Joseph Pranevich has written a lengthy article discussing the changes to the Linux kernel for the 2.6 release. It covers topics such as scalability, responsiveness, the re-written IO subsystem, improvements to support for filesystems such as NTFS and XFS in addition to support for new technologies such as Bluetooth and much more.

IBM has put more muscle behind its effort to improve Linux for its Power family of processors, adding dozens of programmers to Big Blue's Linux Technology Center with plans to hire more.

Tulip Computers, which bought the rights to the Commodore name in 1997, is "taking over" the main C64 web portal and will be making a vast library of old programs and games available, legally, for download.There are still a lot of C64 enthusiasts out there, some using old hardware, but probably many more using emulators to relive their youth. The downside: Tulip is planning on defending its trademarks, which may mean that fan sites might be getting harrassed. More at PC World.

The latest cell phones can show you the nearest bathrooms in San Francisco or which subway to take in London. They can also help with your diet by tracking calorie intake. Behind such programs and more is the very technology at the center of an intense battle between Microsoft Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. over control of desktop computers. Though Sun has mostly lost that fight, the beleaguered Silicon Valley icon is trying to give new life to its Java programming language with an aggressive push into mobile devices. Once again, it finds a foe in Microsoft. But this time Sun has the lead.

Wendy, spokesman and policy counsel for the Initiative for Software Choice (ISC), says he just wants to make sure government agencies don't unduly favor open-source or free programs over proprietary software. "We want a process that is not based on automatic preferences," Wendy said.

Linus Torvalds released on late Sunday the first test (-pre) kernel of the upcoming Linux Kernel 2.6. Download or get more information here and make sure you report any bugs you might find on the way.

"Can Macintosh software run on an Intel machine at speeds that approach the same performance as on Apple hardware, or visa versa? Not yet, but that day may be closer if a Los Gatos start-up gets its product off the ground, and it could have implications for chip makers." Read the rest at siliconvalley.com.

Cosmoe 0.7rc20 is now available. During all the furious patching, "Pulse" started working and now has apparently broken again. Most other patches submitted via the mailing list have now been applied.

The 2nd Syllable developers' IRC meeting recently concluded, and the logs can be found here. Our first one can be read here with a summary here. According to Shawn, "We are throwing around ideas of what we'd like to see in Syllable 1.0."

A new PDF-based magazine is available, regarding NEXTSTEP and OpenStep. You can find information ahbout X11 under NeXT, how to run OpenStep under VMWare, a Rhapsody FAQ and how to run it on VPC and more. This coming week await an introduction article to the NeXT universe, here, at OSNews.

While a 2-year-old project to develop an open-source version of Microsoft Corp.'s .Net Framework is making progress, it's still a long way from prime time. "Yes, of course it's late," said Miguel de Icaza, Mono project leader, last week. "We were supposed to release the ECMA components, but the project has grown." Some Mono observers say they are watchful of Microsoft in this situation, wondering whether the software company is merely tolerating Mono now. "They will either outpace it with rapid-fire revisions to .Net or simply let Mono languish," said an anonymous observer. Read the article at eWeek.

"I always keep a number of machines around running different versions of Linux and one of them is a Lindows box. Lindows 3.0 was pretty good, but it had a bunch of shortcomings. But the new version, Lindows 4.0, is a much improved, desktop OS with a lot more polish." Read the review at MSNBC.

The L4Env, the L4 Environment, and DDE, the Device Driver Environment. L4Env is a programming environment for application development on top of the L4 microkernel family. DDE is an environment for Linux device drivers for using native Linux 2.4 drivers together with L4Env.

Following features are supported in the upcoming SkyOS 4 version: Multiple UHCI controllers, common HCD driver, USB Driver and interface, USB HUB Class driver and Mass storage class driver. So you can use you USB harddisks/floppy/cdrom/card-readers or digital cameras already. The USB/UHCI driver supports all transfer types (Interrupt, Control, Bulk, ISO). Additionally, the USB system is intergrated into SkyOS. Just plug your device into your USB Hub's, it will be detected and initialized automatically.