Yet another voice from the rabid horde of Anonymous Cowards asks: "I just bought a fancy new Motorola TimePort which came with a number of goodies, including a computer serial cable and software. However, (as is expected now-a-days) the software is Windows only, TrueSync from Starfish to be exact. The software allows a Windows user to sync up the cell phone autodialer with a number of PIMs. Is there a software package that can do similar tasks and runs on Linux, MacOS, or BeOS (or insert favorite free/open OS here)? Searches on Google, Starfish, Motorola, and Sprint (my provider) turned up blank." This is similar to, but not exactly the same as an earlier Ask Slashdot that was run a few months ago.

Platinum Dragon writes: "ZDnet ran an e-mail-based interview with Linus about that new kernel thingy. Linus replied to the fluff questions in typical self-mocking Linus fashion. " Check out original story on the release as well -- many people seem to have missed it, and keep submitting it.

We got a bunch of cool questions Monday for LinuxPPC dude (and recent near-death drunk driver accident victim) Jason Haas. Here, today, are his responses.

Lars Lehtonen writes: "The 2.0 kernel is no longer obsolete, it is now "vintage." 2.4.0 is out. " Here is a bit on LinuxToday but I'm sure there will be many more. I don't think the mirrors have updated as of this writing, but if I don't post this now, I'll have to spend the next 3 hours deleting hundreds of submissions. Download! Compile! Rejoice! Thanks to Linus and all the rest of the guys who made it happen.

LinuxNews.pl writes: "Remember why you compiled your framebuffer into kernel? Of course! Because of the fblogo -- great penguin image on startup :) Now you can update your fblogo and create a graphical startup, just like in Windows. There are few themes (one is for Debian!) Check out the whole story on Linuxnews.pl" You can get more info on the Linux Progress Page from their website -- that's not to say, of course, that streaming text isn't pretty in its own special way -- but eyecandy always counts for something. (Can anyone point to a good runs-under-Linux way to change the startup logo in the BIOS, as well, similar to this method that Windows users can use to update the "Energy Star" logo? We're well on our way to a hyper-custom boot process ...)

Jason Haas is co-founder, marketing director, and Web manager for LinuxPPC and an all-around good Linux guy. He's also majorly anti-drunk driving these days, because last March a drunk driver ran into his car and left it looking like this. Jason was left in only slightly better shape himself, but unlike his Honda, he eventually recovered (with major help and support from his wife, Cassie) and went back to work. Ask Jason what you will; about out-of-control SUVs (I don't think he likes them), Linux on PowerPCs (something he likes a lot) or anything else. Post your questions below. Tomorrow we'll forward 10 of the highest-moderated ones to him, and we'll expect his answers back in a week or so.

$kr1p7_k177y wrote to us regarding Daniel Swan's release of the comp.os.linux.security FAQ. It's what you'd imagine, but with the growth lately, this should be helpful tool. There's also an interview with him that sheds more light on the reasons behind the FAQ.

Mark Bobak writes "2.4.0 should be ready soon. 2.4.0-test12 has been superceded by a new release, and it's not a testxx. It's 2.4.0-prerelease. Can't wait for the real thing....I can almost taste it! ;-) Available, of course, at kernel.org" And happy new years to everyone else. Hopefully holiday traffic will be light enough that we can all share the bandwidth to the mirrors. I shall download while I watch the Iron Chef marathon :)

cheezus asks: "My company is sending me and the other two members of our tech department (we're all university students) to the upcoming LinuxWorld Expo in New York, and we are planning on taking the Sair Linux and GNU Certification Level I tests that are being offered for free while we're there. We ordered the study materials (very cool, even came with 9 distros on CD) and have started reading up. Two of us are intermediate Linux users and have successfully set up Linux boxes that run our Web, Mail and DNS, the other is a relative Linux newbie. I'm wondering how hard the tests are going to be, and what the real benefits of having LCP or LCA certification are." Are CTOs and managers in Linux shops actually looking for such certifications right now? And has anyone taken these certification tests before and can comment on how well they match-up to real world expectations of a Linux Administrator?

Hubert Tonneau writes: "Once upon a time, Linus took GNU system, wrote a brand new kernel for it, and it was Linux. I did it just the other way round: I took Linux kernel, wrote a brand new system for it, and it is FullPliant. In very few words, Linux without Unix. This is the first system completely complying with free software's philosophy, because you can read it from the first line to the last one since all the code, including the dynamic compiler, the HTTP, FTP, SMTP, POP3, patches repository and database servers, plus the remote Web configuration tool and the strong crypto proxy, fits in a single megabyte and is compiled on the fly. The first server running FullPliant can be accessed at: [this site]." Interesting.

