While releasing Windows NT 4.0, Redmond\'s Hexenmeisters were already dreaming of code convergence with Win9x. But such black magic often goes beyond what apprentice sorcerers can handle.

Qt Palmtop, the new application suite from Trolltech for embedded systems, has been available for some time under the GPL license. It is now in its final stages of development and will be released as Qt Palmtop 2.0. The new version of Qt Palmtop will be dual-licensed to support both open-source and commercial interests.

It began with eyecandy. I like eyecandy. In that category, there is nothing better in Linux than Jamie Zawinski\'s XScreenSaver, and there has never been a better version of XScreenSaver than the newish 4.0. Within 4.0, there are no screensaver modules more visually pleasing than the GLX ones -- the 3-D, OpenGL modules -- as long as you have hardware support.

Can one operating system fit all your needs? Or is it a matter of mixing and matching to the tasks at hand?

Lately, it seems, respectable kernel hackers have started maintaining their own kernel trees. In fact Linus Torvalds himself hinted twice in the Linux kernel mailing list that he supports the notion of many different trees and that to him a Linux kernel fork is not a threat but a sign of vitality and creativity within the community.

"Walk into the Largo, Florida, city hall and look at the two computer screens behind the reception desk. Instead of the typical Windows "Start" button in the lower left-hand corner, they have a KDE "Gear" logo, as do almost all of the 400-plus monitors on Largo employees' desks. Receptionists, administrative assistants, and division fire chiefs here all use Linux instead of Windows, and most of them don't really notice one way or the other.

This summer, CompTIA will add another Linux certification to the fray -- that of Linux+ (pronounced "Linux plus"). This is a one-exam certification -- good for life -- on vendor-neutral topics similar to the other two certifications. Beta testing began June 22nd and will continue for one month. The live exam is scheduled to appear by September.

It is clearly time for India to join the Free Software movement. Urged by this firm belief and commitment, a group of Free Software practitioners and enthusiasts in India have been successful in persuading Richard Stallman to establish an Indian Chapter of FSF. The Free Software Foundation of India (FSF-I) will be inaugurated by Stallman on July 20 in Trivandrum at the Freedom First! conference. This article goes into some friendly detail about the history of Unix, the GNU project, and Linux.

"To no one's surprise, the best-represented OS category is of the genus Unix, and includes its many and varied subspecies. While those on the x86 side of the fence are accustomed to--if not outright blasé about--the opulent choice of operating systems available to them, the PowerPC hasn't traditionally offered nearly as much choice. That has not only changed, but even continued to improve."

ReiserFS is designed and developed by Hans Reiser and his team of developers at Namesys. Hans and his team share the philosophy that the best filesystems are those that help create a single shared environment, or namespace, where applications can interact more directly, efficiently and powerfully. To do this, a filesystem should meet the performance and feature needs of its users. That way, users can continue using the filesystem directly rather than building special-purpose layers that run on top of the filesystem, such as databases and the like.