Google has released the first beta version of its Chrome browser for Linux and Mac OS for download. Until now, only an open source variation, Chromium, has been Linux compatible.

The FreeNAS project had discussed whether the free storage systems should use BSD or Linux in the future. The result is that both variants will now be available.

With SUSE Studio, individual versions of openSUSE can be created with just a few clicks of the mouse.

The Californian Software company Appjet has been added to Google’s Wave team. Appjet’s collaborative Web editor Etherpad was initially supposed to be scrapped, but is now planned for Open Source release.

On Thursday, the first alpha version of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS is to be made available. The official release will be out in April 2010. Ubuntu 10.04 LTS should feature significantly more stability, being based on the just released Kernel 2.6.32 as a precedent to the Long Term version.

The openSUSE team is breaking with a long tradition of providing updates as backport patches instead of version updates. KDE 4.3.4 will soon be brought in as a version update.

In its fourth fiscal quarter of 2009, Novell achieved a net revenue of $216 million, a figure down on the $245 million for the same period last year.

The Mountain View CA startup WireLoad is offering current versions of its group suites Scalix and Zimbra as virtual appliances.