The Linux Weekly News links page

Last updated February 17th, 1998
...not that we want you to go away, but nonetheless here's a list of other Linux resources on the net. There are a lot of them!

Documentation sites

The granddaddy of all Linux documentation sites remains the Linux Documentation Project This should probably be your first stop no matter what you are looking for.

If you're interested in IP multicasting, you can learn a lot from the Linux Multicast FAQ, even though it is somewhat dated. General information on the multicast backbone is at www.mbone.com.

Having trouble with large jobs dying with signal 11 or some other, similarly helpful message? Your problem is likely hardware. Head over to the Signal 11 FAQ to learn about just how many things can go wrong with your computer, and how to track them down.

The Linux Laptop page is the definitive guide to running Linux on laptop computers. Don't even think of buying a laptop without checking it out here first.

Basic Linux Training is a great place for people brand-new to linux. It provides an on-line training course, a good reading list and a number of downloadable lessons on various aspects of setting up and running Linux.

The Linux Kernel FAQ. Mandatory reading before trying to work with the kernel source, or before participating in the related mailing lists.

Also relevent to kernel programming, of course, is the venerable Kernel Hacker's Guide.

The Linux Resource Kit advertises itself as "News, Resources, and Documentation for using Linux". They have some good "HOWTO" type documentation for some areas (i.e. networking), pointers to mailing lists, and so on.

Josh's Linux Guide is a searchable collection of HOWTO's and other documents.

Linux news sites

LinuxWorld is the new kid on the block, bringing the resources of the mainstream trade press to Linux. They appear to be off to a good start.

The folks at slashdot often carry Linux-related news in their mix.

The Linux reviews and articles site contains links to references to Linux in the press. A good site to know what is being said out there.

Red Hat Software maintains a news page on their site. This news tends to be a bit Red Hat centric, as one would expect, but there is a lot of good stuff there.

Linux Focus is a bimonthly magazine dedicated to Linux issues. A unique feature is that they publish in several languages simultaneously; currently English, and Spanish, are supported, with French, Italian and Turkish in the works.

Freshmeat is a daily news service, seemingly focussed on up-to-the-minute software release announcements.

Linux News is a big page with one-liners for recent announcements and Linux-related articles in the online press.

OS News is dedicated to operating systems in general. They don't seem to be achieving the level of content that they have been aiming for, but that may change.

Access to software

A crucial source for cryptographic software is the Replay.com Red Hat Crypto Archive. They maintain RPM's (no .deb's, sorry) for a wide range of cryptographic software, and pointers to the sources.

The Linux Software Database provides a searching capability in a database of software. There doesn't seem to be a way to just browse through the listings, though. (They say they'll add it in the future).

This specialized site handles Window managers and related stuff only. Included are feature comparisons, textures, announcements, and so on.

A German site dedicated to Netscape plugins that work with Linux. There are more of these than you might expect. [Link currently broken. 1999/07/28]

The Linux Software Map has two searchable web sites: http://www.ngs.fi/lsm/ or http://www.boutell.com/lsm/. Or you can download the LSM database from http://www.execpc.com/lsm/ .

Here is a user-recommended RPM Repository. Lots of very nice features!

Scientific Applications on Linux is an outstanding resource for anything even remotely science oriented. They list both commercial and free software, with descriptions of each. Mirror sites all over the globe.

The Linux Applications and Utilities page seems to be a very complete listing of available software packages, with links to each package's home site. Their listing is hierarchical, and browsable. No searching capability.

Looking for games? Check out the Linux Game Tome. They include sources, ratings, and screen shots.

Linux Links by Goob is a large listing of free software for linux, in a hierarchical mode.

The Linux Software Encyclopedia is a large, alphabetical listing of available software (with descriptions) and a search capability.

The Linux Archive Search allows searching of a number of large software archives on the net. Useful when there is one particular thing that you're looking for and just can't find.

Kernel development projects and ports

The Linux network drivers page is where Donald Becker, the source of many, many ethernet drivers for Linux, keeps his code and documentation.

Real Time Linux for those of you trying to run your nuclear reactors with your Linux box.

The Linux/Microcontroller Project is working to port Linux to systems without a memory management unit. Their current emphasis is on Motorola 68K-based systems for now, and they have gotten a Palm Pilot to boot...

The Linux/SGI project. Includes status, FAQ, sources and binaries, etc. A comprehensive site for folks wanting to run on SGI hardware.

Jim Mintha's SPARC Linux page. He includes relevant postings from the SPARC Linux mailing lists, if you're looking for the highlights.

