Linux distributor SuSE is hoping to get desktop users to switch to its operating system with a new edition of its software specifically designed for office workers--including software that allows it to run Microsoft Office and other Windows applications. Read the report at ZDNews.

Critics have slated a Microsoft document on its upcoming Palladium digital rights software as containing several outright "lies". The 1,500-word frequently asked questions (FAQs) paper gives some details about how Palladium will work and how it relates to digital rights management and the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance. Read the rest at VNUnet. Update: Another article about Palladium, here.

The Middleware Company (market leader in enterprise Java training and consulting) has performed a new comparison of the performance and scalability of J2EE and .NET based on the familiar Pet Store application. This time, the Middleware Company has re-coded the J2EE Petstore and optimized the implementation for performance. Their report show that .NET outperforms Java in most of the specific tests they conducted. Lots of discussion already here.

Build 60 (aka Update3b) is now available for Lycoris. Changelog:

The latest blast of great distros continues with Xandros Desktop. Xandros is another debian based distro, geared toward the desktop and promising good Windows compatibility. Our initial impression of Xandros is very positive. It lives up to a lot of its potential, with a few drawbacks. Read the review.

After what many took to be the software's death knell, Sun has put Solaris for Intel processors on a stronger footing. Sun Microsystems plans broader backing for a version of its Solaris operating system geared for Intel processors, the server maker plans to announce on Friday. They also announced an update to its application server software along with plans to offer a free version of the product.

Microsoft Corp. is developing two new versions of its Windows CE operating system that will give smart devices greater storage capabilities and, as such, a more vital role in the enterprise as a portable data repository. "Everybody knows that Microsoft Corp. rarely innovates. You know the knock. While companies like Apple Computer Inc. roll out bold and original hardware and software products, Microsoft relies on tweaks to its world-dominant Windows software." This article is at Boston.com.

TurboLinux 8.0 will be out in US on Oct 31, 2002. It will include recent software and kernel 2.4.18. It will come in two flavors: Server and Workstation.

Plaintiffs in private antitrust lawsuits including Sun, Netscape and Be win a point as they are told they may be able to use findings from the government's earlier case.

"With over 9,000 files, and including some 1300 public classes to pore through, the Shared Source CLI can teach you quite a bit about the internal workings of the CLR. But the sheer amount of source code included can make just starting your exploration a monumental task. This article discusses some of the things you can learn from the source code facsimile of the CLR, like how JIT compilation works. It will also help you understand how to control execution along with debugging and loading classes. A walk through the steps involved in setting up the runtime will let you become familiar with the process." Read the article at MSDN, a reprint from June's NetMagazine printed article.

After reading many of the posts regarding the recent OSNews story, "An Unbiased Review of Debian 3.0", I thought this article may be useful to those who would like to try Debian, but are a little intimidated by its installer. Several of the posts to the above mentioned story indicated that Debian's installer was a huge hurtle for many people, who would otherwise like to try it. I have found Debian to be the most useful flavor of Linux, so I wanted to write an easy, though somewhat long, walkthrough in the hopes of allowing a wider audience to experience first hand this stable and unique Linux distribution.

"For over twenty years scientists have been dreaming about creating a real P.A.D.D., the slate device that the inhabitants of Star Trek used to record and access data as they moved around the starship Enterprise. There have been attempts to duplicate it over the years, but the Tablet PC may be the first successful incarnation. Some of this is timing - consumers are demanding more from their computers, and they want what the Tablet offers. The other reason is research - years of hard work and data gathering have made the Tablet PC possible." Read the article at Microsoft Research.

"KDE has announced a project that will produce a unified groupware product for the KDE desktop. In keeping with the usual KDE naming convention – it has been dubbed, inelegantly, "Kroupware." I'm hoping that this name gets changed at some point – if you've got a better alternative, post it in the forum and maybe we'll pass it onto the KDE folks as a suggestion. The other issue: "cloning" Microsoft software. Should Linux developers mimick the interface for products like Outlook? Is that really the right direction? Evolution is obviously a clone of Outlook." Read the editorial at ExtremeTech.

This article over at PCLinuxOnline.com tries to suggest how the ideals of free software can be better conveyed to the normal computer-using public. It takes an alternate view to the 'GNU/Linux vs Linux' naming debate, ignoring entirely the issue of whether 'Linux' is an OS or just a kernel, and instead focusing on the notion of freedom.