Cliff White recently posted some re-AIM multiuser benchmark results comparing the stable 2.4.23-pre5 kernel against the 2.6.0-test5 and 2.6.0-test5-mm4 development kernels. In his conclusion he makes reference to earlier scheduler tests posted by Mark Wong saying, "Short summary: we mostly rock."

Some of the nation's leading computer science and network security experts issued a report warning that computers and critical technological infrastructure worldwide are increasingly vulnerable to attack because of the security practices and dominance of Microsoft software in desktop computing. UPDATE: Microsoft chosen as exclusive Homeland Security contractor!

IBM and open-source Java software company JBoss Group are in discussions to spearhead a Java standardization effort aimed at cooling off the growing popularity of Microsoft's C# language. On other Java-related news, BeOS might see a full implementation of Java soon.

"Club members and contributors should have exclusive access to the download edition ISOs. For others, ISOs will be freely available world-wide by the end of October", MandrakeSoft said for their upcoming version of Mandrake 9.2. Mike Kestner has released an update to Gtk#, version 0.11. The EU Parliament approves Software Patent Legislation, but not for all cases. The Czech site Root.cz has a good round up (in Czech) of that's coming on GTK+ 2.4 and 2.6 (the file selector shown there is just a mockup, not the final). Python 2.3.1 is out: this minor release introduces a number of enhancements. Seagate ships first PC operating system pre-loaded on value-priced hard drives: Lindows. According to sources close to Microsoft the latest date set for Longhorn to go to manufacturing by is Aug. 15, 2005.

FreeBSD Release Engg. Team's Murray Stokely has put together a 4.9-BETA ISO image for i386 with the latest package build.

LinuxGazette features interesting articles on their issues for August and September, including an article introducing the assembly language.

The popular alternative web browser from Opera Software today reached version 7.20.

A few months back Jag wrote this article on OSNews about my travails in my first encounter with Linux. Now, that Jag has been using it for a while, he has written a new article detailing steps required to convert an out-of-the-box Red Hat 9 system to a working and useful desktop system. Linux veterans will probably not find anything surprising here, but for someone trying Linux for the first time, this should save a significant amount of time and effort.

For almost a week now, I've been using Slackware 9.1 (RC-1 released today), and I am having a blast. Slackware doesn't have more than 6-8% of the Linux market these days, but it used to be one of the most-used distros back in the day. Today, many think of Slackware as a true classic, a thought that is often accompanied by a feeling that Slackware is not a user-friendly or an uber-modern Linux distribution. There is some truth in that statement, but there is always the big "But". Read on for our very positive experience with Slackware 9.1-pre. Update: In less than 24 hours since the RC-1, Slackware 9.1 RC-2 is out.

Vasper released today BeOS Max Edition v3.0. The compressed file weighs about 280 MB and includes third party software in addition to the tweaked core of BeOS 5.0.3 PE. BeOS Max is patched and supports AthlonXPs/Pentium 4s and installs on its own partition. Burning the ISO is not as simple though, as it has to be burned as BFS ISO format. More info on how to properly burn it here and here.

The KDE Project's KDE 3.2, which eWEEK Labs previewed in its initial alpha release, should impress companies countenancing desktop Linux deployments, they say. On other KDE news, KDE 3.1.3 built with Sun Forte on Solaris.

Bertrand 'Frodon' Presles of ASUM has made two little videos (MPEG4 format, first, second) demonstrating GUI reactivity and solid moving/resizing on MorphOS.

OneStat.com today reported that Microsoft's Windows dominates the operating system market with a global usage share of more than 97 percent. The leading operating system on the web is Microsoft's Windows XP with a global usage share of 38.48 percent. Microsoft's Windows 98 has a global usage share of 22.56 percent and is the second most popular OS on the web. The global usage share of Apple's Macintosh operating system is 1.49 percent and the global usage share of Linux is 0.51% (that's double since last year's 0.26%) on the web. Google also has some stats on the same subject.

There is an interesting article on Gamespy about sales of console game units. This is relevant to an OS oriented forum because of the underlying struggle for real estate. Both Sony and Microsoft covet the space on top of your TV. The so-called "set top box" is seen by both as the key to dominating the converging worlds of entertainment, communication and computing.