Yoav Cohen-Sivan wrote in to tell us that Marc Ewing has posted his take on the Qt License. The final result is that Qt will not be included with future versions of Red Hat's distro.

InterBase Software Corporation, a subsidiary of Inprise Corporation (FKA Borland), has announced it will release the next Linux version of its database, Interbase 5, on August 14, 1998. According to Jim Weil, president of Interbase, there has been a tremendous demand for their recent freeware offering of Interbase 4.2.

Eaglemoon sent us a link to MITs Orca-1 Submarine which apparently is run by an onboard linux system. It just won a contest that involved deploying a marker at the deepest point of a lake, while running unattended. Oh, the places Linux will go... automated subs, automated cars, the space shuttle. Ain't it cool?

Albert Strasheim writes "Just a quick update on the status of the Linux T-shirt Competition. So far I've received 42 entries, and they've all been posted here and here. There's still 5 days left to get entries in so move, move, move! :-) After the competition and voting the t-shirts will be on sale @ $18.00 each, including international shipping and handling. Mastercard, VISA and Amex cards, and bankdrafts, will be accepted. " A lot of the designs won't work as t-shirts, but I did see a couple of really sharp ones that will. Several other ones looked inspired by my DFtP shirt too :)

Chris Story was the first to give testimony that 2.1.116 is out. We've got a fairly stable kernel running off 2.1.114, and things are getting cleaner. 2.2.0 is getting closer. Not much closer, but still.

An anonymous reader that I shall refer to as Triple Hyphen (that's what he put in the box- I guess that good be his name) wrote in to ask for everyone's assistance at The Linux Hardware Certification Lab. Initially they need a nice logo designed, but they also have links for hardware vendors to register as well.

We received this from James E. McEvoy: " We've just made ObjectTeam, our OO modeling and design tool, available for Linux. Our engineers have been using this version for sometime to work at home. You can download it at our website Here's what you get: UML compliant Class Diagram Editor; Code Generation for C++ and Java; Reverse engineering of existing C++ and Java code; Unlimited personal use" It's not open-source, but it's got good reviews and looks like it could be useful. It's also good to see more Linux support. Anyone had any experience with this or other such tools?

Bart Grantham writes "I'm an intermediate (closer to beginner than advanced) Linux user and I'm wondering where I can find more information about pumping up performance. Specifically, when running XFree86 on two completely different SCSI based systems, disk access significantly decreases interface responsiveness. I can understand this to a degree, but the mouse will consistently hang for a second at a time or more. Under Win95, disk access is much faster for nearly any kind of transfer. Is there a repository of information about tweaking Linux for performance (UI or otherwise)? "

Juergen Schmidt, editor of C'T, was kind to inform me that there is now the original English version of his interview with Linus on C'T's web page

Geoff Smith writes in to ask "I'm wondering what kind of luck people have had using the new(ish) Super7 socket 7 motherboards (and their associated technologies such as 100MHz RAM, AGP video cards, and specifically the AMD K6-2 processor) under Linux. Is there a Super7 mobo that folks like for Linux? Any compatability problems (aside from the well-known, and hopefully soon-to-be-fixed, i740 card glitch with the MVP3 chipset)? I'm thinking my next machine will be based around an AMD K6-2 and haven't seen much about using Linux with it (hopefully this means it's a slam-dunk). Thanks in advance for any help you all can provide..."

Nils Lohner posted to linux-announce the new board members for Software in the Public Interest (SPI). The board members are President: Ian Jackson, Vice President: Martin Schulze, Secretary:Dale Scheetz, Treasurer: Nils Lohner. Bruce Perens (former President), Ian Murdock (former Secretary) and Tim Sailer (former Treasurer) have decided to pursue other interests in the field of free software.

perrin was the first one to let us know about the kernel. Several folks told us about Gnome. So go download stuff already.

Gopal Sarma writes "The venerable Ogrady's Power Page has detailed instructions on how to install Linux on a Power Book G3. The instructions are good, but the only problem is that they are using MK Linux rather than Linux PPC. Anyway, for those of you who were wondering if it could be done." I guess I know what I want for christmas now.

David Hamm writes "Momentum for the Atlanta Linux Showcase is growing as October 23rd and 24th draw neer. Along with Adaptec, Corel, Corel Computer, ISS and many others Sun has committed to exhibit. Join the Linux community in this celebration of the success and future growth of Linux. Register on line "

C'T, the best European Computing Magazine in my opinion, has published an interview with the divinity Linus. For those of you that do not read Teutonic, here are a few key points: Oracle's database port to Linux is important in that it shows how important Linux has become. Linux is squarely targeted at the desktop since that market is harder to penetrate than the server market: you have to get more things right than just the network-code. Linus uses neither KDE nor GNOME, staying with fvwm. He liked what he saw of KDE, but the constant flame wars have made him develop a certain aversion towards both of them. While Linus feels that Qt is a technically excellent product from a good company, he worries that the Linux community cannot accept KDE's political implications, which is a shame. But he understands Redhat's concern that it cannot do everything it deems necessary with KDE, for instance that it cannot repair a security flaw if it finds one in Qt because of Qt's license. Finally, while Linus himself does not want to sign any NDAs with Intel over Merced, he knows other Linux developers who have and is therefore sure that a Merced port will not be a problem.

The Joker wrote in with a strange question. He has a cable modem with a 750 meg/month limit, along with an ISDN line. He asks "Is it possible to do ip accounting in such a way that he will start using my isdn connection as soon as the monthly traffic reaches 650 mb, but will keep the other line open."

ZDNet currently has an interesting poll online. The question is "Is Linux a threat to Windows?". Readers can answer Yes or No. Go see for yourself for the results so far.

In yet another Linus interview (aren't we spoiled), we learn that Linus' grandfather had a positive influence on the young Linus.

Our colleagues at OS News have a feature written by a Windows programmer learning Linux. It's interesting to see what he has to say, since part of the "Linux conversion" involves converting the good Windows programmers to Linux. But that does not mean I agree with him, I happen to like VI more than "IDEs", I prefer ls to Windows Explorer, and TeX beats the living daylights out of Word...

Mercutio writes "This story Seems to indicate that Dell is preparing to move its Linux installation program to a global, rather than purely European market. " The informal program seems to be working well enough that Dell execs are considering making Linux an official supported OS across the pond." Dell supporting Linux?" Update an anonymous Dell employee wrote in to say that the Performance Computing article is in error, as Dell does not do SCO, but instead DellWare (described as "Like CompUSA, but with Dell's name on it"). And this all sounded so good.