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Linux in the news

Companies

Birth of a new Embedded Linux company (LinuxDevices). Tuxia in Augsburg, Germany launched itself into the Embedded Linux market. "Tuxia's initial Embedded Linux product family, expected to become available early in 2001, is a software suite called "TASTE" (which stands for Tuxia Appliance Synthesis Technology Enabled). TASTE derives from Infomatec's JNT Internet appliance oriented Embedded Linux technology."

E-smith Launches Partner Program (ZDNet). ZDNet reports on e-smith's partner program. "E-smith targets small businesses 5 to 100 users with its Linux wares. Local and regional integrators and resellers as well as system builders represent the company's primary channel to reach that customer set. E-smith's partner program initially has signed up 19 companies."

Open source stalwart Sendmail looks to wireless for profits (Upside). Here's an article in Upside looking at Sendmail's acquisition of Nascent Technologies. "Sendmail, you'll remember, was the first open source to win backing by major investors way back in 1998 when it secured a $6 million round of financing from the Silicon Valley investment group Band of Angels."

Business

Linux: A Contender for The Enterprise Market (DB2). DB2 Magazine has taken a look at Linux as a contender in the Enterprise Market. After examining the reasons for choosing Linux, they move on, not too surprisingly, to talking about the combination of Linux and DB2. "For a true test of the installation process, I went to a local college and recruited a student who was completely new to Linux and databases. I handed him all the necessary how-to information and asked him to come by my computer lab when he thought he could install Linux and DB2. When he stopped by that evening, I set up the same two systems and had him install Red Hat 6.1, which took about 30 minutes, and then the DB2 database on both Red Hat boxes. It took him longer to fill in his information and download the source code from IBM than it took for him to install and configure the DB2 database on the Linux box. If that isn't ease of use, I don't know what is."

Also from DB2 Magazine: Serving Up Linux, with details on the beta version of IBM's DB2 Universal Database Enterprise-Extended Edition (DB2 UDB EEE) for Linux. (Thanks to Cesar A. K. Grossmann).

The year for open source (Upside). Upside names the year 2000 as the "Year for Open Source" in a two part series covering the first half and second half of the year. "Gone is the talk about changing the software industry as we know it. In its place stands a familiar set of the goals: earning money, building market share, maximizing shareholder return and, of course, keeping an even keel in case this New Economy thing was everything it was made out to be three years ago."

Linux companies beat Microsoft in Itanium support (News.com). C|Net's News.com reports on Linux beating Windows to the Itanium punch. "Itanium is scheduled to ship in the first half of 2001, but a new version of Windows tailored for the chip won't arrive until the second half, Intel and Microsoft representatives said. Meanwhile, compatible production versions of Linux from Red Hat, Turbolinux and Caldera Systems are scheduled to debut at the same time as the chip itself, the Linux companies said."

Resources

Linux Laptop SuperGuide (ZDNet). The staff at the Linux Hardware Database have put together the ultimate guide to finding the perfect Linux laptop.

Reviews

Helix Gnome: Linux on the Desktop, Part 1 (Computer Source). The Helix Gnome installer and basic features are examined in this article from Computer Source Magazine. "This is an impressive desktop. The icons are beautiful, and the menus are well-coordinated. Although the default color scheme was pleasing, I was able after a few minutes to choose an alternative one I liked better. The menus, except for the inclusion of no less than five text editors/word processors, was complete and yet not overbearing."

A Sneak Preview of Emacs 21.0 (LinuxPlanet). LinuxPlanet plays with an emacs 21.0 prerelease. "On starting the program up, I immediately understood where the rumors of Emacs' GNOMEification had come from: where the program used to present a very sparse, black and white window with simple, unadorned, menus it now has a toolbar providing a set of basic buttons familiar to anyone who's ever used GNOME or a GTK app. The splash screen, I also noticed, showed something besides fixed-width fonts for a change: Emacs has support for scaled, proportional fonts."

Miscellaneous

Linux is too much (ZDNet). Here's a ZDNet opinion piece claiming that Linux is too big and too complicated. "Does the average user really need a bunch of terminal apps, several hex editors, a mail and Web server, and a bevy of compilers? Heck, the average developer doesn't even need all that."

Instant Messaging on GNU/Linux (Linux Orbit). John Gowin from Linux Orbit writes about various Instant Messaging programs for Linux. "In this article series, we're going to take a look at some of the IM clients available for GNU/Linux and rate them. Were also going to look at some of the new universal clients available for GNU/Linux that let you use AOL, MSN, Yahoo and ICQ all at the same time, with only one client. In Part 1 of this series, we'll look at the AOL IM service and the Linux clients available."

Their gain, your pain (ZDNet). ZDNet's Evan Leibovitch looks at "Open licensing" schemes. "So what is an 'open license'? The term apparently evolved from what most folks refer to as volume purchasing: buying software licenses in bulk without the extra boxes and CD-ROMs. With an open license, instead of all that packaging, all you need to keep track of are license numbers or unlocking keycodes - and those can even be delivered by e-mail."

Section Editor: Forrest Cook

December 28, 2000