Dan Yocum wrote in to let us know what's going on with Linus and Fermi today. As the updates says below, the speech is not open to the public-click below for more information.

A regular reader wrote in with this bit: "Linus Torvalds will be the speaker at Fermilab in Batavia, IL, 30 miles west of Chicago, on Sunday, April 18, at 5:30 pm. He will talk on Penguins & Computer Chips with a special introduction by John maddog Hall. Fermilab is open to the public during the day. " Wish I could be there :) Anyway, I remember reading something about Fermilab building a big cluster with Red Hat. Anyone care to refresh my memory? Update: 04/18 01:31 by H : Note: This is not open to the public. The lab is, but the speech is not...so, put your keys back on the counter, and think jealous thoughts.

Some guy named Chris was the first to write in to say Linus has blessed us with 2.2.6. Additionally, Alan has already posted 2.2.6ac1, and the mirrors will hopefully be synced by now. Cutting Edge Linux has the changelog.

unitron writes "Nobody loves you when you're not down and out, apparently. A not overly long article in the business section of today's (4/16) News and Observer talks about how Red Hat's certification program is getting them compared (unfavorably) to Microsoft, mentions the fears of some that certification efforts will become fragmented and also discuses the Linux Professional Institute certification program plans. "

MojoT sent us a link to Jon "Maddog" Hall's bit The Economics of Linux that appears in Performance Computing. Talks about why Linux is taking off and much more.

st. augustine writes "A group of researchers at the University of Michigan School of Information has started a project called the Linux/UNIX Independent Group for Usability Information. Their goal: "to couple the power of UNIX with user interfaces that are consciously designed to allow novices to become experts without removing any of the existing functionality." They look serious. " Check out the Salon article that ran earlier today-they're mentioned in there as well. I've actually talked with those folks as well-they're smart cookies.

Matt Welsh sent us a link to a Salon story on Why Linux Needs Help. It features a lot of truth, and poses the simple question, can free software geeks write software for dumb users? Has a spiffy penguin graphic and a lot of good points (most of which aren't new to us, but they are well written).

SFraser sent us a link to a pretty decent critique of Mindcraft's benchmark which claimed NT was faster. Monday's story about the tests here on Slashdot about the report was one of the most active Slashdot stories ever.

sean dreilinger writes "Hotel franchisor eyes low cost, stability of Linux, but says the OS has its drawbacks. Cendant Corp., the world's largest franchisor of hotels, is rolling out Linux servers at about 4,000 hotels to run the company's hotel management software. " It's on the server side, but still a large rollout, nonetheless...

BonesBro writes "Netgem is releasing a new set-top internet appliance (remember WebTV?) with a twist...this baby runs on Linux. Among other things, it claims to support 640x480 resolution with no onscreen deformation. Shipdate is give as Q4, but no price was listed. Check out the press release. "

Mike_Miller writes "The lastest Mindcraft Study claims that Microsoft Windows NT Server is 2.5 times faster than Linux as a file server and 3.7 times faster as a web server. Their white paper shows that NT beats Linux on every test. " Anyone have a critique?

chrisd writes "Anyone folowing the blowtorches being wielded lately in the Linux community might want to check out this saturday Wired News article featuring some commentary on the latest from Eric and Bruce."

agermain writes "VARBusiness magazine is featuring a cover story on Linux in its April 12 issue. It details Linux's growing acceptance in small business and how value-added resellers and consultants can profit installing and integrating the OS for their customers. Also online is a Q&A with Linus Torvalds, the Wizard of OS, plus a pretty funny profile of Torvalds by the two reporters who interviewed him. The online Linux page rounds out the package with recent stories for resellers and useful Linux links. "

jgalun sent us a ZDNet article about Linux Hackers going from the underground to Linux Day Jobs. They talk about VA Research, SGI, LinuxCare and assorted other companies that many of us lust for employment at. They don't mention BSI though *grin*.

scenic writes "A Washington "Think Tank" has a report complaining about the new "Assessing Microsoft" conference. In particular, they have an issue with the OSS remedy that many, including Nader and Love, have proposed (i.e. opening up the Windows source code). There is quite a bit of stuff concerning Linux (about a quarter of the long article) and why OSS and Linux are temporary phenomenons created by "media interest in identifying a viable competitor to Microsoft." "

An anonymous reader sent us a link to Ace's Hardware and suggests checking it out. The site looks pretty good- similar to Tom's Hardware, but with some other different stuff. Check it out.

Scott Stevenson writes "A News.com article describes a study which dings Linux for poor SMP support, access to only 1 or 2GB of memory, and lack of clustering. Of course, it doesn't say anything about NT's uptime issues on a per-machine basis." Also says that hard data isn't available on Linux being reasonably crash proof.

An anonymous reader sent us a fairly positive article about Linux but written primarily from the perspective of a Mac advocate. Talks a lot about KDE, the usability issues and similiarities between Mac and Linux advocacy.

Well, I seem to be the Santa Claus of conference exhibit-only passes today. As the title would make obvious, we've got fifty free LinuxExpo passes. The conference is in Raleigh-Durham, May 18-22. Click below if you want address information and such.

sallgeud sent us a CNN story that poses the age old question is commercialism good for Linux? Its a pretty good summary type article of the issues. Talks about the fears of a single distribution taking control, tag-along software, and has several Linus quotes.