The KDE project has released the first release candidate of KDE 4, the soon-to-be-released version of the KDE window manager. KDE 4 was previously delayed and is now expected to be finished around the beginning of December, if all goes well. If you have some time and a spare machine, download and test it.

The Open Document Foundation recently stopped supporting the ODF file format in favor of W3C’s CDF file format and had now, just weeks later, closed with no explanation, according to Slashdot and Ars Technica.

A LXer article points out that despite all the attention being given to the gPC, there are others out there with similar price points. MadTux offers a a few $150 PCs, and The Linux Store is offering a $200 dollar one. (all with various Linux distros) If you want REALLY cheap PCs, you should check out E-Way.

(I don’t know anything about these company’s reputations.)

The Obama campaign has a position statement on technology and innovation which contains the intriguing promise to make “government data available online in universally accessible formats.” It sounds like he is referring to a format such as ODF that can be read by open-source programs like Open Office. If this were true, it would put some more momentum into the open source movement, and chip away at the monopoly enjoyed by MicroSoft, and despised by the rest of us. Score one for the Obama campaign!

With the release of Ubuntu 7.10 and Fedora 8, Phoronix did some performance testing of the two distros. Who won? See page 5 of the Phoronix article.

Dell just seems to keep coming back to the Linux/open-source news these days. After testing the waters with Ubuntu, they have recently expanded their Linux offerings to other countries and other distributions. It really seems clear that they believe in open-source. Just today, there are two new Dell stories, both about them planning to offer another open-source product.

Although Ubuntu is very prominent on the desktop side of Linux, they are not widely used on the server side. Recently, they have been trying to change that and it looks like they are succeeding. The Linux News reported that Dell is close to certifying Ubuntu for its servers. In further proof that Dell cares about open-source, Linux Insider reported that Dell would also be offering Sun’s OpenSolaris and Solaris 10, again of its servers, soon.

You may have seen the term “GNOME Online Desktop” is feature lists for Fedora 8 or in a number of other places, but it is hard to know what this means. Does it mean an operating system online? Or you desktop turns into a browser? It turns out that neither of those is quite correct, but elements of both are correct. The GNOME Online Desktop provides integration with various web services on the desktop. See Red Hat Magazine’s tour to find out what it does and how it works.

Not long ago I reported that Everex would be selling $200 Linux-based “gPCs.” Now Slashdot reports that Wal-Mart’s online store is sold out. Just look at the reviews on the Wal-Mart site! Most of the ones I read do seem to be from tech-savvy people, though.

Novell, the company behind SUSE Linux, has announced that Dell will begin selling computers with their SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop* operating system pre-installed later this year in China.

Dell has been selling computers with Ubuntu pre-installed for a while now and this expansion of their Linux offerings seems to show that they believe there is a significant demand for Linux on desktops beyond just Ubuntu.

*Novell is best know for three products: SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED), SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), and OpenSUSE. The first two are commercial, the third is not.

Linux.com report’s that the One Laptop per Child (Laptop.org) has begun their “give one get one” program where anyone in the US or Canada can buy two XO laptops, one of which will be donated, for $400. The XO is a $200 Linux-based laptop designed to be used by school children in developing countries.