"Red Hat, the top seller of the Linux operating system, will begin offering a higher-end and more specialized version of Linux later this year that won't be as easy to find as the current all-purpose package. Red Hat will demonstrate its coming Advanced Server product this week at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in New York and plans to begin selling it mid-spring, said Paul Cormier, executive vice president of engineering at the Durham, N.C., company." Read the rest of the report at ZDNews.

As if the Desktop Linux Revolution weren't enough, Wasabi Systems, Inc. will unveil what is being described as the "first commercial NetBSD boxed set" at LinuxWorld next week. Wasabi's new product is called the "NetBSD 1.5.2 Package Release for Desktops", and "comes ready to install, in a nice friendly box complete with CDs and a manual," said Wasabi founder and CEO Perry Metzger.

Mandrake Software released the first beta of their Mandrake 8.2 Linux distribution in two ISO CDs. They include kernel 2.4.17, XFree86 4.2, glibc 2.2.4, Window Maker 0.8, apache 1.3.22, Evolution 1.01, KDE 2.2.2, galeon 1.0, mozilla 0.9.7 and a lot of Mandrake Tools-specific changes & updates (screenshots). In related news, RootLinux released version 1.3pre1 which contains many updates and bugfixes. This release uses CUPS as printing system and PureFTPD as the default FTP daemon. The installation has been improved, and ext3 support was added. It also contains Linux 2.4.17, glibc 2.2.5, KDE 2.2.2, and XFree86 4.2.0. Recently, CRUX 0.9.2 was also released with many new features. Both the CRUX and RootLinux developers were interviewed by OSAlert three months ago.

"Dig deeper with us into Sun's enhancements. You can now assert in Java, and you'll like the new logging capabilities. We've got benchmark tests of the new graphics routines, too. Java coders can now do what C programmers have done from the start with new classes for Regular Expressions. Pattern matching is now a piece of cake. Yes, it's still beta, but here's a preview of what's faster--and slower." Read the second part of the interesting Java 1.4 preview at ExtremeTech.

OSAlert reader Dave Merrill was lucky to get access to a preview version of the Lindows OS and inform us with his findings. Read more about Dave's mini-preview. In the meantime, NewsForge also published a more extensive preview of the Linux-based OS which aims to run Windows software out of the box without the need of a Windows operating system installed. The NewsForge article also includes three screenshots.

"Sun's Java is locked on the future in this new release With this significant upgrade of the Java standard, Sun directly takes on Microsoft's XP and .NET framework. Whether you're a developer or just a Java enthusiast, you'll need to know what Sun has in store for 2002." Read the interesting preview of the new Java version at ExtremeTech.

"I wrote this after reading a confusing rant called 'Microsoft's .NET & The Advent Of (More) Nuisance Technology' on a site called MacObserver. The mispresentation of .NET in that story concerned me — not because it was negative, but because the author confused .NET with Microsoft's forthcoming web services (then called Hailstorm, now called '.NET My Services'). This is like critisizing MacOSX because you don't like iPhoto." Read the rest of the easy-to-follow presentation of .NET.

Rumors abound that Intel is designing 64bit extensions to it's Pentium line, in case Itanium turns out to be a flop: "Intel's decision to back the novel Itanium architecture had upset a small group of Intel engineers in Oregon, who preferred to build on the x86 legacy. When AMD released the specifications of its upcoming 64-bit chips in the summer of 2000, these ``cowboy'' engineers decided that Intel needed to match its rival. They began developing their own 64-bit extensions to the Pentium line, making sure the code was compatible with AMD's design." Update: MercuryCenter has an article about this too.

The FreeDOS Ripcord Beta 7 H02 distribution is now available for download. Ripcord distributions are 'semi-official' distributions based on the latest official distribution, but (tries to) contain the latest versions of the available programs.

"As the Linux community prepares to congregate next week in New York for the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo, the center of attention, as always, will be Linux creator Linus Torvalds. A little more than a year ago Torvalds released the 2.4 kernel and has spent much of the year working on numerous 2.4.x versions to further stabilize and strengthen Linux. After handing the 2.4 kernel over to Marcelo Tosatti to maintain late last year, he turned his attention to the 2.5 development tree. Torvalds took time out to exchange e-mail with eWEEK Senior Editor Peter Galli about his work on and vision for 2.5." Read the interesting Q&A at eWeek.

So, you are a Windows user or a not so Unix-oriented person who wants to master the art of administration? Then "Linux System Administration - A User's Guide" book may be just right for you. And if you are already an admin working somewhere, we are sure you will find in this book something you did not know yet. Read more to see what is included in this comprehensive guide to Linux administration.

The BeOS version 5.1d0 seems to have been extensively leaked on the web the last few days (please respect the OSAlert policy and do not post direct download URLs of the illegal beta on our forums). Dianne Hackborn, ex-Be engineer, now at PalmSource, gives more information on what is included in this version of BeOS. There is hardware OpenGL (update: GL is 'broken' on Dano), new networking stack, window decors, XML kit, new USB stack, brand new Printing Kit (and lots of printer drivers for it), new font engine, column list view, tooltip support, updated Media Kit, Interface Kit and app_server, and more. And of course, brand new drivers, like support for the Adaptec U160 SCSI controllers, better SB128 support etc. Reportedly, this BeOS version has some issues with many existing BeOS applications, mostly because of the changes in the app_server. The only peculliar thing is that, as far as we know, Palm's legal department did not take any action against the owners of the servers that carry the leaked beta.

"Get the core information you need to get the most out of the .NET Framework and Visual Studio .NET, including tips and tricks on the new data access system (ADO.NET) and Web application system (ASP.NET). The articles focus particularly on the Visual Basic developer, but apply across all languages." Read the interesting article at MSDN, among four more .NET-related articles.

Craig from Gui-Lords.org engaged Joseph Cheek, CTO of Redmond Linux (recently renamed 'Lycoris'), in a 10 question interview. Along with some nice screen shots, Gui-Lords invites you to learn about this new distro.