Wil Wheaton is not like most of the rest of the actors. He admits that he is a true geek, running Linux, enjoying programming, playing lots of computer games. Many of you will remember Wil portraying "Wesley Crusher" in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" TV series some years ago. Wil will reprise his role as Wesley in the "Star Trek X: Nemesis" movie, the tenth installment of the Star Trek movies, which is set to be released two days after the second "Lord of the Rings" movie, at the end of this year. In the interview following, Wil talks about his favorite computer games, the computers used on TNG, the future of computing in AI, his favorite Linux distros, PHP and more.

"Open source operating systems such as Linux and Apache, which can generally be downloaded from the internet and adapted or modified for use with other programs, have become a mainstream business tool. More than half the world's websites now run on the Apache web server and 57 per cent of companies polled by IDC, the research company, used Linux to run a big application within their enterprise. The popular view is that there are few restrictions on how open software can be used. But, like proprietary software, it is distributed with a copyright licence. While this may simply require anyone redistributing the software to acknow-ledge the original author, the most commonly used licence, the GNU General Public Licence or GPL, is significantly restrictive." Read the rest of the article at Financial Times Online.

Where did he come from, and what are his plans for 2.4? Marcelo Tosatti opens up to Robert McMillan about the joy, the fear, the challenges, and the rewards of being the Linux kernel maintainer. He also talks about his favorite hack. Stepping into Alan Cox's shoes is no mean feat, even for the most accomplished of hackers, but that is just what a little-known, 18-year-old Brazilian hacker named Marcelo Tosatti did this fall when Linus Torvalds handed over maintenance of the Linux 2.4 kernel tree to Tosatti instead of Cox. According to all parties involved, Cox wanted more time to pursue other projects, and after having maintained the 2.0 and 2.2 trees, it was time for someone else to do the job. Since taking over the job, Tosatti has managed three kernel releases, starting with 2.4.16; has answered, according to one account, close to 700 press queries; and has given the tersest Slashdot interview in history. IBM developerWorks caught up with Tosatti to ask him about his first four months on the job.

"An alternative to Apache, this Swedish company's web server offers modularity, a built-in macro language (RXML) and Pike. The Roxen WebServer, from the Swedish company Roxen Internet Software, is a viable alternative for those who find Apache inappropriate for their needs. Although Apache dominates the internet web server market, it has some weak points: it lacks a built-in SQL database backend, flexible administration tools and easy SSL certificate management. All of these features can be found, however, in the Roxen WebServer. In fact, Roxen includes so many additional features that it seems more like an application server than an ordinary web server." Read the rest of the review at LinuxJournal.

Most tech savvy geeks can work their way through a FreeBSD install, even if they have no prior UNIX experience. However installing an OS and configuring an OS are two totally different things. This article is targeted towards anyone who might be wondering about FreeBSD, but doesn't know what to do with it after they install it. This isn't then end-all be-all of FreeBSD howto's. Just some of the simple stuff. Update: Some of the readers of OSNews have emailed me concerning corrections that need to be made in this article. Dig in (third page) for more.

From MSDN: "Welcome to Beta 2 of Microsoft Visual J# .NET, a development tool for Java-language developers who want to build applications and services on the .NET Framework. The tool integrates the Java-language syntax into the Microsoft Visual Studio .NET IDE, and supports the functionality found in Visual J++ 6.0, including Microsoft extensions such as JavaCOM and JDirect. Microsoft Visual J# .NET is not a tool for developing applications intended to run on a Java virtual machine. Applications and services built with Visual J# .NET will run only in the .NET Framework; they will not run on any Java virtual machine. Visual J# .NET has been independently developed by Microsoft. It is not endorsed or approved by Sun Microsystems, Inc." The installation file is 12 MB.

"When Steve Jobs introduced Apple's new iMac in January 2002, the spotlight was focused entirely on the physical architecture of the first mainstream computer that fully defied the term 'box'. The new iMac is a white dome with a flat screen that floats on the end of a chrome arm. It looks like a cross between a Luxo lamp and a makeup mirror. Jobs called it 'the best thing we've ever done'". Read the rest of the MacOSX review at LinuxJournal.

Shawn Gordon is founder and president of theKompany.com, producer of a variety of open source and other software for Linux and other platforms. In his essay at LinuxAndMain he explains why the GPL is not so good for graphical or end user friendly applications.

Many companies tried to create a truly easy-to-use Linux distribution, but as they say in Greece "they reached the well, but weren't able to drink water". Corel, Mandrake, Lindows, Xandros, Stormix and many other distros tried or are still trying to bring Linux closer to Windows' ease of use and the millions of the desktop-oriented users. One of the new distributions that has many people impressed so far, is Lycoris (formerly known as 'Redmond Linux'). OSNews tested the latest Lycoris Desktop/LX and here is what we experienced.

"Remember Steve Jobs' "sand" concept for the creation of personal computers? About the time he lent his star power to the creation of the original Macintosh back in the early '80s, Apple's founder famously described his dream factory: an oceanfront site that would haul raw beach sand in one end, cook up its own silicon and deliver fully configured PCs out the other end. This vision of vertical integration and rugged self-sufficiency is a cornerstone of Apple's culture that has informed the company's every move during Jobs' two tenures there. (It's telling that the only time Apple ever seriously toyed with opening up its hardware and software specs - porting the Mac OS to Intel processors and allowing a short list of third-party vendors to create a tightly controlled roster of hardware "clones" - was during Jobs' exile in the late '80s and early '90s.)" Read the rest of the editorial at ExtremeTech.

From dot.KDE.org: "Adam Treat released the initial version of Qt bindings for C#, which consists of 476 Qt classes converted to C#. The bindings work with the Mono compiler, runtime environment and class libraries, enabling a fully Open Source implementation of C# for Qt. While not yet ready for a real application, Adam has managed to write and execute a Hello World! program (screenshot). KDE bindings are on the drawing board. Shortly thereafter, Phil Thompson, Jim Bublitz and theKompany.com released KDE 2 and KDE 3 bindings for Python. Together with the Java, Objective C and C bindings in the kdebindings module, as well as the Ruby bindings, KDE is providing developers a broad gamut of application development languages."

"Miguel de Icaza is a nice guy in a multitude of senses: He's warm, friendly, and open -- sometimes that openness has cost him, as recently when it was reported that he had said the GNOME desktop would be moved to Mono, an effort by Ximian to create an open source version of Microsoft's .NET platform." Read the interesting interview with Miguel de Icaza at LinuxAndMain.com

The GNU SmallEiffel compiler has been ported to the Intent/AmigaDE operating environment. Also worth checking out is this transcript of Bill McEwen's AmigaDE demonstration for TechTV. You will get a good idea of what this technology is capable of, regardless of it being only a tip of the iceberg of what the AmigaDE developer community is working on.

The Microsoft Windows CE .NET Device Emulator is a tool that allows you to view an Emulation Project Kit. An Emulation Project Kit contains an operating system image for a Windows CE-based platform. The platform is designed to run in the Device Emulator. The Device Emulator provides a viewer that allows you to run the Windows CE .NET OS on your desktop computer without specialized hardware. The Device Emulator makes it possible to download and view a Windows CE .NET-based device without acquiring additional hardware. They are sample platforms, each with a custom skin to showcase some of the capabilities of Windows CE .NET. The Microsoft Windows CE .NET Emulation Kit Creator is a tool that allows you to create an Emulation Project Kit for your Windows CE .NET-based platform. The Windows CE .NET Driver Development Program (WCEDDP) enables independent hardware and driver developers to get to market faster with free grants of Windows CE .NET.