Unknwn writes "RedHat has announced that they are now splitting Powertools into three separate products. One is RedHat Variety Pack which has RedHat 5.2 for Alpha, Intel, and Sparc along with the source code. Linux Off-Line is mirrors of sunsite, mozilla, GNU, and X. The third product is the Powertools 5.2 which contains many software packages in RPM format. "

Jacob Lundqvist wrote in to tell us that a report about Linux was shown on prime-time Swedish television. Hit below to read his report.

Chris Rogers writes "There is another pro-linux article on CNN talking about how Linux is up and comming to the desktop market. Check it out Here " Swingman wrote in to say that CNNs Headline News did a spot on the air of Linux as well.

Mr_E writes "Check out www.forbes.com - not a bad review of Linux. It's focused on building a PC without any 'help' from good 'ol Bill. " One of the better articles I've seen. Worth a look if you like reading those "linux is good" articles that seem to be appearing on just about every site on earth.

An anonymous contributor advised us of the following: "Eddie is a suite of three software applications that together make web sites robust and scalable. It consists of a load-balancing DNS server, an admission control front-end and an IP migrating facility. It contain lots of goodies but the best things are that it works on Linux and that it is Open Source. " Interestingly it was initiated by Ericsson Telecom AB, and the NT version will only be available later. I guess this also means Erlang works on Linux!

Oracle is to release Oracle 8i with the new iFS filesystem tomorrow. As this article argues, iFS will lead to a commoditization of the operating system (in particular NT): iFS goes beyond traditional filesystems by adding database capabilities, enabling better search and revision control management. However, these iFS' can be mounted like a traditional NFS server, reducing complexity for IT staff, while keeping the improvements transparent to users who don't want to know. Interestingly, the low cost of Linux would be an advantage to Oracle which is not interested in promoting OS capabilities. This leads the author to speculation of further Oracle-Linux announcements. Link found on Linux Today.

Yanni wrote in with a blatant rumor that we offer no proof of. Take it or leave it. He says "Macromedia is testing Linux Shockwave and Flash. A Macromedia pal of mine discovered last week that Linux versions of Shockwave and Flash would begin company-internal testing soon. No word o n an external release date (beta or otherwise). Obviously, I can't offer any proof, so you'll have to take this as a rumor. " Anyone at Macromedia willing to confirm or deny this? I know you're reading... *grin*

Sean Kelly sent me this distress call: "I've recently traded an older computer in for a Sony VAIO MicroTower PCV-E204. I took the old hard disk and did a 'cp -a /' to transfer the filesystem to the new Sony box. The Sony also comes with a crappy LT WinModem so I put my ZOOM FAX/Modem V.34 PLUS (model 2836A) on the serial port. On the new Sony box, I am having serious problems with deadlocking sockets. Transfers start out at a normal speed but quickly decrease speeds down to as low as 60-70bytes/second. It seems to be more of a problem on incoming data, and it seems to be on a per-socket basis which leads me to believe that there is something software related going on." Click below for more...

Chris Southern writes "If there is one thing in this world that makes Bill Gates nervous, it must be Linux. WebCMO, a marketing research group, did a survey on who used Linux. " This is a cool survey, except that I've never heard of WebCMO... Has anyone had any experience with them?

Bob Fisher writes "Bob Cringely's (PBS Online column briefly summarizes the contents of the Microsoft Halloween document, and critiques the Linux community for its response to it. His message (borrowing from the Nemsis air racing team) -- "Chase the dream, not the competition." "

Kevin Cullis writes "I work as an Account Manager at CompUSA in Denver and I'm seeing the results of Linux within my store (we sell out of Red Hat within a week of receiving it). My question for Linux folks is: If you were to demo Linux and its applications for people to see as an alternative to Microsoft, what hardware and software products would you intall. Remember, this is PRIMARILY for business (including SOHO) with home stuff thrown in as needed. Also, since I'm at the Park Meadows Store, please call me to give me a hand with this info. Lastly, this request is ONLY to see the feasabiltiy of the project (as well as manager's approval) and to get an idea of what would be needed to make it happen. Any and all suggestions and expertise would be greatly appreciated in helping customers with emerging technologies. Kevin Cullis Account Manager, CompUSA 303-645-1517 "

CRN has an article about Linus which is rather glowing: Linus has his head screwed on right. Bob Young's comment "He's a fundamentally secure human being" probably explains to a large extent Linux' success. Sounds like we should all start eating oatmeal!

