"Sun's Ian Murdock gave a presentation about OpenSolaris at LugRadio Live this past weekend. He hopes to expose open source enthusiasts to unique Sun technologies by creating a cohesive distribution that will provide a complete environment that is adequate for day-to-day use. This will involve bringing together the Solaris operating system and a diverse assortment of open source community projects and "adding a package management system to hold all these pieces together," Murdock stated. The final release will take place in May and the distribution will adhere to a six-month release cycle, just like Fedora and Ubuntu."

"I came away from the second annual Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit with mixed feelings. I mean, it's hard not to support the group that pays Linus Torvalds to spend his time continuing to lead the poster-boy project for free and open source software. But at the same time, those golden chains are my biggest concern about the Linux Foundation."

The website of a Miami-based networking and security solutions reseller became inaccessible Monday, shortly after the company began advertising an unauthorized Mac clone for a fraction of the cost of Apple's cheapest system. Dubbed OpenMac, the USD 400 offering from Psystar Corporation is described as 'a low-cost high-performance computing platform' based on the ongoing OSX86Project - a hacker-based initiative aimed at maintaining a version of the Mac OS X operating system for everyday PCs. The website is back online now, and the machine has been renamed to Open Computer. Update: Psystar says they will continue to sell the Open Computer system, despite the fact that it appears to violate Apple's EULA. "We're not breaking any laws," they insisted.

Michael Saunders got Syllable Desktop to run on his new Asus Eee PC (screenshot). There is some work to do to support all hardware, but most functionality already works. Michael reports that video, audio, touchpad, USB and battery monitor all work. Widescreen video and network don't and there may be reliability problems with USB storage devices. As installing Syllable from a USB device doesn't work yet, Michael used an inventive method for installation. It can be done by imaging your Eee drive with the dd utility (from Linux), installing Syllable on it through QEmu and then dd'ing the image back to the real drive. Note that the drive number needs to be adjusted in the GrUB boot file. The project is looking into distributing Syllable especially for the Eee PC in this form.

Comic: "Brain".

"If there's ever been an operating system that could use some slimming down, it's Windows Vista. Enter vLite, a donation-supported software tool by Dino Nuhagic that lets you create a Vista installation DVD that leaves out drivers and programs you don't want, installs Vista so that it begins with settings and options that you do want, and lets you install Vista without responding to any prompts. It does this by automating procedures that are thoroughly documented by Microsoft , but which normally require hours of work modifying installation files by hand. I used vLite to create a slimmed-down automated Vista installation DVD that let me get a new system up and running faster and more efficiently than the DVD that I bought from Microsoft. As long as you make these changes only to your own copy of Vista, and you don't distribute the resulting DVD, this seems to be a perfectly legal way of automating changes that Microsoft supports anyway."

"The undeclared war between the Microsoft and the European Union has been relatively quiet for the past few months; we haven't heard much from either party since the EU fined Microsoft USD 1.36 billion. The scarcely settled cauldron between the two organizations, however, is about to receive a good stirring, due to the actions of EU Parliment representative and Green Party member, Heide Ruehle. Ruehle has filed a question with the Parliament, raising the issue of whether the EU's legal findings against the company preclude it from taking part in future public procurement discussions."

"Asus has big plans for its little laptop and to the dismay of purists and Penguinistas, those plans centre on Windows. The company expects to sell five million Eee PCs this year, and Asus CEO Jerry Shen predicts that 'about 60 percent of these' will run XP rather than the Xandros OS with which the mini-note debuted."

Apple waited a full week before seeding the latest version of Mac OS X 10.5.3 (9d19) to developers on Friday. The latest version of Mac OS X Leopard adds 31 bug fixes to the growing list of issues addressed in the upcoming release. Features that are specifically targeted for focused testing include AirPort, Back To My Mac, Spaces, Time Machine and many others.

Every now and then, a computer comes along that makes a mark, that sets a trend, or that simply stuns you - but not because of its internals, its processor or its software, but because of its appearance. Through the history of computing, there have been a number of computers that were actually designed to appeal not just because of raw technology alone, but also because of stunning looks. Read on for a countdown of my ten most beautiful computers.

"The Fedora Project attracts a lot of interest from the Linux faithful. While there are perhaps more newbie-friendly, corporate-friendly, or special-interest-focused distributions, Fedora continues to wear the innovation hat. Fedora announced Fedora 9 Beta late last month, and Test Center reviewers replaced the current Fedora 8 install to see what the new version has to offer. Since Fedora 9 (Stirling) is still in beta, occasional bugs and some rough edges were inevitable. But there is a solid indication of the new things to come that makes the stable release, expected May 1, worth watching."

Norman Deppenbroek has ported NewLisp to Syllable Desktop. NewLisp is a variety of the Lisp programming language meant for scripting, with a friendlier syntax and a practical approach. Also, newer versions of Objective Caml (3.10.2) and PERL (5.10.0) were ported. Kelly Wilson got OCaml to supports PThreads on Syllable Desktop. The new PERL is adapted to the new system structure of Syllable 0.6.5 and should be better at finding PERL extension modules. XML::Parser and Net::SSLeay were also ported and rebuilt for PERL 5.10.0. Binary packages for all these ports are available here.

"Linux, long the laggard to the Windows desktop, is pushing into emerging markets, onto mobile devices and other client form factors, and is poised to give Microsoft something to really compete against, according to attendees at the annual Linux Foundation Summit. While the Linux desktop has yet to hit its stride, the operating system is showing up and lowering prices in everything from mobile phones, tablets, global positioning systems and even gas pumps."

One in five Nature readers -- mostly scientists -- say they up their mental performance with drugs such as Ritalin, Provigil, and Inderal. when asked how they felt about professional thinkers using drugs to enhance their cognitive performance, nearly 80% said it should be allowed. While this report reaches a different part of science, the usage of these drugs can be utilized by software developers alike. What is your opinion on this, somewhat new, development?