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Debian sarge has finally been released -- now what? If you ask me (and you didn't, but I'm going to tell you anyway), Debian should have two overarching priorities for the next release: 1. putting a timed release cycle in place, so what happened with sarge never happens again; and 2. keeping the growing family of Debian derivatives united around a common core -- namely, Debian itself. What's at stake? If we don't do something about both of these problems, actual and potential, Debian will be irrelevant by the time etch is out.

Linspire Inc. and InsynQ's Appgen Business Software recently teamed up to bring a "special version" of MyBooks Professional, a "fully audited," "full-featured accounting and finance software solution" aimed at small- and medium-sized businesses, to Linspire Linux's CNR (click and run) Warehouse.

Setting up an extended X windows desktop A sample config file using X.org and Xinerama for an extended laptop desktop.

Speaking at an IBM panel called "An Open Discussion on Open Source" held during the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo, consultant and author Marcel Gagne said he runs Einux on his Compaq notebook and added that many people are beginning to look at Linux on the desktop as well.

For years, the business-software development world has been split largely between Microsoft's .Net toolset and Java. Get ready for a third option. The so-called LAMP stack of open-source software--which includes the Linux operating system, Apache Web server, MySQL database and scripting languages PHP, Perl or Python--is pushing its way into mainstream corporate computing.

High performance computing has gained back one of its own now that scientist and businessman Bo Ewald has agreed to serve as chief executive officer for Linux Networx.

The man who began the Debian GNU/Linux Project has called on the current leaders to come up with a predictable release cycle, at intervals of 12 or 18 months. Ian Murdock made the call in a posting to his blog. His call comes a few days after Sarge, version 3.1 of Debian, was released after nearly three years of development.

Black Duck, a leading intellectual-property compliance management software vendor, and VA Software, the backers of SourceForge, offer an integrated program.

Sony Computer Entertainment boss Ken Kutaragi has claimed that the PlayStation 3 is being positioned as a supercomputer capable of running multiple operating systems, with the Linux system to be pre-installed on the machine's hard drive. Interviewed by Japanese website PC Impress Watch, Kutaragi lashed out at Nintendo and Microsoft for defining their systems purely as toys or game consoles, and said that PS3 will be sold as a "supercomputer".

The Netherlands Media Art Institute, Montevideo/Time Based Arts and The Blender Foundation have announced their Orange Project, which aims to produce a 3D animated movie short as the first fully open source movie.

Following SCO's allegations regarding the origination of some source code files comprising the Linux Kernel, in May of 2004 Linux creator Linus Torvalds implemented a simple method for tracking how patches reach the source tree. The simple system was further refined in the following months, and has become second nature to most kernel developers. However, a recent debate on the lkml illustrated the fact that nothing is simple, in this case with concerns that archiving someone else's email address in the "Signed-off-by:" line could violate the UK's Data Protection Act.

After six release candidates and a public spat in the open source community over the use of a "non-free" development tool, the 2.6.12 Linux kernel has been released. The new release sports native support for virtualization and SELinux among its almost 36 MB of data.

Would SUSE and fsck be able to recover the data in a usable way?

Maria Winslow gives her take on the power of commercial distros: "The conventional wisdom asserts (and I have argued as well) that only a commercial Linux distribution can provide the 'whole product' to customers, and make the shift to widespread mainstream adoption. But now I'm not so sure..."

The founder of the Gentoo Linux Project has taken up a job with Microsoft, according to the project's website. Daniel Robbins joined the Redmond, Washington-based company on May 23. He had given up responsibilities as a Gentoo developer last April.

Converting your CD collection into MP3 or another digital file format gives you the ability to enjoy the music on your computer and stream it all over the house and the Internet. To do the latter, however, you have to install and configure a streaming server on your computer. That might sound like a daunting task, but there is a streaming server application that makes the whole process pretty painless. SlimServer from Slim Devices is a cross-platform streaming server that runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X and supports a wide range of formats, including AAC, AIFF, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WAV, and WMA. Although it was developed to stream music files to Slim Devices' Squeezebox2 hardware player, it works perfectly with any software MP3 player capable of working with network streams.

Plumtree Software is preparing to release its first vertical applications for the retail and pharmaceutical industries while porting its portal, content management and application development platform to Linux.

Mad Penguin has just published a review of the newly released Xandros Desktop 3 Business Edition. Read the full 3 page review including screenshots and flash animations.

Company plans to post more than 5 million lines of source code for the operating system's heart in an effort to regain lost ground.

It was nearly a disaster when Cedar Chang, a government employee in Beijing, installed a Linux operating system in his notebook two years ago. He had a difficult time adjusting to the program, which was significantly different from Microsoft's Windows, and it was hard to find the Web browser and e-mail application.