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Unicode, or the Universal Character Set (UCS), was developed to end once and for all the problems associated with the abundance of character sets used for writing text in different languages. It is a single character set whose goal is to be a superset of all others used before, and to contain every character used in writing any language (including many dead languages) as well as other symbols used in mathematics and engineering. Any charset can be losslessly converted to Unicode, as we'll see.

Zack Smith announced that he has been working on an in-kernel 2D GUI for the 2.6 Linux kernel called FBUI. Based on the framebuffer, the project page explains, "FBUI is a small, in-kernel graphical user interface for Linux. It permits you to put windows in each framebuffer-based virtual console, to read keyboard input and track the mouse pointer." The core software measures in at a mere 26k, adding an additional 17k for a graphical library, 30k for a window manager, and 38k for a terminal emulator.

Spread Firefox has announced that at the conclusion of their New York Times advertisement donation drive they have raised $250,000, with roughly 10,000 names to be placed in the ad. The team expects to use roughly $50,000 on the actual ad itself, and the remainder will go towards the Mozilla Foundation, and Firefox 1.0 launch activities. More info is available in the FAQ.

Mike Owens credits a little penguin for reviving his moribund interest in technology. A chemical engineer by degree, programmer by choice, the 33-year-old resident of North Richland Hills, Texas, said he was close to turning his back on computers as a profession five years ago. At the time, he was working and playing exclusively on Microsoft Windows machines.

You've read the recent reviews and you know the newly released SimplyMEPIS is hot. Now check out our 67 great screenshots at OSDir, to see why SimplyMEPIS tops the charts.

K-DEMar is a live CD distribution based on Knoppix and fully translated into Catalan. At OSDir, we try to cover all kinds distros, big and small, in all languages in our screenshot tours of Linux distributions.

AUSTRUMI 0.9.0 has been released and includes many great new features. Have a quick look at these great screenshots of AUSTRUMI 0.9.0.

SLAX (pocket OS) now comes in modded flavors, including Popcorn, Kill-Bill, and Professional. Down the road we'll see Hacker and Frodo mods too. SLAX is based on the Slackware Linux distribution and is downloadable as an ISO image. At OSDir we waffled but finally decided to go with the Professional version for our screenshot tour of this great Linux distribution. See SLAX in action here.

Gnoppix 0.8.1 now appears to be Ubuntu Linux based. At OSDir, we've got over 50 screenshots of the Gnoppix 0.8.1 release, including the controversial Ubuntu desktop background images.

Marketing maverick Rob Davis hit pay dirt with his idea of a consumer-sponsored ad for the open-source browser. Call it Mozilla’s October Revolution.

The Ubuntu developers are already preparing for the next Ubuntu release, due in April 2005. It's codename is "Hoary Hedgehog". It will include the latest from Debian sid, plus some new features. For Ubuntu users, you can start testing it by editing /etc/apt/sources.list and replacing all instances of 'warty' with 'hoary'. Enjoy.

Before the dot-com crash, Eric Raymond became a millionaire instantly when open-source provider VA Linux Systems did an IPO. As a member of the board of directors and a major shareholder, Raymond made $41 million when VA went out on Nasdaq. When the crash came, he lost it all.

What kind of E-mail is landing in Martin Taylor’s in-box right about now? It’s probably not unlike some of the messages I’ve been getting in response to a story I wrote about Steve Ballmer’s Oct. 27 treatise comparing Windows to Linux (and, to a lesser extent, Unix). Microsoft’s CEO ended his note by inviting readers to respond directly to Taylor, the guy in charge of Microsoft’s anti-Linux strategy. Don’t you love it when the boss fires off a salvo, then puts you out in front to absorb the return fire? Then again, Taylor is the same guy who once showed up at a Linux trade show wearing a flak jacket. Maybe it’s time for him to break out the protective gear again.

The Southern California Linux Expo continues to sign distinguished speakers for SCALE 3x, the third annual So Cal Linux Expo.

To build the To-Do List application we will use to explore the myriad Java Web development technologies that are available, we'll begin with the backbone of the application: a set of classes that connect to a MySQL database to retrieve, model, and update a to-do list.

Webmail.us, which provides hosted e-mail service for small and medium-size businesses, will announce next week a raft of improvements to its service, including a major migration of its core e-mail platform from Microsoft Windows to an open-source platform.

A few issues back, in talking about client services for Linux desktops, I mentioned the two major graphical user interfaces for Linux: GNOME and KDE. A few of you wrote in to say that you'd heard Novell was creating a new GUI for its Novell Linux Desktop package which would be a blend, a mélange, a combination of these two. So I looked into it.

A look into the History of X, and thoughts about "What's Next for X?"..

Many Linux newbies -- or wanna-be newbies -- get hung up over the choice of their initial distribution. We here at NewsForge have put a lot of thought into this, and have decided to share our best thinking on the subject in order to help ease you newbies out of the monopoly spread into the Linux world. The most important thing for newbies to consider is this: what does your choice of distributions say about you?

Continuing his quest for the perfect Linux desktop, Michael C. Barnes gives DesktopLinux.com readers an in-depth analysis of the technologies that make open source a great alternative to proprietary operating systems. Examining the various components that constitute a complete system, Barnes provides practical advice and instruction on how to improve your desktop experience and productivity with freely available software. He reviews desktop environments, communications using voice-over-IP, common applications, and more.