See also: last week's Linux in the news page.

Linux in the news

• The Press in New Zealand has a post-benchmark article. "'The media is doing exactly what Microsoft wants them to do -- presenting a damning result of a set of contrived benchmarking tests that are unrelated to how computers would be used in practice,' says Dave Lane of Egressive, a Linux supplier in Christchurch."

• 'This Column Is Free', by Jason Levitt is a review of Eric S. Raymond's essay 'The Magic Cauldron'. "The Magic Cauldron is a must-read for Internet entrepreneurs-if only to understand the possibilities of open-source business models. Raymond analyzes the 'economic substrate of the open-source phenomenon', and his conclusions are compelling."

• This is an installation nightmare story with a twist. In the first half the author, an admitted newbie, attempts to install Microsoft's BackOffice Small Business Server 4.0. and regrets it. In the second half the author installs Red Hat 6.0, qmail, Samba, Apache, PHP3, MySQL, and Phorum for several virtual domains. "I'm sick of hearing people whine that "Linux isn't easy to use". No server software is as easy to use as a consumer OS like Apple -- anyone who can't figure out why this is true has no business around electronic equipment. Half the problem with Linux is that all the hard stuff comes right at the beginning -- disk partitioning, configuring X for your graphics card and monitor, etc. -- and scares people off." (OS Opinion)

• The Latest and Greatest talks about how the Open Source movement can cure the compatibility hassles of staying on the bleeding edge. " I submit that an Open Source OS will watch the rise and fall of the BeOS. It oversee the death of Windows 2000 and the death of the next rabbit Microsoft pulls out it's hat. And it will watch the end of the Mac. "

From Federal Computer Week - Linux reviews:

• FCW did a product comparison on SuSE 6.0, Red Hat 6.0, Caldera 2.2 and TurboLinux Workstation 3.6. "As we tested the products in this comparison, we saw something we hadn't seen in quite a while: an operating system market not dominated by one vendor. The benefits are staggering. "

• They also reviewed the Linux kernel, version 2.2. "The 2.2 kernel includes support for many different Intel Corp. processors as well as support for chips from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and Cyrix Corp. This makes it easier for the kernel to deal with the quirks (and bugs) found in the various Pentium or Pentium clone chips."

From ISPs to SMPs:

• This New Zealand Press article talks about a new trend where various ISPs offer cheap or free PCs with an internet service contract. Most offer a simplified version of Linux. "Internet phones add to voice calls the ability to read and write e-mail and access websites through a small screen and slide-out keyboard. Set-top boxes provide these functions on the TV set. And not a Windows screen in sight."

• This CPU Review article delves deeply into the benefits, the how-tos and also the tribulations of putting together a Symmetric Multi-Processing system. "This [Red Hat 6.0] seemed like a match made in heaven... low cost SMP motherboard, low cost CPU's and a free (if I had downloaded it) operating system!" (Thanks to Bill Henning)

and the rest:

• In an exclusive interview with Daemon News, Kevin Lawton says: "I'd like to see Windows running at a comfortable speed on a reasonably powered Linux workstation, using dynamic translation." Kevin also explained about his latest project: freemware...

• Earlier this week Apple announced that they updated QuickTime Streaming Server and added support for Linux on Intel. That's how this OS Opinion article begins. "Initially upon hearing this wonderful news brief, I became overjoyed when I misunderstood this to mean that Linux users could now join the ranks of Macintosh and Windows desktops by playing QuickTime streaming content from their preferred platform."

• Several alternative operating systems are covered in this San Francisco Chronicle article. " By Christmas, shoppers in the market for a cheap PC will be able to choose among products that run the BeOS, a modern multimedia-oriented system developed by Menlo Park's Be Inc.; Linux, the cooperatively developed, freely distributed operating system that's recently made a splash in corporate and technical markets; and even a new version of GEOS, a decade-old graphical software environment that appeared to have succumbed to the Windows tide years ago."

• Also from the San Francisco Chronicle a column that very briefly gives some information about PGP and Linux. "The best thing about Linux is that it works on older PCs, so if you have a 386 or 486 system gathering dust in the basement, Linux could give it new life."

• Here is an introductory article comparing Windows and Linux. Linux gets generally favorable treatment. "But I thought it would be years before Linux was ready for ordinary folks, since it was way too difficult to install and use.
  Boy, was I wrong. Linux' cheery Penguin logo isn't about to drive the Windows flag off of millions of desktops. But if it progresses as fast as it has in the past few months, Linux could soon be a contender, especially in business. It faces many challenges, but Linux is more secure and less crash-prone than Windows 95 or 98, and will run well on much less powerful hardware than Windows NT." (Thanks to Marty Leisner)

• Here's the news from DaveNet. "Earlier this week we announced a strategic partnership with Digital Creations, the company behind Zope, the deep and open source web content management software on Linux."

• Linux hits the mainstream press in Chile with this introductory article (in Spanish). [Thanks to Alvaro Herrera]

• The author of this OS Opinion article is a self-proclaimed student of the arcane Unix arts and an evangelist for the open source movement. The general focus is Microsoft Bad - Linux/open source Good. "Employ Unix/Linux. Learn the command line. Be privy to power. Interact with the kernel from a hair's breadth. Experience real power! Learn to program or write shell scripts. If you do, good for you! If you don't, start now. Broaden your horizons. You are a computer professional after all, not a Saturday morning cartoon junkie."

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