Jon DeNardis wrote in to tell us that Slackware 3.6 has made an appearance. Then FRaNKy wrote in to say that AmigaLinux 5.1, based on RH5.1 is also available for those of you still in the amiga clan.

Peter Neves was the first of many who wrote in to tell us about an article in Salon Magazine that describes an "...analogy between MS and the Catholic Church, and Linus and Martin Luther. "

The SVLUG, as usual, has all the really cool Linux events. Anyway, for those of you out there (and for that matter, for those of you who aren't out there, but are looking for your own ides ;) they are having a Tea Party at the opening of the new Silicon Valley MS office. They'll be wearing shirts, passing out CDs, and maybe someone will cover that RMS track that was on all the charts awhile back. It's tonight, so if you're out there, hurry. Thanks to Chris DiBona for letting us know.

karl ward writes "A Columbia student has written a very clear and insightful piece on the role of open source in 1) subverting the microsoft monopoly, and 2) bringing the downfall of global industrial capitalism. Check it out here. "

A number of you wrote to let us know that Hewlett-Packard will be supporting Red Hat Linux. This support comes from their Firehunter product. Firehunter is HP's version of Internet service-management solutions, and is targeted for the ISP community. They will be supporting Red Hat, in addition to their prior support of Solaris and NT. It's good to see this-although this does seem like a natural place for this to take place.

xgray writes "The good folks at LinuxPPC.org have announced LinuxPPC Lite, a scaled down distribution of LinuxPPC. They have cut down their usuall 600MB CD-ROM back to 75MB, which is ideal for booting from a Zip disk. The goal seems to be to entice more Mac users into giving Linux a try without having to make a major configuration commitment. " Sweet idea. I seem to remember a time when any distribution could fit in 100 megs. Times have changed. But this a great way to lure folks in without much of a hassle.

Paul Ammann writes " CNNfn has an interview with Robert F. Young, CEO of Red Hat. It shows Linux as a free operating system and that it is gaining support - and threatening Windows. If I may quote CNN, ** Linux is looking lovely. ** "

Unknwn writes "RedHat has announced that they are now splitting Powertools into three separate products. One is RedHat Variety Pack which has RedHat 5.2 for Alpha, Intel, and Sparc along with the source code. Linux Off-Line is mirrors of sunsite, mozilla, GNU, and X. The third product is the Powertools 5.2 which contains many software packages in RPM format. "

Jacob Lundqvist wrote in to tell us that a report about Linux was shown on prime-time Swedish television. Hit below to read his report.

Chris Rogers writes "There is another pro-linux article on CNN talking about how Linux is up and comming to the desktop market. Check it out Here " Swingman wrote in to say that CNNs Headline News did a spot on the air of Linux as well.

Mr_E writes "Check out www.forbes.com - not a bad review of Linux. It's focused on building a PC without any 'help' from good 'ol Bill. " One of the better articles I've seen. Worth a look if you like reading those "linux is good" articles that seem to be appearing on just about every site on earth.

An anonymous contributor advised us of the following: "Eddie is a suite of three software applications that together make web sites robust and scalable. It consists of a load-balancing DNS server, an admission control front-end and an IP migrating facility. It contain lots of goodies but the best things are that it works on Linux and that it is Open Source. " Interestingly it was initiated by Ericsson Telecom AB, and the NT version will only be available later. I guess this also means Erlang works on Linux!

Oracle is to release Oracle 8i with the new iFS filesystem tomorrow. As this article argues, iFS will lead to a commoditization of the operating system (in particular NT): iFS goes beyond traditional filesystems by adding database capabilities, enabling better search and revision control management. However, these iFS' can be mounted like a traditional NFS server, reducing complexity for IT staff, while keeping the improvements transparent to users who don't want to know. Interestingly, the low cost of Linux would be an advantage to Oracle which is not interested in promoting OS capabilities. This leads the author to speculation of further Oracle-Linux announcements. Link found on Linux Today.

Yanni wrote in with a blatant rumor that we offer no proof of. Take it or leave it. He says "Macromedia is testing Linux Shockwave and Flash. A Macromedia pal of mine discovered last week that Linux versions of Shockwave and Flash would begin company-internal testing soon. No word o n an external release date (beta or otherwise). Obviously, I can't offer any proof, so you'll have to take this as a rumor. " Anyone at Macromedia willing to confirm or deny this? I know you're reading... *grin*

Sean Kelly sent me this distress call: "I've recently traded an older computer in for a Sony VAIO MicroTower PCV-E204. I took the old hard disk and did a 'cp -a /' to transfer the filesystem to the new Sony box. The Sony also comes with a crappy LT WinModem so I put my ZOOM FAX/Modem V.34 PLUS (model 2836A) on the serial port. On the new Sony box, I am having serious problems with deadlocking sockets. Transfers start out at a normal speed but quickly decrease speeds down to as low as 60-70bytes/second. It seems to be more of a problem on incoming data, and it seems to be on a per-socket basis which leads me to believe that there is something software related going on." Click below for more...

Chris Southern writes "If there is one thing in this world that makes Bill Gates nervous, it must be Linux. WebCMO, a marketing research group, did a survey on who used Linux. " This is a cool survey, except that I've never heard of WebCMO... Has anyone had any experience with them?

Bob Fisher writes "Bob Cringely's (PBS Online column briefly summarizes the contents of the Microsoft Halloween document, and critiques the Linux community for its response to it. His message (borrowing from the Nemsis air racing team) -- "Chase the dream, not the competition." "

Kevin Cullis writes "I work as an Account Manager at CompUSA in Denver and I'm seeing the results of Linux within my store (we sell out of Red Hat within a week of receiving it). My question for Linux folks is: If you were to demo Linux and its applications for people to see as an alternative to Microsoft, what hardware and software products would you intall. Remember, this is PRIMARILY for business (including SOHO) with home stuff thrown in as needed. Also, since I'm at the Park Meadows Store, please call me to give me a hand with this info. Lastly, this request is ONLY to see the feasabiltiy of the project (as well as manager's approval) and to get an idea of what would be needed to make it happen. Any and all suggestions and expertise would be greatly appreciated in helping customers with emerging technologies. Kevin Cullis Account Manager, CompUSA 303-645-1517 "

CRN has an article about Linus which is rather glowing: Linus has his head screwed on right. Bob Young's comment "He's a fundamentally secure human being" probably explains to a large extent Linux' success. Sounds like we should all start eating oatmeal!

Linus was kind enough to bestow upon us Linux 2.1.127 just minutes ago. Looks like more ports merging (esp. PPC and sparc64), ISDN and hfs updates, and knfsd upates seem to be the major fixes. I guess Alan's merging of Olaf's NFS patches didn't make this one, which is quite a large patch: 256k compressed (354 files changed).