The free virtualization product VirtualBox has released a new version 2.1 that not only supports 3D graphics, but the full VMDK and VHD formats from VMware and Microsoft.

Hewlett-Packard has partnered with Novell in developing a new, secure Linux desktop product. At the same time, HP has joined up with Mozilla to promote a desktop virtualization project for small business customers.

Red Hat president and CEO Jim Whitehurst sees opportunities for open source firms that might be putting undue burden on their dwindling IT departments because of the current economic downturn. Whitehurst offered his views in a press conference in Munich. His conclusion: "When people look at alternatives, often Open Source wins."

Red Hat president and CEO Jim Whitehurst sees opportunities for open source firms that might be putting undue burden on their dwindling IT departments because of the current economic downturn.

VMworld, the world's largest virtualization event, offered a variety of technical events, birds-of-a-feather sessions, press conferences, and perhaps the biggest IT party ever. VMworld's fifth year is one to remember.

Six months after Fedora 9, the free project is now releasing its newest version 10 of the popular Linux distribution, code-named Cambridge.

Computer vendor Transtec has actualized its Calleo 330 server series on the new 45-nonometer Opterons from AMD. All Calleos now come with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 10.

At the USENIX LISA conference in San Diego, Lee Damon and Mike Ciavarella presented a foundation workship as a tutorial for admins with tips and tricks for working efficiently. The presentors didn't agree on all points, but one commonality was that they advised against running High Performance Computing (HPC) together with virtualization.