James Gosling, the father of Java and a fellow at Sun Microsystems Inc., graced the Software Development Conference and Expo East 2002 with his presence this week, addressing a wide range of issues from Sun's software strategy to Web services to embedded Java to open-source software.

miray Software introduces the new version 0.95 of the operating system µnOS with numerous new features today: µnOS is now based on a completely new realtime microkernel, has a graphics server with a software graphic engine and full true color support (VESA) and a window server with a complete GUI component framework and support for arbitrary freeform windows. You can easily try the OS as it fits on a floppy disk (didn't run on my VMWare 3.x though).

The company announced version 3 of Lindows this week at Comdex, and Robertson took the opportunity to talk with PC World about his operating system, its business model of powering extremely low-cost PCs, running an online software mall, and what it's like to go head-to-head with one of the most firmly entrenched products in the world. Read the article at PCWorld.

"Microsoft is playing wait-and-see with AMD's 64-bit Opteron processor. The company has no definite commitment to ship a version of its .Net Server operating system for the new processor, though both will be available at the same time, around April of 2003. The stance was laid out at Microsoft's IT Forum event in Copenhagen on Thursday by Microsoft's Windows supremo." Read the report at ZDNet.UK. AMD does have samples of Windows 64bit for their new processors though.

In this article, B.J. Fesq provides a clear understanding of the enterprise Java platform's direction and introduces J2EE (Java 2, Enterprise Edition) 1.4's support for emerging Web services standards.

Seen the interesting article linked from Deadly.org: "Why would one install his own personal gateway to the Internet? Because it is quite easy to do. And also because it simply is the most reliable, safest way to connect machines to a dedicated xDSL modem. Moreover, we can stash a whole bunch of useful features in such a little box."

IDC analyst Al Gillen questioned the effectiveness of Lindows' Wal-Mart distribution strategy: "I don't understand why the Linux buyer is going to be ... at Wal-Mart," he said. Hmm, maybe because Lindows does not market itself as a Linux distribution, but simply as a cheap home computer solution (which fits perfectly to Wal-Mart)? Anyways, you can read the article at NewsFactor.

Robert Szeleney will never cease to amaze us. After developing a software OpenGL stack and porting Quake 1&2 on top, this time around he has a preliminary JavaVM core running simple Java programs for his OS, SkyOS. Indeed, SkyOS has gone where no other hobby OS has ever gone before with these new features (not even AtheOS ever had such goodies).

Just like Blender did a few months ago, Hekkelman Programmatuur are now following the same approach to open their product's sources (development has stopped in the meantime). Pepper 4.x is a programmer's editor, running on Unix/Linux, Mac/X, Windows and it has already a lot of BeOS-specific code to kickstart a BeOS version too (I personally have a BeOS beta of Pepper 3.5 on my hard drive from the times I was beta testing it, a version that was never released). A small team of developers and users are trying to open its source so they have made an offer to Maarten Hekkelman for $11,000 USD and they would appreciate your donations (screenshot of Pepper running under Gentoo Linux).

"A few weeks ago, I got my hands on the latest release from SuSE. After using it steadily since then, I can say that I'm pleased with 8.1, though it could use some refinements. Read on to find out what's in store for you with SuSE 8.1 Professional." Read the review at UnixReview. Update: "SuSE goes for the desktop" at Geek.com.

In the Advanced filesystem implementor's guide, Daniel Robbins shows you how to use the latest filesystem technologies in Linux 2.4. In this conclusion to the AFIG series, Daniel continues his discussion of the Enterprise Volume Management System for Linux, or EVMS. He shows you how to use evmsn to take a new hard drive, partition it, and create LVM volumes on it. Along the way, he fills you in on important EVMS concepts that you'll find essential as you continue your exploration of this powerful technology.

MandrakeSoft and Pearson Education sent us over a copy of their latest "pro" edition of the popular Linux Mandrake 9.0. We already wrote a review about Linux Mandrake 9.0, so this is going to be a review of the ProSuite deal specifically and what you get for $199 USD RPP (easily found for around $175 USD in the market). Update: Apparently, StarOffice 6.0 is included in its full version with the distribution. Too bad Mandrake does such a poor job and include its RPMs along with some hundreds other demos in the two Commercial CDs, without saying a word about it (or where to find it) in the "Commercial Software Guide" booklet or another really prominent place.

"Red Hat is the biggest bandwidth user on the East Coast," company vice president Mark de Visser said. "If we wanted to make a killing in the retail market, we could, but that's not the intent. The intent is to get it into the hands of the most people." Read the article at NewsFactor. The article in a single sentence: Ladies and Gentlemen, meet the upcoming leader of the Linux market: Red Hat.

This is old news, but still, everyone should be aware of it. And on a theoretical basis, the co-creator of UNIX, Ken Thompson wrote a paper on which he explains that it is possible to add a backdoor to a closed source compiler and when you first compile any other compiler (e.g. GCC), any concequent compiles from this new compiler, would include the backdoor by default. Pessimistic thought of the day: nothing is safe. Neither Windows or Unix. I wonder how "safe" the Security-Enhanced Linux from NSA is. It might secure you from others, but does it secure you from NSA itself? ;P Update: More info here (Ms reply on the issue) and here.