Warrior-GS writes "Transgaming is working on a process that allows Linux users to play Windows games. According to their CEO, Gavriel State: "Essentially, TransGaming's work allows gamers to take off-the-shelf Windows games and run them directly under Linux. It won't run every game out there at first, but 100% compatibility is our long-term goal. To accomplish this, we have been working on a new Linux implementation of the DirectX multimedia APIs. Our work is closely tied with the Wine project -- an Open Source effort to implement the Microsoft Windows APIs on Linux -- in essence, a Windows compatibility layer. Wine is not an emulator in the traditional sense -- it doesn't emulate a CPU or any other hardware -- it loads and executes Windows programs directly on your Linux hardware without the need for any Microsoft code to be installed at all." The whole interview can be found at GameSpy."

An anonymous submitter sent in: "I'm currently looking into purchasing a new laptop. This machine will run SuSE linux and I will be developing some pretty processor intensive applications(genetic algorithms, mathmatical simulations,etc.) so raw speed is the major factor. I've been searching for information on the relative speeds of an 850Mhz P3 vs a 500Mhz G4 but all tests I've seen are on the 'native' OS (OS9/X vs WinMe/2000). Has anyone out there done some tests running the same OS (linux/openBSD)?"

Newsforge has an article covering a talk given by two of the developers working on NSA's security-enhanced Linux. It seems the NSA has plans to offer kernel code to implement mandatory access controls, a level of system control which goes beyond the normal user-based permissions. Sure, the code would be vetted thoroughly before it could ever make it into the kernel, but....

jfinke writes "Linux Today is running an article about Redhat's financial situation. The company reported an adjusted net loss of $600,000, or break even per share, for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2001, compared to an adjusted net loss of $5.6 million, or $0.04 per share, for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2000. On a reported basis, the net loss was $24.2 million, or $0.14 per share, compared with a net loss of $24.6 million, or $0.17 per share in fiscal 2000." Congrats to all the folks there.

Blind RMS Groupie writes "According to this article at EE Times, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is developing a voice/data unit for infantry soldiers based on multiple StrongARM processors and embedded Linux. The radios will link together in what is characterized as a "mobile, ad-hoc, peer-to-peer network that uses frequency-hopping technology to avoid communication intercepts and location-finding capability.""

jeffersonebell writes "Today Turbolinux becomes the latest software company to pull its IPO. Story is here. They sight "current market conditions" as the major reason behind the move." I suspect that most people had figured this would be the case - now isn't the ideal time for an IPO.

Paul Nelson, writing "We are educators who think using open source software in public agencies is the responsible thing to do," says "We have released a turn-key terminal server distribution based on RH7 and the LTSP packages. Simply install Linux and start plugging in your diskless terminals. Very little or no configuration is required. We've included some cool educational software and have (with permission) bundled StarOffice as part of the install. To kick things off we have 1000 Intel Celeron processors to give to schools building Linux terminals. We also have some Xeon processors to help schools building servers. Our goal is to have 1000 terminals in 100 schools by one day (July 4th.) For more info including links to download the CD-Install image (650mb) head for http://www.riverdale.k12.or.us/linux/." Any parents (or other aggrieved taxpayers) out there might be interested in showing this off at a PTA meeting. You may also be interested in the Simple End User Linux and the Debian Jr. projects.

An anonymous user wrote in to tell us (and Timothy called RH and confirmed, this change was made a few weeks ago) that you no longer can Freely and Anonymously use Red Hat's Update Agent to download updated package DBs, and update packages. You must register, and pay $9.95 for the service. Of course you can still update manually, but how long before other services pop up to take its place? And Debian still does apt without me having to tell them where I live. This is unfortunate, but not unsurprising. I want RH to make a buck too, but this seems like a pretty crappy way to do it. Update: 03/19 03:21 PM by T : An unnamed reader points to this FAQ on the change, too.

An Anonymous Coward writes: "There's a story at Newsforge about some of the weirdness happening at Linuxgruven. Several ex-employees and students are telling what happened to them. It's not pretty." Considering the skeptical reports for months from readers about Linuxgruven's employment practices (and that we had a short story about those as well as one about the recent layoffs), this doesn't come as a complete surprise -- it's still a shame that employees are stuck with empty bank accounts because of management, though.

IanMurdock writes: "Progeny Debian Release Candidate 1 is available. Read the release information or go to the download pages."

Anonymous Coward writes "In between all the bad news about Linux it's nice to see some good like this story about Linux getting used by NASA for satellite control I saw on NewsForge. It is on Linux Today too. This is not some garage dream but a real NASA project run by a real rocket scientist. Does ThinkGeek sell 'Tux in Space' T shirts yet? I want one!" NASA has a page for FlightLinux.

