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Linux and UNIX-like operating systems in general are regarded as being more secure for the common user, in contrast with operating systems that have "Windows" as part of their name. Why is that? When entering a dispute on the subject with a Windows user, the most common argument he tries to feed me is that Windows is more widespread, and therefore, more vulnerable. Apart from amusing myths like "Linux is only for servers" or "does it have a word processor?", the issue of Linux desktop security is still seriously misunderstood.

At the heart of every networking device is an operating system that enables traffic flow. In the case of networking vendor Juniper, that operating system for the past ten years has been JUNOS, a network operating system with its roots in the open source FreeBSD operating system. Juniper has updated JUNOS every 90 days since 1998.

Neil McAllister deliberates the question of public disclosure of open source vulnerabilities, contrasting Ounce Labs' announcement of security vulnerabilities in the Spring Framework for Java with Linus Torvalds recent missive on the Linux kernel development mailing list. Sure, vulnerability bulletins raise awareness of real danger, but they also distract from other productive activities. To find the right balance between keeping users informed and maintaining an orderly and holistic development process, McAllister suggests we take a biologist's view of how species deal with risk perception.

This preview of the upcoming OpenSolaris 2008.11 release highlights aspects that should be of interest to systems and storage administrators who have to deal with large storage environments. ZFS is a big component that is referred to often, but there are new storage services and capabilities in addition to ZFS that might be overlooked and are quite compelling. Editor's Note: We ran an article yesterday that covered the surface level (eye-candy) improvements of the 2008.11 release of OpenSolaris.

InfoWorld's Randall Kennedy has been using a converted Windows Server 2008 as his primary OS since hitting a wall using Vista as a Visual Studio development platform four weeks ago. According to Kennedy, the guerrilla 'Workstation' 2008 OS has turned his Dell notebook into a well-oiled machine that never gets sluggish and rarely needs to reboot. Those interested in making the switch should check out win2008workstation.com, a clearinghouse for 'Workstation' 2008 tips and techniques. Kennedy also offers a link to a Windows 2008 Workstation Converter utility for quick conversion.

Gustav Duarte has written a three part article about the computer boot up process. The series starts with the Motherboard Chipsets and the Memory Map of an Intel computer and then he covers the processes that take place from the BIOS initialization to the boot loader. The final part is the coverage of the Kernel Boot Process.