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n this week's KDE Commit-Digest: A Calculator and Show Desktop Plasmoid, units conversion and contacts "runners", enhanced composite-based effects, a "dashboard" view and applet hover handles in Plasma. Updated artwork for "about" pages. Support for quick user switching in Kickoff. New imagery for KTuberling and KMahjongg. OSS device hotplugging in KMix. A bandwidth scheduler plugin in KTorrent. Interface work, including per-protocol UI specification in Kopete. Hardware database for an enhanced audio device experience in Phonon. KDE 3.96 tagged, comprising Release Candidate 2 of the development platform (hopefully final), and Beta 5 (or Release Candidate 1) of the Desktop.

Without ado, here's a bunch of screenshots of how KDE 4.0 currently looks like. Please note that this is very recent, and not all of it is part of the just-released KDE 4.0 RC1. It's that fresh.

They need to rapidly develop and deploy new applications. They need to build a flexible infrastructure--one that can rapidly adjust to the needs of the business. There are many key benefits inherent in Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The latest release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, version 5, often coupled with other Red Hat open-source solutions, transforms the economics of IT by eliminating the need to purchase, integrate and maintain the proprietary server software stack.

Based on his experience at a recent scientific convention, Jaron Lanier suggests that the modern scientific community seems to be wanting to model itself after the Open Source software model. Unfortunately, he adopts the position that this progression is ill advised and bases his reasoning on the mistaken belief that the Open Source model is incapable of the level of innovation required by science. Although he builds an interesting case, I believe his conclusions are based on a faulty premise and an overall misunderstanding of the real strength of the Open Source approach as well as the true nature of the proprietary model.

The recent fine levied on Microsoft by the European anti-trust authorities has reminded people just how dominant Microsoft is in the industry. We’re often being told to consider Linux and open-source applications as a viable alternative to what Microsoft and other Windows developers have to offer. But just what’s involved if you do decide to go down the Linux route for some or all of your small-business IT?

Just in time for the holidays, Wal-Mart has re-stocked a Linux-based PC that sells for $199. A check of the retailer's Web site Tuesday revealed that the Everex TC2502 Green gPC -- which had temporarily been sold out -- is now listed as "In Stock." Wal-Mart introduced the gPC earlier this month but it quickly sold out online. It's "been one of the top performing desktop computers on Walmart.com," a spokesman for the company told InformationWeek last week.

There are a legion of developers with a strong desire to improve their cell phones any way they can think of. If only they had a platform that was open—source code and all—and that actually encouraged them to come up with new applications rather than limit them or forbid them outright. That's the promise of open-source cell phones. With open-source operating systems, developers have both the right and the support for modifying their cell phones and that's a benefit for them and the rest of us too.

One of the most fascinating stories in the technology sector has been the challenge posed by open-source giant Linux to Microsoft's dominance of the market for operating system software. One of the key players in the rise of Linux is Bob Young, co-founder of Red Hat Software, the largest distributor of the Linux operating system. Young's creative resolution of a crucial strategic dilemma was the event that put Red Hat – and Linux – on the path to profit and power in the marketplace.

"We absolutely and fundamentally believe we are right in this case, and we believe in the justice system. But we also know that things don't always happen the way they're supposed to, and we're realistic about that point. We don't believe that this latest ruling was a reflection of the facts that were involved in the case. And the way the system works, we get a chance to put up an appeal," said SCO CEO Darl McBride.

A wide variety of tools is available to help programmers understand the cache and memory use of a program. Modern processors have performance monitoring hardware that can be used. Some events are hard to measure exactly, so there is also room for simulation. When it comes to higher-level functionality, there are special tools to monitor the execution of a process. We will introduce a set of commonly used tools available on most Linux systems.

When deer hunting season begins in Mississippi, or its time for the alligator lottery to start down in Florida, sportsmen flock to the Internet to order their licenses through companies like Automated License Systems (ALS). To keep its servers running reliably, ALS's Infrastructure Manager Rich Edwards uses Red Hat Linux and servers from Levanta, no questions asked.

Lets put the distro wars to an end and all work together. I know we may work on different distros, packages, and repos but as long as we don't put each other down or say we are better than others we stand a fighting chance.

For the past two months, the AMD release train has been running full speed ahead as they introduced their new driver code-base and last month had dropped in the AIGLX support. However, this month the AMD train has taken an intermediate stop as this closed-source driver embarks on its next journey. As always, we have all of the details for you on this month's ATI Catalyst 7.11 Linux display driver release.

The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) has filed another two cases on behalf of BusyBox developers Erik Andersen and Rob Landley against High Gain Antennas, LLC of Parker, Calif., and Xterasys Corp. of City of Industry, Calif. The cases follow a similar case against Monsoon Multimedia, which was recently settled out of court.

"Each one of us is just a link in the chain, just a node in a network. Each contributes what we can to build something larger than ourselves."

Mythbuntu is a relatively new Ubuntu derivative aimed squarely at the HTPC enthusiasts. The distro consists of modified versions of XFCE/Xubuntu and MythTV. While MythTV has always been one of the best HTPC platforms around, it certainly hasn’t been one of the the easiest to install. With Mythbuntu 7.10, all that is starting to change.

The Nokia N800 takes advantage of Linux’s ability to scale down to a small footprint to run efficiently in company devices, offering a great deal of general-purpose functionality for developers. In this Linux on board series root inside the Nokia N800 phone/Internet tablet/Webcam and see how to get started building applications by way of a working example.

I installed BLAG 70000 on an old 450MHz box with 192 MB of RAM. You might just be interested to know how it turned out.

Installing LAMP Server Using TASKEL (desktop edition) in Ubuntu

Gogh is an extremely lightweight drawing program designed for pressure-sensitive devices. Despite its simplicity, it packs in a lot of features and a lot of fun. You can download Gogh packages from the project's Web site. The latest release is 0.1.2.1. Gogh is written in Python, and you can uncompress and run the source code tarballs from any place on your system -- no compilation or installation step required. You do need to have PyGTK, PyXML, and gnome-python installed. All are run-of-the-mill Python packages, though, so check your distribution's package management system.