GNOME 2.8 Released, Sep 15, 2004

The GNOME 2.8 Desktop is the latest release of the ever popular, multi-platform free desktop environment.

Every new version of the GNOME 2.8 desktop arrives on schedule, with interesting new features and hundreds of bug fixes. This time GNOME makes it easier to work with removable devices and network servers, and provides valuable new tools for system administrators. We have also adopted the popular Evolution email and workgroup client. You can learn more in the following sections.

Digital Lifestyles Group, Inc., through its Northgate line of business, and Linspire, Inc. today announced the launch of Northgate's first Linspire-based, fully-configured PC, initially available on Staples.com (http://www.staples.com), the e-commerce site for Staples, the world's largest office products retailer. Marking the first system with desktop Linux pre- installed to be sold by a major office products retailer, the new Northgate "L-series" PC also features an all-in-one office software suite and six months of software downloads and updates from Linspire's CNR Warehouse(TM) service.

Novell chief executive Jack Messman sat down with ZDNet UK on Monday at BrainShare in Barcelona, and gave a typically combative take on the current state of the software industry.

According to Messman, Microsoft is under immense pressure to ship Longhorn before Linux becomes an even more compelling alternative to Windows.

A Motorola smartphone scheduled for US distribution before the year-end holiday season will include embedded Linux software from MontaVista and embedded database software from Sleepycat, the companies announced today.

Red Hat's top desktop engineer and open source desktop advocate Havoc Pennington has announced a new project that seeks to define and develop a uniform framework that spans thin, fat, and cached "desktop" clients. Goals of the just-announced Stateless Linux project include moving enterprises toward a model that combines the best features of thin and fat client computing. The resulting technology, according to Pennington's proposal, would enable administrators to quickly update and easily recreate software configurations and user data on new hardware and allows centralized management across an organization.

The Samba Team released on Tuesday a patch to fix two flaws that could result in disruptions for networks using the widely installed Unix and Linux software.

The two relatively minor flaws could crash or make unresponsive systems running version 3 of Samba, an open-source software package that allows Windows files and printers to be shared by Unix and Linux systems.

Novell will launch its business Linux desktop by the end of the year despite an extended testing program that has seen it miss its intended summer launch. Novell has had to keep the beta program for the new product closed to reduce the number of participants and ensure that the company gets meaningful results.

Last April, many GNU/Linux users, organized by the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII), met in Brussels to demonstrate before the European Parliament (EP) against the introduction of software patents in the European Union. During the event, further protests were coordinated for the following month in many European cities. Eventually, the guys in Brussels found themselves asking, why don't we do this systematically? More precisely, why don't we create EuroLugs, a permanent network of all European LUGS and FLOSS associations, so we can act faster, all together and more effectively?

An upgraded GNOME desktop environment for Linux and Unix is due for release this Wednesday, with its authors pitching enhanced features for end-users and a commitment to make hardware "just work".

Popular Linux and Unix desktop environments such as GNOME and KDE have traditionally appealed to geeks with time to spend on tweaking new hardware configurations and knowledge of Unix commands. However, with the upcoming release of GNOME version 2.8, the project is expected to increase its useability for mere mortals in the computing industry.

A Silicon Valley startup claims to have cracked one of most elusive goals of the software industry: a near-universal emulator that allows software developed for one platform to run on any other, with almost no performance hit.

Transitive Corp. of Los Gatos, California, claims its QuickTransit software allows applications to run "transparently" on multiple hardware platforms, including Macs, PCs, and numerous servers and mainframes.

Sun Microsystems will create an open-source project around its Solaris 10 operating system by the end of the year, company executives said on Monday.

Through the initiative, Sun engineers, partners and other programmers will be able to contribute to the development of the Unix operating system. Sun is testing the program right now with customers and will finalise it by the end of the year, according to Mark McClain, Sun's vice president of software marketing. Sun discussed its open-source plans at a Solaris 10 briefing with press and analysts at the company's Burlington, Massachusetts, offices. The new operating system will be faster and more resilient to hardware and software errors.

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