Linux is always a little bigger than you think. Every day, people are working on porting Linux to new platforms to achieve more with what they have. In the case of LinuxPPC and Terra Soft Solutions, they're working with community spirit and the PowerPC architecture to create insanely great solutions with a touch of Tux.

gogo asks: "I'm working for a company which intends to provide an end-to-end business solution to the end users over the Internet. This will include complete sales, purchase, inventory control, CRM, financial accounting, etc., for small to medium business. Being asked to look in to this project, I have decided to have a multiprocessor Linux box for the server, and Oracle for the data base. Since the nature of the application is quite complex with all of the business logic that has to go into it, I'm toying with the idea of having the user interface in Java, as applets. But I'm not very sure how the whole thing will turn up. Is there anyone out there with some similar experience? Am I sounding reasonable or outright crazy? I've heard lots of people talking about using things like EJB, and CORBA objects to put the business logic back to the server side. I'm looking for real world experience, here."

Slowping asks: "A friend of mine posed me a good question that I think would be best asked on Slashdot: Of all the people who have used Linux or any Unix variant, how many have gone back to Microsoft Windows? I'm not talking about newbies that install it and never run it. I'm talking about people who actually learn the new OS, and can use it competently, but for some reason decide to go back to Windows. If you are one of these people, why did you switch back?" I've always thought that Unix can be configured into an OS for everyone (especially FreeBSD and Linux who are coming out of the server closets in big ways). However, we Aren't Quite There Yet. Where do Unix variants need to improve before they can serve as general desktop machines?

palpatine was one of many readers to write with the news that "[m]any of the developers of Stampede Linux have resigned today, putting in doubt the future of the distribution." The link here connects you to a letter signed by 22 people who have declared their separation from Stampede, including former buildmaster Rob Aagaard and former lead Alpha developer J. Daniel Powell. (Read more.)

Matt write: "I ran across this place while searching dmoz. KRF Tech has a piece of software called WinDriver that claims you can write hardware drivers once and compile for Linux, Windows 9x/NT/2000/CE, OS/2, Solaris AND VxWorks. My question: why isn't everyone and their mother using this software? It seems this software would make driver portability a thing of the past. They even have a free 30-day trial." The theory is cool, but how well does this work in practice?

tramm writes: "As someone who works on massively parallel Linux clusters everyday, I get tired of explaining why it is not 'Just another Beowulf'. Linux World has a good article on the four major types of Linux clusters. Our work is in supporting scientific codes that have a high degree of communication. This requires a very different system from the standard Beowulf-class machines that excel at the 'embarrasingly parallel' codes that do not require as much communication. The cost of the network interconnect for a high performance cluster is vastly more than that of a generic 100base-T system."

X asks: "Is there such a thing as Project-Management Software for Linux? I'm working at a company that is more than happy to let me stay in a Linux world if I can provide the appropriate documents. So far, Star Office, Latex, etc. have given me a fair bit of mileage, but now I'm stuck: I need to produce a project plan, and I need to produce PERT and Gant charts, and all that good stuff that everyone else does with Microsoft Project. So what I want to know is: are there ANY alternatives? I'd live with just about anything that gave me away to produce the appropriate graphs and let me perform the appropriate calculations. The best I can come up with to date is to use Gnumeric to do it all, which is just crazy."

syrah_shiraz writes: "This article from G2 News gives very in-depth information on why Fernand Sarrat left Linuxcare and future prospects for Linuxcare and its plans to IPO. Definitely the first interview I've seen with Fernand Sarrat since he officially resigned. Apparently the problems weren't really financial after all--the article alludes to a number of different reasons for his departure. (Even 'sexual indiscretion'?) " Check out our original story on this.

LapTop006 asks:"I am creating a Webcam that can be remotely panned and tilted. The camera is a Logitech Quick Cam USB and I want to be able to run the system on Linux as it would be easiest to control the camera using CGI through Apache. If I am unable to get working USB drivers for the camera, then I will have to run the system on PWS for Win 98. So I need to know whether drivers are available for the camera, or else whether I have to go crawling back to Microsoft." You might want to check out gPhoto, which has support for over 100 digital cameras (although the Logitech hasn't made it into the list yet). Does anyone have anymore information on the Quickcam?

