Aleksey Dolya interviews Brian Kernighan, one of the creators of the AWK and AMPL languages and someone who has seen the birth of UNIX and C.

LinuxWorld preview: IBM on Wednesday will announce a new server; a DB2 Linux integrated clustering environment; extended Linux support for the Lotus client and server; as well as three key Tivoli offerings.

Proclamations of Linux's commercial success are frequently punctuated with statements about how some analyst firm has found that sales have grown faster than has any operating system since 1999, or that Linux server shipments make it the second most popular operating system for servers. Read the editorial at C|Net News by Ian Murdock, Debian founder.

I am a happy G4 450MHz Cube user and I use it even more these days since I got the freebie iSight camera at WWDC last month. Now, picture this: The sound coming out of my speakers is often heard to the other chatter's speakers! I obviously needed a way to cancel the sound of my speakers, and the best way to do this would be to use headphones or use a special headset with a mic that cancels the general noise. Gotcha! The Cube doesn't have audio jacks at all. Enter Griffin Technology's iMic.

Python 2.3 has just been released. Changes, Release Notes and Highlights for more info.

Fueled by lean IT budgets that demand results and a successful round of VC funding, Astaro is experiencing demand from small and large businesses that want an integrated solution for security with no vendor lock-in. DesktopLinux.com recently caught up with Astaro CEO Jan Hichert to discover that the company is not only developing Linux-only solutions, but has embraced open source practices, philosophy, and is even considering offering an OS-development fund.

In order to address a potentially serious (although rare) server startup failure that was recently reported, PostgreSQL version 7.3.4 was released. This release is critical for users of PostgreSQL version 7.3.3, and highly recommended for all other PostgreSQL users. This release, as with all minor releases, does not require a dump/reload to be upgraded.

Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced the Solaris 9 8/03 Operating System for the SPARC and x86 platforms. The fourth update to the Solaris 9 Operating System, Solaris 9 8/03 features the integration of GNOME 2.0. Update: Sun releases Solaris 10 preview.

The KDE Project announced KDE 3.1.3 today. It's the third maintenance release of the successful KDE 3.1.x series and ships with many bugfixes and improved translations. KDE 3.1.3 also contains a fix for a possible http authentication leak in the http referrer header. Info, changelog.

Microsoft on Tuesday announced plans for new development tools, as the company continues to lay the groundwork for its next major database and operating system software releases.

In an excerpt from the forthcoming book ShaderX2 - Introduction and Tutorials with DirectX 9, Craig Peeper and Jason Mitchell present a detailed introduction to the Microsoft DirectX High Level Shading Language, including a number of example shaders and optimization strategies.

"To investigate SuSE’s Linux Desktop, which is based on the company’s Linux Enterprise Server technology, we ran it alongside a number of Windows systems in a ‘live’ editorial production environment for around two weeks. The idea was to see how well this business-oriented operating system/application software bundle worked for a moderately technical user working in a Windows-dominated world." Read the review at ZDNet.

"As most Encompass members know, HP has promised — at some point in the future — to integrate Tru64 RAS components, DLM support and TruCluster software into HP-UX. As for HP’s "Consolidated Enterprise UNIX," the effort will be infinitely more difficult, and HP’s progress in this regard bears close attention. SKHPC advises current Alpha/Tru64 users to "stay the course" with Tru64 UNIX V5.1B." Read the analysis at EnompasUS site, an HP User Group.

The next generation of desktop computers is coming, and here's why it matters. New processors coming soon from Advanced Micro Devices and Apple suggest 64-bit computing will make its way to a desktop near you this year. But what does that really mean for you?