malacai sent us another article in a long stream about Red Hat's Impending IPO. This one talks a bit about Be's IPO, as well as assorted other stuff related to it. It's a good piece (and one that for a change is about the actual IPO and its implications and not the E*Trade/SEC fiasco)

MikeDartt writes "According to C|Net news, Oracle is devoting an entire division to creating a line of products for Linux. As the article notes, this isn't surprising, given Ellison's antipathy towards MS. Yet another announcement for LWE, eh? " Will this lead to even more enterprise credibility?

Kypeli asks: "I just got the TrueType fonts working on my X (finally!!). Now that I can use these wonderful TrueType fonts, I have been wondering why can't TrueType fonts be included as default in the Linux distributions? At least in my opinion Postscript fonts suck deeply." A large number of TrueType fonts are not free, but I'm sure there are some out there. Why /aren't/ TrueType fonts included in distributions these days, especially now that Linux has support for them?

Takashi Oe writes "I just came across these pictures (one and two] of Aquarium Computer's small Linux box. Its size, 4x8x6.3 in inches, isn't that small, but it certainly looks pretty cool. " But I gotta ask, why do all these trendy new boxes have crazy lights on 'em? Is there a purpose or is it just wacky design?

Stewart Rosenberger has written an interesting piece about what the success of Linux means for the users out there who are currently using it. Will it mean that the pioneers will move on to other places? Is this already starting-rather then Linux fragmenting, the user base fragmenting? Click below to read more-it's well worth it.

Adam Winnington asks: "I've been considering loading Pro/E on some of the new Dell Precision 610's that we have just recently received. However, I don't see E&S video drivers for linux or anything from PTC about it. Has anyone done this, or must I install Windows NT?"

Stijn Buys writes in with this interesting question: "We are a bunch of students conected to the campus network and now we are looking for a way to distribute applications like compiler jobs to several Linux boxes. Each PC should retain it's autonomy, since these are our personal machines, but we'd really like to make them work together. I heard about things like distributed make but I haven't found something about it yet. Are there people who have experience with these kind of things and/or can give us some suggestions?" With just a quick search, I found this patch to GNU make and something called PGMAKE (dated 1994). What other options for distributed compiling are there?

angelo asks: "Many of us have heard the buzz (on the radio of all places) about Storage Area Networks, or SANs. They are a method of accessing a common drive system, backing up information over a second network, and collaborating a server farm. My question is this: Can you connect a Linux box to a SAN network? If so, which SAN products support Linux connection and administration? Do all channel cards have drivers, some of them, or is it "in the works?"

TBC writes "Etrade's IPO center is now accepting indications of interest for anyone with an E-Trade account. They will probably continue accepting indications of interest until 5:00pm CDT. Get it while you can... " Today is apparently the deadline for the last round of folks trying to get in before the public. A lot of people got theirs. A lot more didn't. If nothing else, this has been a learning experience for a lot of people. And a pretty profitable one for E*Trade too I bet. Update: 08/04 10:20 by CT : A few people noted that the times up.

Tefkay writes "An Upside feature on how linux can be/is being used in the military." As you'd expect, it's much the same situation as the rest of the world-champions within the organization, tyring to get people to understand how useful it would be. The author does make some interesting points about how/why Open Source developers do what they do, however.

According to an email written by Linus, "a feature freeze in about two weeks is the current plan", so people who wants their patch included (a hint to ISDN dev. guys) should work/write faster. I guess kernel 2.4 may be out this fall after all.

Chris Siegler writes "An Op-Ed over at Dr. Dobb's, on whether Linux can change to meet the needs of the mainstream user, and the consequences if we don't. " Interesting piece-talks about the potential for fragmentation, and that all of the big name companies coming to play are probably the greatest potential cause of that. I'm not incredibly worried about fragmentation, but more about how things change can alter the community. What do you folks think?

Kurt Gray sent a review of Beginning Linux Programming, by Neil Matthew & Richard Stones. Click here to learn how to contribute more code.

Several readers have written in with a great rebuttal at ZDNet, adddressing the recent Metcalfe articles attacking Linux. Calling this change the Post-FUD Era, it does a great job of dissecting the new attacks on Linux.

An anonymous bastard writes "I'll be covering LWCE next week, and so I'm on a list of e-mail addresses for "the press" who get invited to interview "Linux People" for their publications. One of the e-mails was from the PR firm for VA Linux Systems (formerly VA Research) asking if I'd want to interview Larry Augustin. Interesting to note was this phrase: "Larry is one of the keynote speakers at the show, and has a lot of VA-related news and annct's to brief you on before VA goes into its quiet period." Apparently they've got a quiet period coming up, which means Linux IPO Number Two is coming. " Well, I've had a nice conversation with the press person at VA-they wanted to assure me that they are not headed directly into the quiet period post-LWCE. It'll be sometime soon, but don't hold your breath waiting for it-at least for the next couple weeks. *grin* Bottom line: Still waiting.

Jefe wrote in to point us to a nice Story about Linux that is currently appearing over at The Atlantic Monthly. Its definitely YALA but its one of the better ones. A good bookmark for the "What is Linux" FAQ.

JimMcc asks: "We are planning a new network installation with a Linux server running Samba and WinTel clients. One of the issues yet to be resolved is providing the users the ability to fax directly. We would like to offer a solution which provides shared fax modem(s) accessed through the network instead of a fax modem / analog line per user. The customer is a non-profit and is cost sensitive. Has anybody heard of a possible solution? Thank you for any pointers/ideas you may have. "

An anonymous reader wrote in to say that earlier this morning, discussions about the Red Hat IPO fiasco started appearing on the E*Trade stock board at Yahoo. E*Trade stock holders are worried about class action suits, complaints to the SEC, and even cracking of E*Trade's servers. I've heard many things (nothing official yet) that all the major outstanding issues will be resolved on monday. I still don't know if I'm eligible, although I did get the letter.

jho writes "This C|Net article talks about how the Linux 2.4 kernel, armed with Firewire, PnP and USB support, will be better equiped to tackle the desktop market. It's a intresting read as far as how Linux is being pushed to the mainstream. Have a look. "

CodeShark writes "With all of the current comparisons between IIOP and the NAS Servers out there, I recently saw information on /. regarding the Zope application server. I am wondering about other /. reader's experiencing using this framework in terms of reliability, stability, and ease of use. "