Iconic technology firm Commodore has chosen Cebit as the launch pad for a new subsidiary dedicated to PC gaming. From April, Commodore Gaming will start selling a line of PCs that cater for the high-end home gamer. Crammed with high-end components, the machines will also sport distinctive artwork on the case.

Mandriva is pleased to announce the release of the first release candidate for Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring. Spring features a raft of improvements and enhancements over its predecessors, including the latest software, extended support for the latest 3D desktop technologies (including Metisse), enhanced and improved system configuration and software installation tools, better hardware support, and a new look. The official announcement includes all the details on this release candidate, what you will find in it, and where to download it.

Google has chosen the mentoring organizations that will be participating in Google Summer of Code 2007. Most of the usual suspects made the list, as well as a few newcomers, including Haiku. Google is now accepting student applications.

"If you run KDE, you aren't just stuck with the standard 'kicker' panel to operate as your app launcher and taskbar. There are a bunch of nice panel replacements that will spice up your desktop nicely. The ones that I've used and tested are kooldock, kxdocker and kiba-dock. So, what do these docks do, and what's cool about them?"

AROS will be ported to the EFIKA. "Earlier this week John accepted the AROS EFIKA Port Bounty. Said another way, John will port Amiga Research Operating System to the EFIKA." In an email, BBRV also said MorphOS 2.0 is 'coming'. They promised more news on that soon.

"I had the great honor of interviewing an important person the other day. His name is Ray Arachelian, and he's the creator of the Apple Lisa Emulator. Without him, there may have never been a way for anyone without a Lisa to see the LOS in action." A new version of the Lisa emulator has also been released.

Over two years have passed since Red Hat launched their last version of Enterprise Linux; today, their new version was released, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. There's a review already: "This article will give you a first look at the new technology that has gone into the release. We also had a chance to talk to some folks within Red Hat to get the inside view on what RHEL 5 means in the context of the company's new community-pleasing strategy."

As recently reported on OpenBSD's errata page, a problem in the mbuf handling of IPv6 has been elevated to a security issue. This means that OpenBSD now has two remote exploits in 10 years, as already reflected on the OpenBSD Homepage. Theo advises to to update the system (or to block IPv6 using PF as a workaround).

"Stardock released WindowBlinds 5.5 today. WindowBlinds is a program that enables users to customize the look and feel of the graphical user interface of Microsoft Windows. WindowBlinds 5.5 is a major update in that it is the first program to allow users to change the look and feel of Windows Vista. For Windows Vista users, WindowBlinds 5.5 makes use of the new hardware accelerated Desktop Window Manager to ensure the highest level of performance."

Dell began polling customers about their software preferences on Tuesday as part of an effort by the struggling PC vendor to meet a popular request for desktops and notebooks that run on Linux instead of Windows. Dell posted the survey on a company blog, asking PC users to choose between Linux flavors such as Fedora and Ubuntu, and to pick more general choices such as notebooks versus desktops, high-end models versus value models and telephone-based support versus community-based support.

"Triggered by recent examples of bad behavior and dissatisfaction among developers and users alike, the Gentoo Council has drafted a new Code of Conduct that will be enforced for both developers and users. The draft of the Code of Conduct is currently being discussed on the Gentoo-dev mailing list."

"Once again, the Debian project is gearing up to elect a new project leader, with voting set to begin late this month. As we did last year, we asked the DPL candidates to sound off on some of the issues that will face the Debian Project in the next year."

When Windows Vista was released in early 2007, a significant amount of attention was given to the new user interface called Aero, that sets out to give Windows a slicker look and feel and promises more fluid operation. But eye-candy aside, how does the new Aero interface stack up compared to Windows XP and Mac OS X in terms of low-level user interface efficiency? "Windows Vista increases the amount of user interface friction of the operating system. Windows XP and particularly Mac OS X performed better than Windows Vista in these benchmarks."

Apple has seeded a new build of Mac OS X 10.4.9 to developers, the build contains very few changes since the previous and those familiar with the development of the build state that the final update is expected within days. The only known issue in the build is 'After installing the reversioner and this update, AirPort Extreme Update 2007-002 may show up in Software Updates again.' Only two areas are listed as being changed since the previous seed, they are the .Mac preference pane and Sync Services and Keychain. Update: 10.4.9 is now out for all.