PDG asks: "I've been using Linux for several years now and find myself wanting desperately to get involved with its source code, development, and future. Fine, I've compiled a million kernels and other binaries but don't know the first place to start when trying to understand what the hell half the libraries and header files are doing, let alone dealing with the C code itself (yes, I know C fine). Are there any resources or Web sites out there which may help me in my journey to be a Linux Code Jockey?"

Maktoo writes: "According to MacCentral, the June 2000 issue of MacTech magazine will include a CD containing a 'SuSE for PowerMac' Linux distribution. The full distribution will be available from SuSE at that time as well. It's nice to see SuSE coming to the PPC market!" It'd also be nice to see some less expensive PPC systems.

troc writes: Here's the "info on this year's Linux Beer Hike sponsored by SuSE (and others). It's a European event, where Linux users wander around a nice hilly area, drink beer and exercise their minds of an evening doing Linuxy stuff. " I wanted to go last year, but my flabby ass probably shouldn't be goin' on ye old hacker hike ;)

We've heard rumors that Linuxcare's upcoming IPO has been shelved for now, and that Linuxcare's CEO and CIO have been removed. This comes right after the roadshow was delayed, which now appears to be cancelled. At this time, I haven't heard back from Linuxcare, so haven't heard their side of the story. However, several reliable sources have said that there've been "irregularities" in revenue recognition, something that the linked article also touches on.Update: 04/07 11:22 by H :I've talked with Art Tyde, Founder of LinuxCare. He confirms that the IPO has been delayed - but that they believe an IPO is in their future. He also did confirm that the CEO, Ferdinand Sarrat, has parted ways with Linuxcare, but that the CIO has remained onboard, and that the management team remains committed to the values of the community and what the company was founded on.

Ruediger Biernat asks: "I recently came across an old OS/2-partition with plenty of documents (written in Describe) on it. Are there any import-filters for this nice program ... perhaps for StarOffice? Perhaps it's already Open-Source?"

EngrBohn writes "Joe Pranevich has posted the latest & greatest Wonderful World of Linux 2.4 at LinuxToday. 'In the beginning, there was Linus and his 386 ... Several years and many thousands of lines of code later, Linux 2.2 was released ... Linus (and company) continued to hack away at the Linux OS and the 2.4 release of the Linux kernel is nearing completion. Submitted for your approval, this document describes some of the new features in Linux 2.4.'" Helps sort out rumors, half-truths and innuendo. I hope Joe's estimate is conservative on getting CDs shipping with point-four; usually it seems like the distro houses are pretty swift to incorporate.

dpinckard asks: "Recently, I read an article on the Web (may have been on /.) that the configuration of the newer kernel releases is getting very unwieldy. The section that interested me the most was that there still isn't a good application for configuring the kernel that works from release to release. I'd like to make a suggestion: create a directory in the source tree and each code maintainer put their config info there as an XML file. I foresee this as easing the requirements of rewriting the config app when major module rewrites happen or even when new modules appear. The app just reads all of the XML files and builds the menus." Is this a good idea or not? What do you think?"

Ellen Spertus writes, "La storia del museo del calcolatore Center, situato al campo di Moffett nel Mountain View, è patrocinare serie di ingranaggi del PC di Beowulf-Class denominate colloquio: Un Perpective Storico' serie di ingranaggi del PC di Beowulf-Class denominate colloquio: Uno storico Perpective' dato da Thomas Sterling, che ha condotto la squadra della NASA che ha sviluppato le prime serie di ingranaggi del PC del Beowulf-codice categoria ed è il co-author How per costruire un Beowulf. Il colloquio avverrà la sera di giovedì, il 13 aprile. RSVP entro 10 aprile. Tutto il centro di storia del calcolatore lo comunica ha dovuto essere grande."

Hotaine writes "Lernout & Hauspie is working on a Linux PDA with speech regognition built-in. " It can do things like read (and record) emails, find weather, do stock quotes or whatever. Of course, you can't go out and simply buy the vaporware yet, but it has potential.

ken_i_m writes "VMware has signed an OEM deal with Microsoft to offer various flavors of Windows pre-installed with their product. Here is VMware's news release." Don't get too angry about this; if you're using VMware, you're probably loading up a version of Windows anyway.

Gael Duval, one of the Mandrake developers, dropped me a line to say that "Linux-Mandrake 7.0 for UltraSPARC is finally available. Although it's a complete port (graphical installation included) of Linux-Mandrake 7.0/final, it could still have some bugs, so please consider the current UltraSPARC version as beta-software. You can download the ISO image from our Web site."