Hmmm... seems quite a few people (judging from email I've gotten) have figured out that this week's interview guest, Clinton Ebadi, is the 'unknown_lamer' who frequents irc.openprojects.net, not that this was a great secret or anything. Anyway, Clinton has a pretty good sense of humor about himself and this whole thing, and I think it shows through clearly in his answers (below) to your questions.

jared spiegel asks: "After playing with SVGATextMode for a while, I've noticed that using any font as '9x?' interferes with lots of ASCII art (especially with certain 8-bit ASCII characters) since it seems to tack an extra column of white space on the right-most end of each character. I'm guessing this is because of the 8 column font being expanded to 9 columns. I can't find an editor that is capable of creating/editing 9 column fonts, however. CFE and Fonter are the only ones i've found, yet both of these are hard-coded for 8 column fonts. Does such an editor exist?"

Peter Berghmans asks: "Emulators everywhere today. It's not very difficult to run several OS-es at the same time. Just to try out something new, to develop, to learn. But I can't find an emulator for the Cisco-IOS. Although it would be usefull to learn about the OS of one of the most important pieces of hardware on the Internet: routers. Is there some development to run IOS under Linux?"

Things have changed quite a bit since we last posted about the state of Linux Package Management. Over the few months ago, we saw the Connectiva release, which was a RPM front-end to apt-get ^[?] . Now, for those of you running RH6.x, there are a new program called Aduva Manager. It's kinda like using apt-get update/apt-get dist-upgrade, but checks dependecies and such for RH6.x based systems. They've got screenshots as well as a FAQ/download site. It's designed more for new users, but it looks like a step in the right direction for RPM.

An anonymous reader says: "Linux kernel 2.4 got itself at the 4th position in Wired Vaporware 2000 contest! The top prize goes to ... (check the link out for yrself ;)" I have a hard time calling something Vapor that I've been running on 30 days uptime, but what do I know? I guess a "product" without a release date just isn't something comprehensible.

Aciel asks: "I recently decided to switch from Windows to Linux. I'd been held back by many things before (such as that my copies of Thief II, Quake III Arena, and Wheel of Time only ran on the former), but I was really ready to do it this time. But once I got Red Hat all set up, running Gnome, et cetera, I realized that I had no idea how to install anything. I of course knew about sites like linuxnewbie.com (and .org), but neither of them were really oriented towards people like me. One was oriented more towards programmers; the other towards idiots. But where to find a tutorial on Gnome, KDE, or Linux and X in general oriented towards people like myself, people with significant but not infinite computer DOS-based know-how?" If Unix (Linux/*BSD/etc) is ever to successfully woo users from Windows, something like this is a must.

These interviews have gotten pretty celebrity-oriented lately. To break the routine, this week's guest is an unknown, 15-year-old, Linux-using, Slashdot-reading high school sophomore named Clinton Ebadi I met at a local LUG meeting. Clinton's mom, who drove him to the meeting (his first), was happily surprised to find that there was a large group of people (of all ages) out there who instantly accepted and respected her son; his relatives, teachers, and classmates looked at him and saw nothing but a slightly strange, slightly pudgy loner. So ask Clinton anything you like about being a kid geek (a living, breathing Katz character, you might say) or anything else, including MentalUNIX or the ncurses-based front end he's working on for Splay. Post questions for Clinton below. We'll send him 10 selected ones by e-mail, and expect his answers within a week or so.

gags bunny wrote to us with the official word from Slackware that Slack now runs on Sparc. If you've got a Sparc sitting around the download site is live - else just grab the mini-ISO image and work from there. We had a story on this recently as well.

lizrd writes "The New York Times is reporting (yeah, yeah, you gotta sign to read it) that several Linux distros will be shipping stable versions of Linux for Intel's new 64-bit Itanium chip on the day that it is released to the public. Microsoft however will not be supplying a version of Windows for Itanium until sometime in the fall of next year, several months after the expected May release of the new processor."

Crixus asks: "I'm about to build a dual CPU box on which to run Linux. Currently, what is the best supported video card under the latest Xfree86 releases. Which card(s) can I buy that would be obvious 'can't go wrong' choices?" This question pops in to the submissions bin quite a bit, even though we have discussed this issue several times in the past. However times change, and as the years pass the technologies change. What does this year offer in the way of compatible video cards for XFree and Linux? Those of you who have this question might also want to check out AnandTech's October Video Card Comparison.