The ERAU SPARC Linux page. This one contains a bunch of software pointers, but seems to be somewhat out of date.

Application development projects

SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy) is an API and set of utilities providing access to raster scanning hardware.

A related endeavor is the As Yet Unnamed OCR Project. They aim to produce a free optical character recognition system for Linux (and other) systems.

Samba is a file server using the SMB protocol, meaning that it can serve to Windows95 and NT machines. It's an essential PC integration tool, for those of us having to deal with those things.

The GIMP. If you haven't checked out this package, you should. Top-quality image editing/manipulation, with no end of wild effects. As with its commercial rivals, the initial learning curve is kind of steep, but it repays the effort.

Linux-friendly hardware vendors

Net Express specializes in high-end systems with Linux (or a number of other OS's) preinstalled. OK, it's not so "hard". Nonetheless, you can get your Linux "don't fear the penguins" T-shirt here.

Commercial software for Linux

Christopher Browne maintains an extensive Linux Commercial Vendors page. There are not only links to various vendors, but he has additional information to help you to choose between them as well.

The main page for the Open Sound System. This is a commercial version of the soundcard drivers that are part of the kernel; they claim easier setup and a larger set of cards supported.

The Linux Mall is a large reseller of software for Linux. If you want it, they probably have it.

The folks at Solid have a database engine that runs under Linux.

Non-English sites

Nouvelles neuves de Linux is a French-language monthly newsletter on events in the Linux world.

Another French site is La Page Linux a Jean Charles. It's mostly a set of links to other French language resources, as far as I can tell with my bad French.

From Romania, we get a flashy Linux site. The link was slow from here; perhaps it will be faster on the other side of the "pond".

Linux Magazin is a German monthly. It's a paper-based publication, but they have a selection of their articles on the web site.

And here's another!, Linux links both English and French. We had to mention them since they gave us such a nice comment!

A Spanish language site is here. <Blink> is obnoxious in any language, alas.

Here is what appears to be a Netherlands Linux User Group.

The Italian Linux Society. This one seems to be made up mostly of procedures and rules; I'm not sure what else they do.

A more interesting Italian site is Pluto. They have a great deal of documentation in Italian, a newsletter, and so on. The best Italian Linux site we've found.

Web sites for various Linux distributions and projects

Caldera is a well-known and popular commercial Linux distribution.

Debian is committed to remaining a 100% free Linux.

The Deutsche Linux Distribution is a commercial german linux distribution, with support for intel and alpha platforms.

Red Hat's distribution is one of the best.

SEUL stands for Simple End-User Linux. It is a project, not a product, but one we'd like to see make it.

The Stampede Linux distribution will use a pentium-optimized version of gcc to build the system; they claim a 10-30% improvement in performance that way.

S.u.S.E. was originally based on Slackware, but this European-based distribution has a life all its own now.

Miscellaneous sites

Seeing a void in the readiness of Linux for business environments, some folks have set up the Linux Business Solutions Project. They are trying to bring together business-related resources, provide tutorials, etc. A very useful site.

How was the famous penguin logo made? Larry Ewing tells how he did it using the (outstanding) GIMP tool.

How about sticky penguins? The Linux Sticker Movement aims to get Linux stickers on computers worldwide.

Here's a site with a bunch of Linux advocacy banners. The idea is great, but unfortunately these folks are much enamored of animated GIFs. Something a bit less distracting would be nice.

Looking for a mailing list? The Linux Mailing List Page has them all. It can be a bit slow coming over from Korea, but it's worth the wait.

Lots and lots of music-related software, source, etc., here at Hitsquad's site .

Linux Online is a general purpose site, with links, distribution information, etc. As of 1/29/98, their most recent "news" entry was November 14, 1997.

Ray's Linux Site is a graphics-heavy site with links to networking information, distributions, and various packages of interest.

The Linux Resource Exchange is a link site specializing in documentation and kernel information.

Linux Directory Services maintains a database of Linux users and developers. A search capability helps you to find the person or product that you might be looking for.

The Linux Sound Page refurbished near the end of April 1998 and added a large number of links to other Sound and MIDI software.

CPU Review presents the latest news in PC microprocessors and related hardware.

Other Linux Link sites

The Linux Web Watcher is a large, hierarchical listing of web sites. Their twist is that they also track the last modification date for each site, so you can see which have something new.

The Penn State University Math Department maintains a Linux Links page. It's a manageable set of links in a hierarchical mode, with a "link of the week" and a few other things.

The Linux Web Guide is a German links site with over 65 links and growing. It comes with both a hierarchical organization and a search engine.