KodaK writes " Jesse Berst has *gasp* listed Linux as one of the top stories in 1998." Just wait for 99...

Michael Howard writes "netproject is sponsoring the Linux and Open Source Software Conference and Exposition to be held January 20, 1999 at the Venue Commonwealth Institute in London." Sounds sweet for the UK readers. Wish I could go, but there's that big blue thing in the way, and its a bit cold to swim it.

Larry McVoy writes "LinuxExpo is extending the call for papers. The details are at here but the summary is that you have until January 14, 1999 to get us an abstract for a published paper; and until March 1, 1999 to get us an abstract for a talk without a paper. Also, the restriction to groff only has long since bitten the dust, only Rich Stevens and I know how to tyoe in groff, apparently. So we'll take LaTeX with extra brownie points for groff submissions. Thanks! "

H. Peter Anvin writes "The Linux Kernel Archives Mirror System is now available for use! A number of sites across the world have graciously offered to help distribute the Linux Kernel using a common file structure and site-naming scheme. These sites have agreed to mirror the /pub/linux and /pub/software trees (i.e. the original software distributed from our site) from ftp.kernel.org in its entirety. To get connected to a mirror site near you, connect to: "ftp://ftp.xx.kernel.org/pub/linux" where "xx" is your two-letter country code. Note that not all sites archive both .gz and .bz2 format files, and that currently not all countries have both FTP and HTTP support. For more information, including the list of countries currently supported by the Linux Kernel Archives Mirror System and how to register a mirror, please see that page. In addition, a list of the individual mirror sites should be available online sometime next week. To all the sites that have offered their time, disk space and bandwidth, I want to give a huge "Thank you!", and to everyone else, I hope you will find this service useful."

As most of you know, Linux Weekly News issue is out. One thing that I truly liked there is the Linux 1998 timeline (and specially the Jesse Berst part). Although this timeline is not full (and there is some stuff missing - anyone want to help him to fill it?) I think it should be definetly a keeper for the Linux enthusiastic :)

Joab Jackson writes "Feature article on Linux from the Jan 1999 M.I.T. Technical Review. Little in the way in new stuff, but nice in-depth history and with some information on Gnome. I always appreciated this magazine's writing. "

Johan writes "The patch for 2.1.132 is here at last! No sign of 2.2 yet tho... " You know the drill. First stampede the FTP sites and the mirrors, then compile it, boot and wait until the next one. We're getting close now.

Ped Xing writes "This week's Spencer F. Katt Rumor Central cartoon in PC Week features a rather amusing commentary on the proposed Linux Hike in Germany. Check it out here. "

Well, after yesterday's article about LinuxWorld and KDE, the facts have come to light-it wasn't LinuxWorld at all. The following is a letter from Bernd Wuebben, KDE contact in the USA: "A previously posted news bit on stated that the KDE project was asked to pay $1500 for a booth at Linux World. This statement is incorrect. The truth is that the KDE project was asked by a representative of the Linux _Expo_ (Note: NOT Linux World) whether we would like to have a booth at the Linux Expo. We communicated our interest and were told that Linux Expo would be happy to give us a booth for the price of $1500. While I do not know who 'leaked' internal information in distorted incorrect form to slashdot, I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to Linux World in the name of the KDE project. Linux World and its organizers have been very supportive of KDE and in particulare ask/invited us to attend Linux World.". Whew-that makes a whole lot more sense. (CT: the news bit from KDEs site has disappeared without explanation.)

Chris Gill asks: "I'm trying to setup Sendmail to handle multiple domains. I have three domains that it needs to receive and send as. Is there a way to map names into each domain, and have Sendmail change itself depending on who is sending the mail? (So that bob@domain1.org and dave@domain2.org can be sent from the same machine, with return addreses in their correct domains.) "

drix asks: "Recently I picked up 10 old 486 DX4 computers. Naturally the first thing that came to my mind was: Beowulf! All they are is a motherboard, case, processor, and power supply. I'm thinking about sticking 16mb of my DRAM in each (and a NIC, of course) but that's it - I already have a fully functional P2 that I'm using as the console. What's the easiest way to get the bare essentials (kernel, Beowulf drivers, etc.) into each box. I'm considering flash cards, however I was told that they're still quite expensive in terms of MB/dollar. The smallest hard drive I can even find now is around 500 megs, which is overkill. I have no use for 5 gigs of storage. Any novel solutions to this problem?"

Prospero writes "PC Week just published an article on "Linux's Enterprise Evolution." The article can be found It discusses the potential for Linux as a standard enterprise operating system. It speaks specifically about a new filesystem, Coda, and the stability of Linux. Makes nice, though subtle, comparisons to NT. Very informed article. "

An anonymous reader submitted that Internet World mentioned "Tux, Linux's Mascot" in its list of 12 Who Made a Difference during the year. They also mention Jon Postel and Rob Glaser. Worth checking out.

Nathan Machula writes "Linux is one of Time magazine's top 10 technology stories of 1998. There's also a menacing picture of Linus! "

Hamlet Batista writes "Last time checked at 1:30 on 21 December 1998, the beta version of RedHat's Linux Intel distribution included KDE-1.1pre packages. This is very good news for Red Hat Linux users. Welcome, Red Hat. "

qbzzt writes "For all you budding Linux Kernel Module programmers out there - I just wrote a new book for the LDP (Linux Documentation Project) to help you get started. For more information, go to the doc project or an LDP mirror near you. - Ori "

L-ViS wrote in to say that SuSE 6.0 has entered beta testing and can be downloaded over at the SuSE FTP Site .

MonkeyPaw writes "Not really related to computers, code or technology, but it has to do with penguins. If you want to spend you money on a penguin yet don't have the space to keep one at your house, the Oregon Zoo has the answer. "The Oregon Zoo Foundation is raising money to rebuild a wall that protects the largest breeding colony of Humboldt penguins in the world." The Oregon Zoo also has a "zoo parent" sponsorship to help pay for the costs of keeping their animals. (penguins included)" MonkeyPaw's website seems to be rather amusing. Do we have a Segfault competitor?

Vryl sent this latest Salon article our way. It's a well-written story about Google.com a new search engine, brought to us by a couple of Stanford grad students (sound familar?). However, the cool part-besides being run off of a Linux box-is how well it searches, and the relevancy of the returned pages. Check it out.

jjohn asks: "It seems simple enough. You want a new linux toy. You find the source and download it. You do a 'configure', you type 'make' and then ... poof. You're missing a library file. Is there a good text on upgraded system libraries? Is there one or two places, besides old sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux, that are "main" repositories for Linux libs? I prefere to compile source rather than get binaries. For the record, I'm looking to upgrade the libs on my old Slack 3.0 box...Thanks"