"The 'meta-distro' Gentoo makes it possible to compile and configure everything on your system exactly the way you like, providing you with more structure and tools to ease the process and automate updates. Do I still like Debian? I absolutely love it. But until further notice, Gentoo is now my flavor of Linux." Read the review at LinuxWorld.

Mozilla.org has finally released version 0.6 of Firebird, the project formerly known as Phoenix. Version 0.6 includes a new theme as well as a host of new features. It can be downloaded from here.

At last week's WinHEC show, Nvidia Chief Scientist David Kirk pontificated on where 3D graphics rendering is going over the next decade. What can you expect? Photorealistic rendering and cinematic realism, of course. Bottom line -- it's not about pushing clock speeds and pixel rates, but rather making pixels much better looking!

Database users who rely on Linux operating systems are drooling over the list of features promised by the soon-to-be-released 2.6 kernel. Read the report at eWeek.

Microsoft is offering to Visual Studio .NET 2002 Professional, Enterprise Developer, and Enterprise Architect customers a corresponding upgrade to a Visual Studio .NET 2003 product for only $29 USD. This offer is open until September 30, 2003 and is indeed one of the first signs of yesterday's news that Microsoft is cutting down the prices like crazy in order to beat the rising competition. The original price for the PRO upgrade was about $480 USD (Enterprise and Architect upgrade versions were even pricier).

SuSE Linux plans to continue honoring its commitments to UnitedLinux, despite allegations by SCO Group --a fellow founding member of the alliance-- that Linux contains unauthorized intellectual property. Meanwhile, Linux vendors MandrakeSoft and Red Hat --which are not members of the UnitedLinux group-- said they had not been contacted about the allegations and did not see them affecting business.