Fred M writes "For use in high-computing area's Siemens has build their hpcLine systems and showed it on a meeting for customers in februari. Base of the systems are cpu modules, each consisting of 2 Dual-CPU-Boards. Each module has 2 Pentium-CPUs - then PIIs 450 MHz - and memory of 2048 MB max. 8 modules (= 32 cpu's) can be mounted in one rack. Connection of the modules is done with Scalable Coherent I nterface (SCI), that has a bandwidth of 500 MByte/s and uses a Ring-Topology. A story (in German) can be found here "

Matt writes "Much hype has followed the release of latest version of SuSE (6.0), and judging by the review over at Ars Technica of this hot distribution the hype is well justified. While packing a big bang, SuSE incorporates tools like YaST, SaX, KDE, StarOffice 5.0, and so forth to get users of any experience level up on their feet and running productively. As a long time user of RedHat I find SuSE to be a worthy competitor, as well as a strong indication that distributions as a whole are continuing to do positive things to stimulate the growth of the desktop OS user base for Linux. Definitely a worthy read, check it out!" CowboyNeal swears by SuSE. I'm itching for a new Debian CD.

Elbie asks: "I just received a digital camera as a gift, but the only software that comes with it is for these two OSes which look pretty alien to me. How can I get those pictures out of my camera (Canon PowerShot A5) from my Linux box ? Is there any Linux software out there, and if not how to figure out what protocol is used (it uses a standard serial cable to communicate with the PC)"

Hmmm...this must be the day of decent AC questions. Surprise surprise! Another Anonymous Cowards asks: "We're interesting in finding an existing implementation of the UDF file system for CDRW devices for Linux or other PC Unix operating systems. Does anyone know of such a beast? Otherwise, does anyone know where the UDF spec may be obtained?"

Chris Farris writes "The Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts, in cooperation with USENIX and Linux International, is pleased to announce the 3rd Annual Atlanta Linux Showcase. The Atlanta Linux Showcase will be held at the Cobb Galleria Centre in Atlanta on October 12-16 1999. Interested exhibitors should contact exhibits@linuxshowcase.org More details will be coming via our website soon. " If its anything like last years-- hell who am I kidding? I ate half a tin of Penguin Mints. I don't remember anything except the head ache and dave and nate drinking 151.

Luca Lizzeri writes "The WSJ reports that IBM, Novell and Compaq are taking equity stakes in Red Hat (subscription required). An excerpt: "Red Hat Software Inc. [snip] said it obtained equity investments from three more computer companies: International Business Machines Corp., Compaq Computer Corp. and Novell Inc." Pretty please will someone find a link we can read and post it? And guys, don't just post the article contents in the comments- if you guys keep doing that I'm gonna get sued for copyright violation. Update: 03/09 09:33 by CT : Joy! stick sent us a free version of the story.

Linus has finally released Linux 2.2.3 after several prepatches and lots of testing. Hopefully, it should be the last one for quite awhile. Check out the changes summary on Cutting Edge Linux, and don't forget to use a mirror!

Debian GNU/Linux 2.1, aka slink, was released last night (again). It contains well over 2500 packages, and packages for GNOME and KDE, though not included in the distro, are available. Intel, Alpha, SPARC, and m68k are the supported architechtures. Potato (2.2) should be frozen shortly. More details and CD order form at netgod.net. Congrats, guys!

An anonymous reader sent us a link to an article that expresses the most amazing cluelessness about Linux I've seen yet outside of the creative panel that brings us Jesse Berst. A few good points, and a bunch of obnoxious flame dragging statements that make me irritable. It's like he's trying to bait Slashdot readers. Don't take the bait. This one isn't worth it.

At the end of this interview with Michael Dell: Where is [alternative operating system] Linux going? A: I've been surprised. We had a commercial customer order 250 machines with Linux on them to run a retail network of stores. There is growing demand there. We're going to start selling Linux to single-party users very soon. Q: It's going to be on the menu? A: Yes. You'll go to Dell, pull down "operating system," and click "Linux."

An anonymous reader pointed us to this linux today bit that points to Varkon which has GPLd their Linux CAD software. We definitely need some CAD round these parts. Drawing wireframes in the Gimp doesn't work nearly as well as you'd think.

Craigthulu asks: "I would like to install Linux from the ground up without using a specific (i.e. someone else's) distribution (except a root/boot combination to get things initially copied). I want to do this so that I become intimately familiar with what exactly is on my computer rather than rely on a bunch of (probably extraneous) software packaged up by someone else. Hopefully, this completely DIY method will force me to learn everything How do I go about finding out what I need as a bare minimum? Is there a distribution that would actually meet these critieria?"

David DeGeorge writes "From the San Francisco Examiner; Rebecca Eisenberg describing the controversy over playing with the Big Boys. Most correct newspaper article I have read about Open Source. She didn't even call Stallman a genius when mentioning the MacArthur award. "

PC Magazine Online has published some articles about Open Source, Linux world and reviews of Slackware, Caldera, Debian, Redhat, Gecko, and Apache. Worth a read. Those articles will be published on the next issue of PC Magazine in the March 23rd issue. (thanks to Eli Marmor for telling me about it).

John Fulmer sent us a link to LinuxHQ where you can read that Toshiba has released devel info for the IRDa on their laptops. I'm hearing other rumblings about Toshiba making an about-face as well, but nothing substantial yet. They really ought to see the light- those little Prot

An anonymous reader writes "Thomas Fink and Yong Mao of Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory have discovered six new "aesthetically pleasing" tie knots. Now that the perfect tie knot has been mathematically proven, will geeks everywhere flock to ties?" No.

Tom writes "Just saw this on Linux Weekly News: A magazine in India (called "PC Quest") apparently just carried RedHat 5.2++ on their March cover CD. Claims the focus of the issue is corporate (whatever that means), and that the articles would be available on their website RSN. Apparently they do it every year - accompanying press release claims quarter of a million Linux CDs so far."

Jonathan Ocab wrote in to tell us that Red Hat has redone their site. You'll notice a summary of both Freshmeat and Slashdot stories on the page, linkage to User Friendly, as well as lots of javascript mouseovers to consume bandwidth.

Later today, Slashdot will be giving out its awards for the LinuxWorld Expo- brace yourself. To help tide you over, we have several stories about the show. The first is from FWMiller who sent us a Salon Article about the event. TheMystic sent us a yahoo headline page from the show. and Mtn_Dewd sent us a CNN Story and a wired story.

Well, they've given out the award for show favorites here at LWCE. Click below to check out who won. One hint-some yahoos with a web site picked up an award.