Cosine Jeremiah asks: "I'm interested in starting my own business, but I'm not sure where to start concerning legal and tax issues. Sure, I suppose I could go ask a lawyer, but I want to know what to expect before I have to put down any money. And I'm not sure I can trust just any lawyer I accidently end up with to give me the whole truth, such as what all of my options are and all of the pros and cons of each. Should I create a corporation? What kind of corporations are good options? Or should I make the business an at-risk venture? And which special tax forms do I need for each? Right now I don't really know the difference. Surely there are many people out there that have gone through this and can share their experiences, and just as surely there are many more people than me wondering about this stuff?"

"Anonymous coward south of the border" sent in this: "Check this article in the mexican online newspaper Reforma (a liitle bit of spanish language knowledge required). It's an interview with the Technical coordinator of the Distrito Federal goverment (Mexico's capital of the country) where they say why choose Linux over MSWindows and make the change of all their systems in a period of 2 years to Linux. All the money saved from the MSWindows licenses will be reallocated to programs for fighting poverty. Sounds good that part of our taxes won't be in Microsoft hands anymore and the Mexican Goverment giving Linux a chance." Maybe someone will post a decent translation - the web-based services make a hash of it. But the interviewee notes that they will save tens of millions of pesos by switching away from rented software.

evenprime writes "In this zdnet column, Evan Leibovitch responds to linux critics who say that Caldera and Red Hat will be the only distributions to survive. Evan points out that the diversity of available distributions, and the ability to roll your own, is a great strength." The arguement Evan makes is one that, IMHO, is correct - and people need to remember that the diversity of the distributions isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sure, maybe the commericial variants will move down to a couple, but I think for the overall community, diversity is a strength.

LionMage asks: "I know Slashdot covered this a long time ago, but we have a new kernel now, and other things have changed as well. I followed the evolution of the experimental UDF drivers back in the 2.2.x series of Linux kernels, and Ben Fennema seemed to have both read and write support working. He claimed to be able to write to a CD-RW in UDF format, and I tried his drivers with my DVD-RAM drive with some measure of success. Recently, I installed SuSE Linux 7.1 on my machine, and discovered that the DVD-RAM drive was detected as two different devices, a CD-ROM drive and a "CD writer." OK, well, we'll forgive that little transgression. What's interesting is that inserting a DVD-RAM cartridge with data on it will in fact yield positive results when mounted. So clearly, the 2.4.0 kernel has some UDF support in it. (Unless this is a case where SuSE threw in support on a whim.) But I can only mount UDF volumes read-only. What's the point of a DVD-RAM drive under Linux if you can't write to it? A visit to Ben's page showed that little progress has been made recently, and there are no patches for the 2.4 series kernels. Can anyone comment on UDF support in the current Linux kernel, and how it's progressing? Alternately, are there perhaps some other drivers I'm unaware of which allow write support?"

MikeBabcock asks: "Quality of Service (or QoS) and Traffic Control (TC) have been options in the Linux kernel for some time now (stable in the 2.2.x series at least). Unfortunately, several sites that refer to these features lament the less than perfectly documented nature of the tools that configure them. Has anyone successfully implemented effective (often complex) quality of service rules with Linux and feel like telling the rest of us how you did it?"

OdinHuntr writes: "Newsforge has an article detailing Eazel's layoff of over 50% of its workforce. Quite a day, eh?" And GrokSoup writes: "According to News.com, Eazel laid off 40 employees today -- or more than half of its staff. The company says it is trying to get its "... burn rate and business plan in line with the more sober economic environment," but we all know what that means. Don't we?" Update: 03/14 03:20 AM by T : And on a slightly more positive note, Dan Gillmor writes: "Hey, I stopped by Eazel today and Andy H showed me a nifty (but as yet unreleased) RSS viewer that's an intelligent icon on the Nautilus desktop ... I posted a screen shot in today's weblog."

Daniel Quinlan writes "Today, the Free Standards Group released version 1.2 of the Linux Development Platform Specification and let loose with the public review of FHS 2.2-beta that will be used in the Linux Standard Base (and is already being used by distributions). Also of note, the Linux Standard Base has a new chairman, George Kraft IV, and the LSB specification is nearing completion. Really."

Sould writes " Debian Planet are running a story here discussing whether Debian should retain document-specific cripples in xpdf - a GPLed pdf viewer that honours Adobe's copy controls. "

Several readers submitted this story about layoffs at Linuxgruven. Some of them made allegations that Linuxgruven had bounced their last set of paychecks - we have no confirmation of this. We have previously run a story and a followup about a conflict between Linuxgruven and Sair - looks like that won't be a problem anymore.