Debian GNU/Linux 2.1, aka slink, was released last night (again). It contains well over 2500 packages, and packages for GNOME and KDE, though not included in the distro, are available. Intel, Alpha, SPARC, and m68k are the supported architechtures. Potato (2.2) should be frozen shortly. More details and CD order form at netgod.net. Congrats, guys!

An anonymous reader sent us a link to an article that expresses the most amazing cluelessness about Linux I've seen yet outside of the creative panel that brings us Jesse Berst. A few good points, and a bunch of obnoxious flame dragging statements that make me irritable. It's like he's trying to bait Slashdot readers. Don't take the bait. This one isn't worth it.

At the end of this interview with Michael Dell: Where is [alternative operating system] Linux going? A: I've been surprised. We had a commercial customer order 250 machines with Linux on them to run a retail network of stores. There is growing demand there. We're going to start selling Linux to single-party users very soon. Q: It's going to be on the menu? A: Yes. You'll go to Dell, pull down "operating system," and click "Linux."

An anonymous reader pointed us to this linux today bit that points to Varkon which has GPLd their Linux CAD software. We definitely need some CAD round these parts. Drawing wireframes in the Gimp doesn't work nearly as well as you'd think.

Craigthulu asks: "I would like to install Linux from the ground up without using a specific (i.e. someone else's) distribution (except a root/boot combination to get things initially copied). I want to do this so that I become intimately familiar with what exactly is on my computer rather than rely on a bunch of (probably extraneous) software packaged up by someone else. Hopefully, this completely DIY method will force me to learn everything How do I go about finding out what I need as a bare minimum? Is there a distribution that would actually meet these critieria?"

David DeGeorge writes "From the San Francisco Examiner; Rebecca Eisenberg describing the controversy over playing with the Big Boys. Most correct newspaper article I have read about Open Source. She didn't even call Stallman a genius when mentioning the MacArthur award. "

PC Magazine Online has published some articles about Open Source, Linux world and reviews of Slackware, Caldera, Debian, Redhat, Gecko, and Apache. Worth a read. Those articles will be published on the next issue of PC Magazine in the March 23rd issue. (thanks to Eli Marmor for telling me about it).

John Fulmer sent us a link to LinuxHQ where you can read that Toshiba has released devel info for the IRDa on their laptops. I'm hearing other rumblings about Toshiba making an about-face as well, but nothing substantial yet. They really ought to see the light- those little Prot

An anonymous reader writes "Thomas Fink and Yong Mao of Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory have discovered six new "aesthetically pleasing" tie knots. Now that the perfect tie knot has been mathematically proven, will geeks everywhere flock to ties?" No.

Tom writes "Just saw this on Linux Weekly News: A magazine in India (called "PC Quest") apparently just carried RedHat 5.2++ on their March cover CD. Claims the focus of the issue is corporate (whatever that means), and that the articles would be available on their website RSN. Apparently they do it every year - accompanying press release claims quarter of a million Linux CDs so far."

Jonathan Ocab wrote in to tell us that Red Hat has redone their site. You'll notice a summary of both Freshmeat and Slashdot stories on the page, linkage to User Friendly, as well as lots of javascript mouseovers to consume bandwidth.

Later today, Slashdot will be giving out its awards for the LinuxWorld Expo- brace yourself. To help tide you over, we have several stories about the show. The first is from FWMiller who sent us a Salon Article about the event. TheMystic sent us a yahoo headline page from the show. and Mtn_Dewd sent us a CNN Story and a wired story.

Well, they've given out the award for show favorites here at LWCE. Click below to check out who won. One hint-some yahoos with a web site picked up an award.

Migrant Programmer writes "Opera Software has finally announced a prototype of Opera for Linux. It will be shown at the Expo this week.. a speedy, efficient browser for a speedy, efficient operating system. Check their news page and the Project Magic page for more information. "

Anonymous Coward writes "Slink's release has been delayed one week due to a problem with dpkg. Dpkg can fail when the locale is set to a non-default setting. Here's the news release. " Those nice guys over at Debian are actually right next to us in Boothland. Anyway, they're saying that they just want to be sure about upgrading, and working with folks with laptops. Alright, all of you who keep e-mailing me-I know this was annouced before. But I figured we'd do something for the Debian guys, and assure everyone it's not a big deal, and the reasons.

selanna writes "In The Journal of Electronic Publishing (March, 1999 : Volume 4, Issue 3) Red Hat's Bob Young writes about "How Red Hat Software Stumbled across a New Economic Model and Helped Improve an Industry". Looking at it, it reads much like the Young article in Open Sources.

An an anonymous reader linked us to Quinn and Mark's LinuxWorld Page which among other things, features several pictures from the Cafe Babylon Slashdot party on monday, tons of pictures from the floor, and more. Definitely worth a read. I'm still hoping to have a chance to write a real report, but our booth seems to be a circus. I haven't even had enough time to wander around and collect my share of the free booty.

C|Net Radio is at Linuxworld Expo, and they have now the keynotes in Real Audio. First is Dr. Michael Cowpland, President & CEO, Corel Corporation, who talks about Wine and Quattro, Word Perfect, and the Second is Mark Jarvis, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, Oracle, who speaks about Oracle 8i and Linux. The third Real Audio clip will be Linus speaking about Linux on past, present and future and it will be at 6:30 PM (clip will be posted a bit later, and information can be found here. I hope ZDNet will have clips with higher sound quality (and maybe Video), but currently they don't have anything yet (you can check it here for updates). Enjoy. Update: 03/03 12:08 by CT : Linus also broke the keynote attendance record- it was Steve Jobs with 6,000. Linus had 7,000.

abcess writes "Here's a link to the story. link It seems to me like they're starting to try the same stuff they did when other OSes started challenging MS, saying good stuff about them, but then saying, 'but they really have no chance'. "

An anonymous reader wrote in to say that Phil Karn has posted a patch to Linux 2.2.2 that will disable the PSN. He says "I'm hoping that this patch (or equivalent) will soon make it into the standard Linux kernel so as to dissuade any application vendors who might be tempted to use the serial number misfeature."