I can't take anymore comments like "Debian/Gentoo/OpenBSD/etc. are not good/user-friendly because they lack a graphical installer." Searching the web, I couldn't find a comprehensive site describing the good and the bad about graphical installers for various OSes throughout the years, so in this article I hope to debunk a few of the myths on the basis of my own personal and professional experience.

Novell plans to launch at BrainShare 2003 this week the open beta of NetWare 6.5 and update attendees about its Liberty Identity Provider for eDirectory and exteNd 5 Web services platform. The company is expected to announce not only the open-beta availability of NetWare 6.5, code-named Nakoma, but its slated release date of June, sources said. Also, Novell adopts Linux as NetWare migration path.

Free of the shackles imposed by Red Hat Inc., maintainers of the open-source eCos real-time operating system said in mid-March that version 2.0, now in beta, could be generally available around April 15. The new version will add an all-new bootloader with remote debugging and full POSIX compliance, giving it the ability to run many Linux and Unix applications with just a recompile.

The paper considers a mathematical model of the behavior of an assembly of N stars. The 'Kepler' Microsoft Windows demo application based of this model enables to perform real-time simulation of star clusters dynamics for N~=2500. Such performance rate is possible through the use of the Intel Integrated Performance Primitives (IPP) library. The paper also estimates the efficiency of the IPP application and provides an example of C-code with the IPP functions calls. Computer-simulated images of the spiral galaxy forming process, as well as the real galaxies photos, are presented.

OSNews hosts today a mini-interview with Frans van Nispen of Xentronix and the Sequel OS, a new BeOS-like OS which aims to continue where the BeOS technology left off as opposed to being a direct clone. Most people will know Frans from the AtariST demoscene and from his BeOS involvements. In this interview, we will query the status of Sequel (which btw, I am not part of anymore, so don't email me about it please :) and the status of Xentronix's Refraction and SampleStudio PRO.

MacObserver editor Bryan Chaffin said that even though a new agreement between the two companies is improbable, Microsoft still has incentive to continue developing Office for Mac. Read it at NewsFactor. Update: On other Apple news, Mac OS X Server 10.2.5 has been released via Software Update.

The Fiasco--Microkernel based Dresden Realtime Operating System (DROPS) has made available a demo disk containing several examples sessions (including the experimental GUI DOpE).

The 64-bit version of Microsoft's database will cost the same as the 32-bit version and perform better--part of the company's bid to undercut Oracle and IBM. Read it at News.com.

Ryan Grier was the first of many to submit the news about the next public beta of Apple's Safari browser. Safari can be downloaded here or via OS X's Software Update. Update: On other browser news, Epiphany for GNOME 0.5 was released, while this week is the 10th anniversary of the release of the first graphical browser, Mosaic.

The number of sites running Windows Server 2003 is already more than the number running Sun Solaris 9, even though the former has not yet been formally launched, the latest monthly web server survey from Netcraft has found.

InformIT has a series of articles about C++, including a long introduction to C++ for new programmers and a Templates and Inheritance interaction article.

For more information and screen shots for this newly... leaked alpha version of the next generation of Windows, codenamed Longhorn, check WinBeta.org.

This interactive course will certainly introduce Red Hat Linux to a broader audience because it's definitely fun to learn this way. What's very handy is that the end of each lecture you'll be able to test your knowledge with self-assessment questions. Read more at Help Net Security.

Lycoris Desktop/LX Build 71 (beta) is released (547 MB) and it features along wiht a new build system, kernel 2.4.21-pre6; XFree86 4.3.0; new splash screen; little installer fixes - now installs on via miniboards, as well as over USB CDROMs.