"Silicon Graphics (SGI) and a group of other major players in the computer graphics industry have released the latest specification for the OpenGL application programming interface, OpenGL 1.4. The new version includes a number of improvements designed to better take advantage of the latest 3D graphics hardware." The news story is at ZDNews, but get the whole picture at OpenGL.org.

"Originally code-named Freestyle, this entertainment version of Windows--which will go by the name Windows XP Media Center Edition--will appear on new PCs and PC hybrids in time for the holidays, the company revealed on Tuesday. With Windows Media Center, consumers will be able to use a TV remote control to catalogue songs, videos and pictures, as well as check TV listings." News report, press release and on a related note, this is how the new Outlook looks like.

An interview with Robert Love is at KernelTrap. Robert is author of the kernel preemption patch which has been merged into the 2.5 development kernel. In this interview, Robert discusses the status of Linux kernel preemption, talks about his recent involvement with the O(1) scheduler and explains his recent VM overcommit work. He also reflects upon Linus' use of Bitkeeper, the future of Linux, and the recent Kernel Summit in Ottawa.

Seeing a Red Hat Beta so soon after the release of Red Hat Linux 7.3 is both surprising and exciting - I've used many flavors of Linux and always come back to Red Hat on the desktop. First off, the installation program is second only to Caldera's Lizard. Secondly, the GUI is usually responsive in most cases. Thirdly, the software is easy to find. Lastly, Red Hat seems to set the standard for Linux - until distributions are more compatible, I am content with Red Hat. Limbo is a major upgrade to Red Hat Linux from a user standpoint, so I'd like to discuss the pros and cons of this specific distribution as a comparison to other Red Hat distributions; this is not a "Why You Should Use Red Hat" article.

Trolltech released Qt 3.0.5, a maintenance release of their popular multi-platform API. This release keeps full binary and source compatibility with previous versions.

Michael Robertson, CEO of Lindows.com, was the guest speaker of an IRC meeting with the Lindows Insiders on July 12, 2002. As you can read in the chat transcript, Mr Robertson is making very clear that the Lindows market is not the Linux users, but people who have never used Linux before. As Lycoris also does, Lindows does not care much about competing with other Linux distributions, as much as they care competing with Windows itself. Their marketing plan is to de-emphasize from showing off GNU/Linux and the broader open source movement as a selling point, and instead to create a hybrid between a commercial and a somewhat open environment: "The audience we're going for has never heard of linux, so it's more of a distraction when talking about our system to mention linux." he said.

"In Microsoft's first salvo, the company revealed details about the next version of its digital media technology, code-named Corona, including that it officially will be known as Windows Media 9 Series. Microsoft is expected to make other digital media and consumer announcements this week designed to steal thunder from Macworld, which starts Wednesday in New York. Last week, Microsoft said that later this year it will release a new line of 802.11b wireless networking products." Read the story at News.com.

"To meet the growing demand for low-cost and fully-featured personal computers, MandrakeSoft and Microtel Computer Systems will be offering PCs preloaded with Mandrake Linux at Walmart.com. Prices start at $389." Read the press release and browse the aisles of Mandrake/MicroTel/Wal-Mart PCs.

Robert Szeleney made the switch and now all SkyOS applications are .PE and all are using the DLL format, reducing the overall code size. Robert has also published a new screenshot of SkyOS, showing his new Windows-like Start panel. In the meantime, MenuetOS 0.69 has just been released, and it includes many bugfixes, improvements and for the first time, an Ethernet interface.

According to a brief paragraph on MacOS Rumours Apple may be switching to IBM POWER4 CPUs instead of the Motorola G5 for future Macs.

This is the seventh revision of Debian GNU/Linux 2.2 (codename 'potato') which mainly adds security updates to the stable release, along with a few corrections of serious bugs. Those who frequently update from security.debian.org won't have to update many packages. On a related note, DebianPlanet interviews Ian Jackson, Debian personality and a current member of the technical Debian commitee as well as the author of dpkg.

Security Update 7-12-02 increases the security of the Software Update process for systems with Software Update client 1.4.5 or earlier. Packages presented via the Software Update mechanism are now cryptographically signed, and the new Software Update client 1.4.6 checks for a valid signature before installing new packages. Downloaded packages which do not contain a valid signature are deleted from the system.

Reportedly, Kurt Skauen hasn't work on AtheOS for the last 9 months, as he currently taking some long vacations away from his pet project. All this time, a lot of dissapointments have been expressed in the (dying) mailing list about the future of AtheOS, already a (semi-)fork has occured with Cosmoe, but still no word from Kurt if or when he will start working on AtheOS again. Update: It seems that a complete fork has already happen, created by some of the main third party AtheOS developers.

"When my copy of SuSE Linux 8.0 arrived, I almost felt like I was coming home after a long trip. SuSE had been my primary Linux distribution for over two years, until last November, so it was exciting to see what they had been up to. SuSE 8.0 seems as good a way as any to come back to SuSE, after all it was the first distribution to ship with KDE 3, and it comes with a truckload of improvements over previous versions." Read the review at OpenForBusiness.