One of the great things about using tools and databases such as Borland Delphi 7 Studio and IBM DB2 Universal Database is that moving between platforms is only a matter of a few changes and a recompile. This article shows how to move a functional application from a Delphi 7 application running on Microsoft Windows to a Linux application using Borland Kylix 3. This article also goes over DB2 on Linux and minor source code changes.

Just like Blender did a few months ago, Hekkelman Programmatuur are now following the same approach to open their product's sources (development has stopped in the meantime). Pepper 4.x is a programmer's editor, running on Unix/Linux, Mac/X, Windows and it has already a lot of BeOS-specific code to kickstart a BeOS version too (I personally have a BeOS beta of Pepper 3.5 on my hard drive from the times I was beta testing it, a version that was never released). A small team of developers and users are trying to open its source so they have made an offer to Maarten Hekkelman for $11,000 USD and they would appreciate your donations (screenshot of Pepper running under Gentoo Linux).

Tecchannel.de has a preview of SuSE's UnitedLinux flavour SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8: "A close look into United Linux 1.0 substantiates the not so new suspicion that the initative of the four UL companies essentialy is an attempt to stand up to Red Hat's overwhelming market potence and to counter Red Hat Advanced Server with a competitive product. Conectiva, SCO and Turbolinux apparently have insisted in delivering their own management tools as a last line of defense for differentiating "their" UL flavours from a plain SuSE SLES."

In the Advanced filesystem implementor's guide, Daniel Robbins shows you how to use the latest filesystem technologies in Linux 2.4. In this conclusion to the AFIG series, Daniel continues his discussion of the Enterprise Volume Management System for Linux, or EVMS. He shows you how to use evmsn to take a new hard drive, partition it, and create LVM volumes on it. Along the way, he fills you in on important EVMS concepts that you'll find essential as you continue your exploration of this powerful technology.

The first news report on Athene's upcoming commercial release reveals an all-new accelerated graphics system and a new set of screenshots showing some of the new features of the coming release.

"Red Hat is the biggest bandwidth user on the East Coast," company vice president Mark de Visser said. "If we wanted to make a killing in the retail market, we could, but that's not the intent. The intent is to get it into the hands of the most people." Read the article at NewsFactor. The article in a single sentence: Ladies and Gentlemen, meet the upcoming leader of the Linux market: Red Hat.

A major update to the eCS Maintenance Tool is contained in 1.10.5. In addition, the following packages are now available for download through www.ecomstation.com or by downloading eCS MT 1.10.5 and using its download capabilites.

"Mounting anger over Microsoft's business tactics could hamper uptake of its .NET application development platform. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates claims to have "bet the company" on .NET, which is both an over-arching business strategy and a software development platform to rival Sun Microsystems' Java technology. But Gartner research shows resentment of Microsoft's licensing practices and fear of relinquishing control is feeding scepticism of .NET among IT executives." Read the report at News.com.au.

Today the UnitedLinux group announced the release of Version 1.0 of its UnitedLinux product, a standards-based Linux operating system targeted at the business user. Founding companies of UnitedLinux are Linux industry leaders Conectiva, SCO Group, SuSE and Turbolinux. UnitedLinux Version 1.0 is the engine that powers products to be sold by the four companies, each with its own local language support, value-add features, and pricing. There is already a new article, describing UnitedLinux, at DeveloperWorks. Our Take: Erm, great, but why there isn't a "buy now" link or a "contact me" form anywhere in that site?

"I am impressed with Lycoris. They have made a good start at making Linux accessible to the casual user. There is a long way to go yet but the makers should be proud of the work they have done. It is capable of competing with Windows in the home, something which other distro's of Linux have not yet achieved. However Lycoris could not compete with Red Hat or similar distro's in a workstation environment. Then again, you wouldn't use XP Home edition as a workstation OS. Lycoris is to XP Home what Red Hat is to XP Professional." Read the review at TechSeekers.

This Freetype release contains many important enhancements, including much improved automatic and Postscript hinters, resulting in higher quality of anti-aliased text. Announcement here, more information about this release here, and here is how you enable the bytecode for best quality (patented, not enabled by default - scroll down to read how to).

"An internal alpha build of Microsoft's next version of Windows, code-named Longhorn, made its way onto the Internet early Tuesday. The leaked build, which is numbered 3683, appears to be from late September and sports quite a few new feature concepts—although many are not yet functional. The oft-rumored Longhorn Sidebar can be enabled via Taskbar settings and uses XML to display customizable tiles such as a clock, virtual desktop manager and Internet search. The Start Menu can also be docked within the Sidebar, completely removing the Taskbar that has been a staple of Windows since 1995." Read the eWeek article for more information.

"Coincident with Tuesday's release of the UnitedLinux distribution, the SCO Group is announcing shipment of SCO Linux 4.0, based on the UnitedLinux product. Though it will be the SCO Group's first release under the "SCO Linux" name, the numbering convention is in keeping with the company's previous existence as Caldera, whose last distribution was 3.1.1." Read the report at LinuxAndMain.

"Anybody who is using a desktop computer' is a potential customer for SuSE Linux in its latest push for the open-source operating system. SuSE plans to announce in January an effort to bring the open-source Linux operating system to desktop computers, an attack on Microsoft that will be bolder than similar initiatives from Red Hat and Sun Microsystems." Read the report at ZDNews.