Linus was kind enough to bestow upon us Linux 2.1.127 just minutes ago. Looks like more ports merging (esp. PPC and sparc64), ISDN and hfs updates, and knfsd upates seem to be the major fixes. I guess Alan's merging of Olaf's NFS patches didn't make this one, which is quite a large patch: 256k compressed (354 files changed).

An anonymous contributor wrote to tell us "Sysdeco Mimer AB, Uppsala, Sweden, will announce a port to Linux of their rdbms MIMER at the Internet World Sweden Expo on nov the 10-12th. See: link " Well... it's in Swedish, but I see the word Linux on the page.

Here's a small roundup of the Linux and Schools news this week. Wired covered the Mexican School story today, and reveals that the most ambitious US project to introduce Linux into schools is in Oregon's Multnomah County which will install 30 Linux servers in high schools next month. Anyone have any info and numbers on the use of Linux in other schools or universities? Apparently schools can get help at The Linux Schools Project. In France, the sale by Dell of PC's without OS to the CNRS is making its competition think. The CNRS tends to be a trend-setter for all other French research and higher education facilities, which number around 300000 users. To address the needs of Linux users such as these, IBM has set up support services for its Linux using customers, and Dell has signed a partnership agreement with Mandala International (apparently a Free Software specialist VAR).

Just in case you didn't listen to this ~30 minutes show here. You'll hear Dan Shafer & Brian Cooley explains regarding the Linux & GUI/commercial issue, the Beowolf project, and the "Halloween" documents (1&2)

Linux Today tried to verify allegations published in the Register that the OMG (responsible for the CORBA spec) did not like Linux because it was free. Chris Rhodes of the OMG denied this in this statement saying that the Register misconstrued the role their source played at the OMG.

Sun has loaned the Debian project three (yes, I said three) Ultra 30 workstations. They are very nice - 1MB cache, 128MB RAM, SCSI, etc. One will be hosted at KachinaTech, while the other two will be sent to Debian developers who do frequent bootstraps and the likes. Have a look at the Debian UltraLinux page. Sorta makes me wish I was leading the UltraLinux port...

Per Wigren was the first reader to write in to tell us that Linux.org has apparently solved their network problems, and the sites usual content is now back online.

Russ Magee was the first of many of you to write in about Robert Cringely's analysis of the Halloween I document. He thinks the OpenSource community has no cause for concern, and he reminds us to stay focussed on Linux, not Microsoft. Karsten M. Self wrote "The article Art of War by Varian and Carl Shapiro is a good introduction to the basic strategies involved in a standards war. The book Rules by the same authors is a very good read with a lot ideas pertinent to the current debate.". However Ben Woodard writes "I was talking to the Access tech support people here at Cisco about Halloween and how MS is planning to use embrace and extend, Em&Ex, to capture the market. They told me how Microsoft has a broken version of CHAP negotiation in the PPP protocol and if you want CHAP to really work you must use Microsoft's proprietary version of CHAP. It got me wondering if other people know about places where Microsoft has used Em&Ex but it is burried so deep in the protocols that most people don't know it exists. It would be interesting to try to compile a list of these little known incidents of Em&Ex. " Obviously it is impossible to know whether Ben's example is an example of flawed testing or real intent to break CHAP, but were serious evaluations of OS's to include standards-compliance tests, an interesting picture might emerge. Not only are standards an issue, but so are patents. So far, Linux has been lucky: many Unix patents have elapsed. Patents are something to mull over, while hacking.