and run on Conectiva Linux Enterprise Edition. The agreement also provides that both Conectiva and Novell shall work in close cooperation as a team to provide service to major Nterprise Linux clients.

"Without a doubt, Linux has become fully accepted as a powerful, scalable and stable platform for enterprise deployments. Somewhat surprisingly, however, the cost of deploying Linux is getting pretty close to the cost of deploying some other enterprise platforms." Read the editorial at eWEEK.

David Holm has put together a few patches and scripts on his page and so you can find all required files to install Gentoo Linux on the Pegasos PPC platform. UPDATE: Read more for the whole press release:

"Much of what Microsoft has done over the past year or so might suggest a company settling into middle age. It has overhauled its management structure, tightened its financial controls, expanded its financial reporting, started paying dividends and abandoned the high-tech currency of stock options in favor of risk-free grants of shares to employees. " Read the story at SFGate.

The FreeDOS Project has recently released pre2 of its Beta 9 series. This is the base disk set only.

The WinNT-inspired OSS OS ReactOS released recently 0.1.3.

eCosCentric Limited, the eCos and RedBoot experts, today announced the release of the eCosPro Developer's Kit for a number of hardware platforms. Read more for the rest of the press release.

L.A.S. Linux is a 'live CD' distribution of Linux (based on Knoppix) with a CD-bootable toolkit for information security professionals and systems administrators. Its small footprint maks it able to fit on a 185MB mini-CD. Despite its small size, L.A.S. contains over 100 security tools including basic desktop applications, an array or forensic, penetration testing, intrusion detection, sniffers, and administrative utilities. Changes in this latest version include the addition of Ettercap-GTK, Clam Anti-Virus, MiniCOM, SpikeProxy, MRTG, and many of the Cisco-centric Open Source Exchange tools.

Coming soon to a mall near you: advertisements that block the walkway that you must acknoledge and walk through on your way to The Gap. A Finnish company has developed technology that allows for a high quality image to be projected on a dry fog cascading from the ceiling. Very cool.