diogenes write in to send us a CNet article that speculates wildly about the IPO Intentions of Linux Heavyweights Red Hat and VA Linux Systems. Red Hat denies it (as always) and VA Speculates (as always). Mentions Mandrake working at VA and wraps up with a bit about Cygnus. I wonder where Linuxcare fits into all this, but other than that, this a good summary of the picture right now.

Andrew Dvorak wrote to us with Network Computing's take on Linux. Good chronicle of why Linux is moving into the higher end markets, and the huge surge of support that has been seen in the last six months.

munchkin writes "CNN interviews Bob Young as he explains how Red Hat will revolutionize the software market. Read all about it here " Same story as usual in many ways-but at least the mainstream press has a growing fascination with the Open Source model and how it works; especially the notion of it being impossible for one company do destory the rest.

Slain asks: "I've searched the internet looking for information about migrating from BSD to Linux. I have not found anything on the subject. Is it something that is just not done? What if you wanted to switch for cost reasons? Is it not done because you are already running a flavor of UNIX so why switch? I have a BSD box which is used as the primary internet mail server for the company. It has about 700+ users and grows about 20+ a week. Why do we want to migrate? The reason are as follows: newer hardware, user maintenance and we want to reduce services to the users (eg. make them POP only accounts). Anyone out there have any suggestions?

Fer asks: "Are there backup program for Linux that do not have filesystem or volume size limits? I am trying to make a full backup of a 22 GB FTP server, using 4 GB TR-4 tapes. I have tried tar, dump, afio, taper, and afbackup, and every one of them either did not allow >2GB volumes or had weird problems with >4GB filesystems. Currently I am using dd to do the job, but I think there must be another option. Any suggestions on free programs which I may use?"

Well I guess tonight I'm going to be a guest on the Weekender Show which is being run tonight by the boys from the Linux Show over at ttalk.com along with a panel of folks including Larry Augustin and Chris DiBona (from VA) Dave Sifry (from Linuxcare) and Doc Searls and Matt Cunningham from the Linux Journal. It starts at 11:20pm Eastern, and runs for awhile, so we'll see how long before I fall asleep. The topic will be a practical discussion of what Linux can do for an organization. You can call in at 888-591-TECH.

Ignatius writes "The jury of the Prix Ars Electronica - one of Europe's most influential computer art festivals - awarded the 1999 Golden Nica in the category .net to Linus Torvalds. One of the most important arguments for the jury was the fact that Linux is the first product to come out of the cyberspace of the Internet, which has had an enormous impact on the "real" world. "

Rewbob writes "Northwest arlines is spending $34 million to convert its flight simulators to linux. " Nifty practical applications. Normally when neat toys like this come along, I beg for someone to send me one, but for some reason, I don't expect NW to ship an airplane simulator over to the Geek Compound. But the best part is that there will be one less Fortran program out there *grin*.

The Linux Mandrake team has released version 6.0 of their award-winning distribution. The new release includes software so new it's almost scary - kernel 2.2.9, KDE 1.1.1, and even GNOME 1.0.9. To go along with the new version, the guys have also redone their web page. Comments?

wendell wrote in to send us an interesting little article about VA Linux Systems and how the Linux companies are hiring major free software developers.

Rather than spending all week posting lots of little bits about Linux Expo, I've saved them up for now: Russ Nelson sent us a collection of pictures, Brian Smith sent us his, and our own Justin sent us his collection and a mirror, and nicedream sent us a collection of pictures from the Debian boys. (featuring many light saber battles and nerf wars from the Slashdot booth) Marc Merlin sent us linkage to a scan of the linuxcare poster that Red Hat got so cranky about. He has a full report on the show. An anonymous reader sent us a TechSitings Story, Jonas Öberg wrote in to send us Telsa (Alan Cox's wife) take on the show for something a bit lighter.

B. Galliart wrote in to tell us that the The LinuxHQ web site is now available at KernelNotes.org. The reason for the change is explained here. One of my favorite sites, I'm bummed to see trouble over there. Note that this also means that Kernel Edge Linux has moved. Update those bookmarks.

MECC wrote in to send us an evaluation of Linux vs. NT that appears over at network computing. The review is a little more evenly considering showing that the OSs are much closer in performance than a certain "other" test, and that either can be made to outperform the other (surprise surprise). Some numbers, some samba benchmarks, and more. A good looking piece.

RobertPearse submits this question: Here's an article about ILM engineers using a small Linux box to reboot systems quickly. They mention a "TTL data-acquisition card". Housed in a linux box, it allows them to reboot a system very quickly. Anybody know anything about this? My company is a Microsoft shop -- and given the fragility of NT, this sounds like a great idea. (God forbid we need to reboot an NT box ;-)"

PaulJS writes "The UKUUG are holding a Linux Conference on 25th - 26th June 1999. Topics include GNOME (design decisions) and the ext3 filesystem which is a contender for the replacement for ext2. "

crunge writes "SlackWare 4.0 is now available. It is based on the 2.2.x kernel. It is still libc5-based (but glibc 2.0.7pre6 compatibility libraries are available for those who want/need to run glibc2 applications. (My understanding is that the next release will be glibc2.1-based). Grab it from the usual usual places.

BoredSpy asks "I'm having an extremely difficult time attempting to build gated 3.5.10 on a Red Hat 4.2 box. Does anyone know if it will even build, or what the process is? Does it require glibc, etc? Any pointers to information or documentation on gated compilation under Linux (especially libc5) would be appreciated. "

Alex asks: "How would one go about calculating immediate costs and tangible benefits of migrating an NT/Novell IntranetWare LAN to Linux. I am not talking only about long-term benefits as in more uptime, fewer crashes, robustness, etc., but if I could use fewer and cheaper boxes for file, internet and print servers. What could I say to a company about the immediate benefits?" What about the costs associated with retraining? What pitfalls do NT admins have to worry about when moving to Linux?

afniv writes "Time.com as a short article about Linux. The reviewer talks briefly about Linux install troubles and will have future installments. "

Anonymous Coward writes "www.DarwinLinux.com is a collaboration between the team at Infomagic (Linux gurus), and the team at TwinForces (WebObjects/OpenStep gurus). The goal is to create a complete distribution on a CD. Incidently, Apple will sync Darwin (Apple's BSD core under OS X) with FreeBSD later this year. "