OldBen asks: "How do you handle email (or other services for that matter) for hundreds of thousands of users? Obviously, you can't just use a standard UNIX password file (or can you)?"

Students at Stanford organised a peaceful Linux demonstration at a local career fair handing out flyers. David Weekly did a write-up on how it went. Link courtesy of LT.

Steve Phillips sent us a link to the SGI Visual Workstation HOWTO. It is what it sounds like. Some notes about what makes the new machine different (and more expensive) than many x86 boxes. It's interesting, but probably more so if you actually have one of those boxes. Wish I did... if only for that screen. Yum yum.

Code Warrior writes "If you use Linux on a laptop then you'll want to head over to Mattshouse's interview with Dag Brattli, leader of the Linux IR Project. He has some neat insights about hardware vendor cooperation, and the IrDA Group's animosity."

Planetes writes "Here's a post from Linus straight off linux-kernel (I only got it on my e-mail a few minutes ago) (I've attached it below. "

Johnny Taporg writes " I came across this article in today's Washington post, where Robert Young talks about Linux's chance of being competitive with Microsoft. He says wait a decade or so. " It's interesting he's saying this, will Microsoft is arguing that Linux is a present day competitor. How trials can so change people's opinions.

Drew Bertola writes "HP World Conference is looking for paper submissions for their Linux Track. The Linux Track may be cancelled unless 4 more paper submissions are made by the end of the week. To submit your idea, go to the HP World Conference submissions page. For more information, e-mail Orly Larson or me. "

Querty wrote in to tell us that ZDNet's AnchorDesk page (home of everyone's favorite person: Jesse Berst) is doing a whole big Linux Thing today. Articles Include "Take the Linux Plunge", "Resellers Key to Linux Success", "Essential Linux Tips" and "Jon's Linux Toolkit", and a (ahem) poll. It looks like Linux is mainstream now.

Caballero writes " Not only is 2.2 pre 9 available. The version number in the Makefile is listed as 2.2.0-final! It also includes support for the new SGI visual workstation." We're almost there now kids. Chill the wine (or just get out the shot glasses)

haaz writes "Applix Inc. has formally announced Applixware Office for LinuxPPC, and a bundling deal with LinuxPPC Inc. The product was shown during the Macworld Expo in San Francisco, and met a very warm reception. Cheers! "

L2000 writes "Here is the draft of the press release for the upcoming linux kernel 2.2.0. It seems like we might get the offical 2.2 kernel before the end of this month." We're getting closer to the big day. And there shall be great rejoicing throughout the land.

AFUL, the french Free Software user group, held a half day conference touting the benefits of free software to a government panel in the French Prime-Minister's building. The government panel (MTIC) is responsible for introducing new technologies to different ministries. A french customs official described the easy introduction to their intranet of a Linux web server which has shown itself to be very reliable. Another presentation discussed the commercial need to force customers into an update cycle. It compared Windows 3.11's reliability to that of women's stockings which are designed to break quickly. The french city of Lille's computer department also enjoyed Linux' ease of use, scalability and efficiency on older hardware. Finally, Bernard Lang's presentation did not pull its punches. He discussed the dangers for the French economy of relying on foreign black-box software: proprietary software reduces local employment, tends to concentrate power monopolistically, while free software increases local employment (since most software jobs are in the service industry), guarantees originality, competition, conformity to open standards, and a free choice of service provider. The website referred to is the French Prime Minister's Governmental website, so we can be hopeful things will start happening. Links courtesy of Nouvelles Neuves Linux, and Translation services available from Babelfish.

Harris Vaegan-Lloyd writes "Cobalt networks have just released the Qube2, with a whole lot of new features to make everyone's lives easier, so why would you want a netwinder now huh? New features are modem control, scheduled backup to remote servers, DHCP server, better email alias handling & better mailing lists and too much to type here.. Hardware is now 2 ethernet ports, a serial card and a new 250Mhz mips chip (Qunatum Effects Dynamic.). And a new power connector to replace the old one that kept falling out! Yay! ;). " An anonymous reader also sent us a link to a review of this new toy.

PsycoDoc writes "Sales growth for Intel-based servers slowed down in 1998, although sales of operating systems for these machines grew faster because of the growing popularity of Linux."

Bert de Bruijn writes "As Red Hat prepares all RawHide packages for RedHat 6.0 (codename "BlueSky"), support is being added for the ARM architecture. Obviously, Red Hat Software plans to release the next version of their distribution for the ARM architecture (Corel Netwinder & co.)" I dunno if this is proof but it looks hopeful.

Josh Beck submitted this interesting question:"Hello. We're currently using a Mylex PG card and a pile of disks to run a 120 GB RAID5 under Linux. After some minor firmware issues with the Mylex (which their tech support acknowledged and fixed right away!) , we've got a very stable filesystem with a good amount of storage. My question, though, is how far will Linux and e2fs go before something breaks? Is anyone currently using e2fs and Linux to run a 500+ GB filesystem? "

cronio asks "I was wondering if there is a way to get X to work with the Diamond Fusion 2D/3D card using the Voodoo Banshee chipset. So far I haven't been able to get it to work and was wondering if anyone has. Any suggestions?" C :Just a word of note - Diamond is notorious for viciously guarding its Hardware Specs and APIs, and unless a deal has been made (and NDAs signed) by some other party to explicitly make drivers for X, it will be unlikely to see higher end Diamond cards unless one is willing to use a commercial X server. Hopefully, this is not the case in this situation. Answers, anyone?

Fict asks "I was wondering if anyone has successfully gotten the Diamond Monster Sound MX200 to work, as a stand alone card, to work under linux. If this isn't possible, can I at least use it as a pass thru card?"

Markus Reimer asks: "Is it possible to ARP address a Linux box in the same way you can ARP address som printservers and similar 'network boxes'? The thing I want to accomplish is setting an ip-address on a Linux box, remotely, when the box is first set up. (preinstalled Linuxsystem). On several print-server boxes you do this by using arp (e.g. arp -s 192.168.17.42 ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff) If I could do this it would be great! "

Robert Wagoner writes "Today's News and Observer had yet another Red Hat article in the business section. This is one of the more clueful items we've seen in the local press coverage. " It's a longish article with a few pictures and various interesting quotes. And there's raster again in that suit. Yikes. I don't even wear pants.