Kexec is a feature that allows to boot kernels from a working kernel. It was originally intended for use by kernel and system developers who had to reboot several times a day. Soon, system administrators for high-availability servers found use for it as well. As systems get more and more advanced, and boot times get longer, end users can now benefit from it.

Microsoft says it has released its new embedded operating system for x86-based devices to product manufacturers. Windows Embedded Standard 2009 eschews Vista, instead combining Windows XP codebase updates with new versions of Internet Explorer, RDP (remote desktop protocol), Windows Media Player, and .NET, according to the company.

Are you looking for an open source, Web-based e-mail and groupware suite with its own development framework, Ajax interface, more than 50 applications, an active developer community, and millions of end users all over the world? The Horde communication and collaboration suite may not be as well known as the big name commercial offerings, but according to lead developer and release manager Jan Schneider it has just as much to offer, and more.

Windows Vista is everyone's favorite tech punching bag, and not without reason. But the reviled operating system has some amazing potential and with some tweaks and a few utilities, you can do what Redmond didn't: make Vista great.

The news of OpenOffice.org's third major release has generated quite a bit of buzz on the internet for many reasons, one of which being that it now runs natively on a Mac (sans X11). ZDnet has posted a screenshot gallery of OpenOffice.org 3.0 for those who have yet to try the hot-off-the-press application.

It was announced yesterday that the Microsoft OS code-named Windows 7 will be shipping as "Windows 7," exciting and surprising many. There was much question, even in our own piece, as to how Microsoft arrived at 7 for an OS likely destined to be version 6.1. Microsoft answered our question in a post called "Why 7?" on the Windows Vista Blog.

Peter Wayner examines the platforms and passions underlying today's popular dynamic languages, and though JavaScript, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Groovy, and other scripting tools are fast achieving the critical mass necessary to flourish into the future, 10 forces in particular appear to be driving the evolution of this development domain. From the co-optation of successful ideas across languages, to the infusion of application development into applications that are fast evolving beyond their traditional purpose, to the rise of frameworks, the cloud, and amateur code enablers, each will have a profound effect on the future of today's dynamic development tools.

According to the official Windows Vista Blog, Microsoft has decided that, in order to keep things simple, the OS code-named "Windows 7" will officially be called "Windows 7." Sayeth the poster: "since we began development of the next version of the Windows client operating system we have been referring to it by a codename, "Windows 7." But now is a good time to announce that we've decided to officially call the next version of Windows, "Windows 7."" Of course, this introduces a major issue - if the version number of Windows 7 is, in fact, 6.1 or 6.2, as many expect, how can you call it Windows 7? And if the kernel version is updated to version 7, how many apps and drivers might fail due to poor version checking? I'm sure the upcoming PDC and WinHEC events will shed some light on this.

New software packs were released in comparable versions for both Syllable Desktop and Syllable Server. Shell Essentials is a new collection pack with tools for the command line. Network Necessities with networking programs, Developer's Delight with developer tools and The Perl Pit with Perl and its modules were released in new versions with updated package collections. Also, Syllable was accepted for listing on DistroWatch.

Microsoft announces new rich Internet applications development and streaming media features; company outlines plans for supporting Windows, Mac and Linux tools for developing Silverlight applications. Microsoft also announced further support of open source communities by funding advanced Silverlight development capabilities with the Eclipse Foundation's integrated development environment (IDE) and by providing new controls to developers with the Silverlight Control Pack (SCP) under the Microsoft Permissive License.

Linux Foundation is organizing a end user collaboration summit this week. A major topic will be a presentation on the new upcoming filesystems - Ext4 and Btrfs. Ted Tso, who is a Linux kernel filesystem developer on a sabbatical from IBM working for Linux Foundation for a year, has talked about the two-pronged approach for the Linux kernel, taking a incremental approach with Ext4 while simultaneously working on the next generation filesystem called btrfs. Read more for details.

After three years of development, OOo 3.0 is finally here with a bunch of new features and enhancements. Linux Format looks at the changes and rates the suite's overall performance, and you can try it yourself by downloading a copy from here.

HP has released a roadmap outlining future development of OpenVMS, the operating system that commercialized many features that are now considered standard requirements for any high-end server operating system. (Such as Integrated networking, Symmetrical, asymmetrical, and NUMA multiprocessing, including clustering, distributed file system (Files-11), Integrated database features, support for multiple computer programming languages, hardware partitioning of multiprocessors, etc). With over 30 years of development, OpenVMS has stood the test of time and has continued to evolve as one of the most secure and trusted mission critical OS's of our time.

We each behave according to our nature. It should come as no surprise, then, to learn that while a virtualization supplier believes that the operating system is, effectively, a feature, an operating system vendor would argue that the converse is true. The philosophical differences between Red Hat and VMware could not have been more apparent during their respective events - September’s VMworld gathering in Las Vegas and yesterday’s Red Hat analyst day held at the New York Stock Exchange.