One Spanish region has made the switch completely, even encouraging a local company's development of a Linux distribution. Other European governments are considering following a similar policy.

Interesting topics this month as well in the Linux Gazette newsletter: "Making Your Own Toy Boot Floppy", "Meeting C# and Mono", "Debian APT Part 1: Basic Commands" and "Using the Logical Volume Manager".

"With this release RedHat are making a concerted effort at integration and that is something that sits awkwardly with the open source model. Firstly, it forces a degree of cooperation between software developers - they need to adhere to standards but if they want to become part of the latest Linux distribution they need to adhere to those standards that it adopts." Read the review at LinuxLinks.

There are a few BeOS 5 PE "spin-offs" available (three or four), created by BeOS enthusiasts who want to see more of BeOS in the future. Usually, these distros are loaded with lots of patches, additional drivers and third party applications. Vassilis "Vasper" Perantzakis sent us some information on his BeOS 5 PE distro, named "BeOS 5 PE Max Edition", explaining how it got it all started, where it is today and where it is heading to in the future.

Jaluna introduces its first product, Jaluna-1, a suite of Real-Time software components. Jaluna-1 is based on C5, the 5th generation of Sun Microsystems' ChorusOS product. Millions of units of ChorusOS operating system products are shipping worldwide in the UNIX, telecom and network devices markets. Beyond Jaluna-1, future Jaluna Software Component Suites will leverage other Open Source technologies including Linux, Eclipse and Java.

A federal judge largely approves a proposed settlement in the years-old antitrust case. The government praised the decision, while critics said the case should have looked at what Microsoft's up to now. It may not be completely over, yet; the remaining states could appeal.

A very common question that comes up when trying Debian GNU/Linux is how the heck do you get Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (a.k.a. ALSA) sound modules set up properly? In this HOWTO LinuxOrbit shows you how to compile and install the ALSA kernel modules, and then setup things using the ALSA Debian script so that modules are automatically loaded and unloaded, and your mixer levels are saved and restored on boot up.

Eyetech Group Ltd has announced that both SE and XE model AmigaOne boards are now on sale. AmigaOS4 will be demonstrated tomorrow at the World of Amiga Southeast 2002 in the UK, the OS will soon be released as well, but when people order an AmigaOne with LinuxPPC now, they will receive the OS for free.

Mozilla's HTML engine, named Gecko, has been powering a number of other browsers on many platforms for a while now, like Galeon, Chimera and more. Vote for your favorite one! Oh, and being on the subject, K-Meleon 0.7, Galeon 2-dev, Salamander 0.3 and Phoenix 0.4 are all very recently released.

ReactOS is an Open Source effort to develop a quality operating system that is compatible with Windows NT applications and drivers. The latest release of ReactOS is 0.0.21, released on the 31st of October 2002. To see a general overview of the status of ReactOS view the status page.

Workrave is a free program that assists in the recovery and prevention of Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI). Something possibly very important for all us (computer maniacs) OSNews readers. The program frequently alerts you to take micro-pauses, rest breaks and restricts you to your daily limit. Refer to the feature comparison for a complete list of features, and how the program performs with respect to other programs on the market. Currently, the program runs on GNU/Linux and Microsoft Windows .

This download contains DirectX 8.1b plus some DirectPlay fixes related to performance and connectivity issues exhibited with some online multiplayer game titles. This release of DirectX is not recommended for general installation. You should only consider installing this release if you have an online gaming problem that has been identified as being fixed with DirectX 8.2. This version of DirectX can replace all previous released versions of DirectX.

"The only thing I regret -- and, unfortunately, I predicted this would happen -- is that the manufacturers of various competing forms of Linux have become as money-hungry as those they used to despise." Read the editorial at OSOpinion.

In this article, Daniel Robbins introduces the Enterprise Volume Management System (EVMS) for Linux. He explains what EVMS is, why it is so desperately needed, and why it will very likely transform the way storage is managed on Linux systems.