Coming from a background of using MS-DOS for about 4 or 5 years exclusively (MS-Dos 4.1 or something) Being new to Linux and *nix in general I thought that I would want to learn from the "ground up". I did not want the bloat of Redhat or Mandrake but wanted something simple where I could learn the "stuff" of the OS.

I would like to thank everyone for your support this 1,5 years after the OSNews relaunch on August 2001. I worked really hard all that time, designed and coded OSNews, writting a huge number of articles etc. I brought OSNews from 700 impressions per day to 92,000 per day, for last month. But this is exactly what will also make me leave my baby (OSNews :). Too much work.

"In recent times, the desktop Linux world has been enriched beyond recognition by the KDE & GNOME projects, but window managers are still at the heart of these environments, as well being used widely on their own. I'll delve into this exciting world and look at the development and the state of the art of some of the most significant and most popular window managers." Read the article at FreshMeat.

It could have been an "X-Files" episode: More than 20 years ago, U.S. airmen reported seeing a "strange glowing object" near a British air base. Before this week, the document has only been seen by about 20 people who requested access to it through the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. Update: Stop being a pain, ok? Read Rule No8 before posting too.

The new release of the objC GNUstep API, 0.8.3, contains preliminary support for OpenGL. Other improvements include simple printing, print previewing, and more documentation. Also recently, the C++ APIs of Fox Toolkit and wxWindows had new releases too. Update: FLTK had a new version too.

"The next version of the world's most popular desktop operating system, code-named "Longhorn," is due out in test form next year and in final form in 2004. It will have a new look and feel, very different from Windows XP's. Its guts will also be radically different from Windows XP's, because they're based on XML -- extensible markup language, the emerging lingua franca of the Internet. And it will be the first version that won't function fully without new hardware." Read the report at Seattle PI.

Get the Linux kernel 2.4.20 from here, changelog here. Test-kernel 2.5.50 was also released.

CNN is running a review of the latest Solaris Release, calling it "stylishly cryptic" -- as fitting a description of the leading commercial UNIX OS as I've ever heard. Oh, wait a second . . . Steven Soderbergh? Oops, never mind.

Several new releases of ByzantineOS have been made this month. The ByzantineOS distro is now in its first stable release. ByzantineOS is a software Internet Appliance with a home entertainment bias, based on the OEone's engine. It is based on a networked Linux distribution/bootable system with Mozilla providing access to a range of services and applications. ByzantineOS fits in 32MB (or 48MB) of media and should work on most PCs (Pentium Pro/Celeron or better).

You can download the recently released DirectX Media 6 SDK here (93 MB). The SDK can be installed on any recent version of Windows.

Aqua Data Studio is a SQL editor and developer tool that allows developers to easily create, edit, and execute SQL scripts, as well as browse database structures. Aqua Data Studio provides an integrated database environment with a single consistent inferface to all major relational databases. This allows the DBA or developer to tackle multiple tasks simultaneously from one application. The application is multi-platform as it is written in Java. Screenshots here.

"The U.S. Defense Department should think twice before embracing open-source software, a trade association is advising. The Initiative for Software Choice, which counts Microsoft, Cisco Systems and Intel among its backers, said in comments filed Tuesday that the department should "avoid crafting needless and potentially detrimental IT policy to promote the use" of open-source software." Read the report at News.com. At a time that countries like Germany and Japan begin to invest in OSS/GPL, Microsoft tries to hold US back. Are the Group's worries justified? Discuss.

A new company, 91:E computers has entered the market with Linux-based PCs -- preloaded with Xandros Desktop 1.0 (review here). Xandros 1.0 comes with a thirty day installation support via e-mail plus a 250-page manual. 91:E's computers come with a manual for setting up your desktop and a one year limited warranty. 91:E is working exclusively with Xandros. Read more at DesktopLinux.com.

You can read all about the new features here, download here. This bug is still there though (Win2k/XP).