"What got me started on all this was a recent conversation I had with Ming Poon, the Xandros VP for software development, in which he explained why Xandros eschewed KDE's generic UNIX file manager in favor of a home-grown Xandros File Manager , that's tightly linked to the Linux OS. Now building a file manager has to be a huge task, and, in Ming's case, it's been his pet project ever since his days a manager of Corel Linux. Three questions come to mind: Why did they do it? Was it worth the effort? What’s the future of the XFM?" The article is focusing in the tweaked Xandros file manager.

The much-anticipated release of KDE 3.1, originally scheduled for this week, has been delayed, most likely until early next month. In the meantime, what was to have been KDE 3.1 (with some of the security audit completed) has been re-tagged as KDE 3.1 RC5 and is now available for testing.

We were the first to inform you about the buyout of gobeProductive 3.x by starter FreeRadicalSoftware (headed also by the Gobe CEO) back in August. One of the ideas was to make gobeProductive GPL (a beta Linux version already exists). Unfortunately, it seems that FreeRadicalSoftware might not succeed in this. Read more for Gobe's and FreeRadical's Scott Lindsey's email in the Gobe user mailing list regarding the status, as it was sent by OSNews readers and GP3 users Chris Rupnik and Greg. Update: Gobe's Tom Hoke comments here and Scott Lindsey comments here.

"In a surprise move, IBM agreed to acquire Rational Software Corp. Friday in a deal worth $2.1 billion. IBM officials said the acquisition of the major development toolmaker would be the biggest for IBM since the computer giant acquired Lotus Development Corp." Read the report at eWeek. Our Take: This could be a serious blow to traditional Unices, like HP-UX and Solaris, depending on how IBM will handle these platforms.

If you've used Linux for more than ten minutes, you've almost certainly come across the nightmare that is package management. You know what I mean - dependancy hell has become legendary and it's no exagguration to say that one of the most offputting aspects of Linux for a new user is the lack of InstallShield type 3 click installs. This article looks at how we ended up in the quagmire of RPM and dependancy hell, and then moves on to talk about a possible solution in the form of autopackage. It takes a high level overview of how autopackage works and what it's capable of. If you want more technical details, check out the website. Finally, this article assumes only that you're interested, not that you have any Linux experience.

Andreas Girardet writes: "Yoper limited (a New Zealand Operating System Company) is proud to announce the first public release (release candidate) of Ydesktop. This is the first part of Your Operating System that Yoper Limited ("Yoper") is developing."

It’s easy to grow increasingly cynical the more you follow “innovation” in operating systems and software. New releases often turn out to be nothing more than reinventing, or repackaging, the wheel, with new icons and steeper system requirements. Yet every now and then persistence pays off and that lengthy download or poorly written web site delivers something truly amazing and faith in the future of computing is, albeit temporarily, restored. I experienced such a sensation a couple of months ago when I downloaded the CD-ROM based, Linux distribution known as Knoppix.

The Aberdeen Group has issued a report on Big Blue and its Linux products and strategy today for the enterprise today. The report -- An Assessment of IBM's Enterprise Linux Strategy -- says that the firm has so far spent billions in an attempt to lead the industry on Linux related technology. But it questions whether IBM will be able to sustain this strategy over a long period of time. Read the news report.

I'm a long-time Windows user, but for years I've been searching for an intelligent alternative. Macs are actually a great choice, but have you priced them lately? I don't have two grand to spend for another system. I had been reading all the hoopla surrounding Xandros Desktop for a number of months and decided to take the plunge. I had been burned two times previously trying to install other Linux distributions. Their tech support was non-existent. I'm essentially working in a vacuum. When something has gone wrong in the past, I've found that I was on my own.

Two of the year's most user-friendly Linux distributions--SuSE Linux 8.1 and Red Hat Linux 8.0--have closed the gap between Windows and Linux. For those who have at least a few years of PC experience, it's now feasible to switch from Windows to Linux or, at the very least, use both--in a dual-boot environment or on separate machines. So, which of these alternatives should you choose? Read on.

Sun Microsystems loaned OSNews the high-end version of the new Sun Blade 150 series workstation, which sells for $3,395 USD (no monitor). Since this Solaris 9/SPARC machine is intended as a workstation, it is here reviewed as such in this article and not as a server.

"The latest gcc holds it own against Intel C++, winning some benchmarks it lost previously. There are still applications where Intel shines, but the differences between the compilers have narrowed. So which compiler is better? Like Einstein, I have to say the answer is relative." Read the article here.

As the open-source movement is gains momentum, the debate over its future heats up. Can this loosely-formed coalition be able to withstand the pressure of Microsoft and other big companies that live off proprietary software? Read about it at ZDNet.

The leading OpenBSD programmer, Theo DeRaadt, has accused Sun Microsystems of hindering development of the open-source software for its newer computers, causing Sun to scramble to cooperate with the project in response.