BeFree 0.1.1 Released

  Submitted by Pier Luigi Fiorini Haiku 14 Comments
The second version of BeFree has been released today. This is the first pre-0.2 version with a new design, which consists of some system calls for the Linux kernel instead of a user-space daemon. It is beta quality and may have bugs.The release notes are here. BeFree recently abandoned its FreeBSD-centric platform for the Linux one.
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REAL Software Announces Linux, VB Strategy

  Submitted by Matt Quagliana General Development 27 Comments
REAL Software announced that the next version of REALbasic will generate native applications for Linux (in addition to Mac Classic, Mac OS X and Windows). The IDE is not ported, you will have to cross-compile a Linux binary. And they now have a Visual Basic migration tool that will help developers port their VB applications to these other platforms.
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G5/2GHz MP Performance Data compared to the G4/1.42GHz MP

Benchmarks 115 Comments
Bare Feats has some interesting benchmarks to show: Fastest G5 so far to the fastest G4 MP. G5 is much faster on memory operations, but not all operations are faster than the G4. Bare Feats says that until developers optimize their code for the G5, users won't see G5 being speedier than G4 on all tests. Same thing happens with all new CPUs though, including the P4s which included a new instruction set and developers had to compile for it in order to take advantage of what it really had to offer.
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Is this the End of Free Linux?

Linux 230 Comments
"If SCO has its way, the Linux community will suffer a setback, but longer term will prevail. A good way to avoid the SCO scenario is for the open source community to take more responsibility for ensuring that its code doesn't violate established patents and copyrights. In an interview with News.com, Linux founder Linus Torvalds said it's not the responsibility of engineers to look up patent information. He's right, but someone other than the engineering crew supporting the open source community will need to provide some oversight. It's part of the maturing of Linux and open source: We have our copyright and patent lawyers, they have theirs." Read Farber's editorial at ZDNet.
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Gtkmm 2.2.5 Released

GTK+ 16 Comments
Gtkmm is a C++ interface for popular GUI library gtk+. gtkmm provides convenient interface for C++ programmers to create graphical user interfaces with Gtk's flexible OO framework. Highlights include type safe callbacks, widgets extensible using inheritance and over 110 classes that can be freely combined to quickly create complex user interfaces. gtkmm is free software distributed under LGPL. Read the announcement of Gtkmm 2.2.5 here.
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20% Linux Market Share is all we Need

Linux 17 Comments
"Let's get over Linus Torvalds' old "world domination" goal (which was a joke), stop gnashing our teeth over The Evils of Microsoft, and think rationally about what percentage of the world's desktops we really need to switch to Linux. I figure 10% would be a minimum, and 20% would be more than enough. Enough for what? For everything we really want." Read the editorial at NewsForge by Roblimo.
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Lindows Debuts Web Kiosk

Linspire 8 Comments
Lindows.com announced a dedicated web kiosk on Tuesday morning, intended to prevent users from accidentally making catastrophic changes to the machines. However, the new $169 WebStation also foregoes a hard drive, requiring a user to work with documents stored on the Web or on a floppy disk. Certain versions of Lindows.com's new kiosk also seal the CD-ROM drive inside the case, preventing additional retail software from being added later.
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Getting freedesktop.org to the Next Level; XFCE 4.0-RC2 Available

  Submitted by The Matt Xfce 35 Comments
Havoc Pennington outlined recently the steps required to bring the freedesktop.org effort --to unite the specs/protocols of the X11-based DEs for better interoperability-- closer to its goal. Read more of the discussion in their list. On other X11 news, XFCE 4.0-RC2 was released for testing. UPDATE: Here is a screenshot of XFCE 4-RC2 running on Red Hat Linux "Severn" beta.
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Best Practices for Programming in C

  Submitted by irish General Development 35 Comments
Although the C language has been around for close to 30 years, its appeal has not yet worn off. It continues to attract a large number of people who must develop new skills for writing new applications, or for porting or maintaining existing applications. This article has been written with the needs of the developer in mind, and offers suggestions that may help them in their job.
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Red Hat Linux 9.0.93 Release Notes Available

Red Hat 41 Comments
DistroWatch published the release notes of Red Hat Linux "Severn" 9.0.93. The beta is scheduled to be released early this week, so make sure you keep checking the FTP mirrors of Red Hat. "Don't expect too much new, however, as the beta release appears to be more of a consolidation release of Red Hat Linux 9, rather than a release full of cutting edge features" DistroWatch notes. We also spotted Severn's ability to get into graphics mode just right after the kernel is loaded. Update: The RHL site is up.
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