Mr. Pliant asks: "I'd like to set up a CVS server on my Linux box but I'm having some trouble finding the docs to do so. The stuff on Cyclic's site was a little crytpic and the info wasn't organized very well. Anyone have any pointers? "

Almost everybody seems to have submitted this CNN "Ignorant journalist has a tough time installing Linux" story. I'm a little tired of this theme, but decided to run it not only because so many of you submitted it, but also out of nostalgia; I wrote something similar myself back when Slashdot was so fresh and new that "getting slashdotted" meant maybe 200 e-mails max, and now I'm a full-time Linux user. So please be kind to this poor overworked journalist. Everybody (even you) started out ignorant and had to learn, right? ;-)

Lots and lots of Slashdot readers have either sent in this ZDNet article or a direct link to the Jesux homepage." It's a hoax, folks. Think: if you were a Christian believer, would you name your Linux distribution something so close to "Jesus Sucks?" The concept isn't even original; variations on this theme have been floating around the Net for years because of Unix and its "kills" and "aborts" and "daemons."

This week's Slashdot interview subject is Eric S. Raymond. You already know who he is, and may even know that his new book, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, subtitled Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary, will be published by O'Reilly in October. We anticipate lots of questions for Eric. Please try to avoid the obvious ones he's answered thousands of times already, and try to ask only one question per post! We'll forward the selected 10 - 15 questions deemed most interesting by Slashdot moderators and/or editors to him Tuesday afternoon. Answers will appear Friday.

While I was unaware that this was even a problem, Cygnus Solutions announced EL/IX API which is "...a major step to pre-empt the fragmentation of embdedded Linux..." Essentially, it's an open source, configurable API that lets developers create software for embedded devices running Linux or Cygnus "eCos" OS. Standardization is a good idea, I suppose, and embedded seems to be the way the wind is blowing.

DaveHowe writes "Interesting speculative piece in ZDnet about SUN's long term plans for StarOffice and of course it's development into StarPortal; It's a little TOO anti-SUN not to be taken with a pinch of salt, but does raise a couple of interesting points:That the licence for current downloads is non-redistributable, and requires registration, and That there is no guarantee that Sun won't withdraw StarOffice at some point after StarPortal is active, leaving the Linux community high and dry."

Uart writes "Linus Torvalds, is the youngest recipient (at 29) ever of The University of Stockholm's honorary doctorate. Read about it here." (From Linux Today).

Doran writes "The U.S. Dept. of Defense is showing off its new $15,000,000 Computer Forensics Lab and it looks like they'll be using a Beowulf cluster to gleen as much info as possible from the computers they confiscate. Here is the story from Nando. An interesting aside is that they seem to be using Clinton's 'approval' last week to allow sale of more powerful encryption software as a justification to ask for $80,000,000 more for the Center. " Beowulf cluster mentioned, but not Linux, oddly enough.

RayChuang turned us on to this ZDnet story about the Linux Clustering Cabal project, which, Ray says, is "...the one that will allow Linux server clustering of many server machines. Sounds like just the thing to finally get eBay working reliabily and also make John C. Dvorak eat his words about the deficiencies of Linux."

mrflip writes "On September 20th, PCWeek announced a $1000 contest to be the first to hack either the linux or the NT server they set up. Well, four short days later, the linux box seems to have been compromised. The winner states "Hi guys, It's been a nice challenge, now send me the cash :)." He explained that the exploit was not a linux feature but was due to a closed source CGI script with improper security checks. " Going to require Solomonic ruling - the intent was to test the two OSes, and this is obviously not an OS test.

elemur asks: "I was wondering if there are any projects to expand the use of XML in Linux? There are alot of areas where XML could be more easily and consistently used than continuing making more and stranger configuration files. Many configs could probably fall under a generalized standard application config DTD, and applications that needed something more targeted could supply their own. Some sort of DTD repository could be setup on the machine to handle this. Then, apps just need to use libxml (or whatever it would be called) to handle the reading and parsing. It would seem to make things much more consistent. Has anybody looked into this sort of thing?" It's a good thought. And a standardized configuration file format might be the thing to reduce some of the complexity most folks find in Linux. What do you all think about the capabilities of XML?

Magorak writes "There's an interesting article I found here about Linus Torvalds' take on the future of the software and hardware industry. There's tidbits about Linux's future itself, the competition with Microsoft, and about customized software becoming more important. It also gives us an interesting view on how Linus sees the future of computers and technology. "

vorsprung directed my attention span of a gnat to Linux Device Drivers Demystified, an interesting tutorial giving an overview of Linux device drivers (No kidding). As well, they've got devtective, a search facility to check any (Surprise!) devices you want to check to see if they are supported currently. Lastly, for those of you who really want to get into it, read the review of Linux Device Drivers.

ColPanek writes "Surprise: The newest planned Linux-related IPO is not VA Linux Systems or LinuxCare, but a company called LinuxOne, which apparently has been shipping its own distro since way back in September 1999 ... This summary of their preliminary prospectus says LinuxOne didn't disclose any underwriters for the proposed offering."

Booker writes "Red Hat, Inc. has released their 2nd quarter financial results. You can see the press release here. Operating at a loss, but then we all knew that would happen for a while. Revenues up 95% over last year. Kinda ironic that an Open Source company has to join The Man on Wall Street before their balance sheet becomes publicly available. :)

Jeff Heinen asks: "I was wondering if there exists any documentation (books, websites, etc.) covering the practical matters of organizing and managing an open source project. I'm looking for details about things like communication, organizational structure, versioning and release management, etc. I've looked around and so far haven't found anything really useful. "

asdren writes "WinLinux 2000 has entered the final beta stage. This sounds like an interesting option for current Windows users who are interested in taking the Linux plunge but don't have the time/patience/guts to partition drives and configure drivers. " has anyone tried this yet? I'd be curious as to how the installation/running of the system is.

Cyberllama writes "John C. Dvorak's latest commentary is up at ZDnet. " I've been seeing this story came across quite a bit today. Dvorak offers an insightful commentary on Linux and "The Big Time" (He uses IRC servers as an example), although one that I don't necessarily agree with. In a switch from the normal take, he sees strong growth on the desktop, while predicting Linux won't grow in the workhorse server area much. Can anyone confirm or deny the allegation the IRC servers and Linux mentioned in the piece? Update: 09/21 06:29 by H :Click below - proof is below that Linux does at least some of the machines.

Sand_Man wrote to us with the latest public relations stunt with crack-a-machine trials. This is a month long trial, pitting Linux vs. NT boxes against each other. Details are in the story, but does this whole thing strike everyone else as tired PR stunts now?

Byte.com is featuring a column by Jon Udell regarding Linux and databases. Using comments from users, other tech industry people and personal industry, Udell takes a nice walk-through the closed-source databases, as well as documentation issues.