Russell Pavlicek, Linux and Open Source evangelist, has written an impassioned little book that purports to explain to the non-geek world in particular why they should care about the Open Source movement and the success of OS systems like Linux and FreeBSD. Know what? He delivers.

To all but a handful of a handful, a perfect filesystem would be boring: files would be where you expect them to be, corrupt files would never be an issue, and a power outage would result in nothing more than a few moments of darkness rather than minutes or hours of lost work. Even so -- perhaps a clue that the perfect example is far, far away -- the news on the Linux filesystem front is pretty exciting of late. In a low-key technical session Friday morning at ALS, kernel hacker Daniel Philips announced to the world the minor revolution he's planning -- which could end up replacing Linux's old standby ext2fs (and it's coming replacement ext3fs) with his Tux2 filesystem. Though Tux2 is an ext2 cousin in many ways, it carries at least one crucial improvement: according to Philips, you can literally pull the plug on a system running Tux2 and expect not to lose files or spend minutes watching fsck crawl by.

chromatic is back with a mini-compendium of introductory Linux texts -- and yes, they have the famously protected "Dummies" trademark. Don't scoff at the nature of these books, though; the skill of translating the arcana of any computer topic (and boy are they all arcane to the uninitiated!) into language that mom, kids and the guy down the street can understand is not a common one. If you don't know what a root prompt (or an editor) is, or why you might want one, it's hard to do much else with your system.

On May 23 we requested questions for Greg Lindahl, chief designer of the new NOAA Forecast Systems Laboratories massive Alpha Linux Cluster. Here are his answers. Fascinating stuff for people interested in big-time parallel computing.

Make no mistake. Andy Hertzfeld, Eazel developer and Macintosh forefather, is an Open Source zealot. Forged in the fires of Steve Jobs and Bandley 3, Andy's leading the team to build a kinder, gentler interface for our favorite operating system. I got the opportunity to speak to Andy last week, and I learned a lot about the challenges and victories of thinking different with Linux.

From a hundred feet up, the action on the floor at FOSE would look like that of any technical tradeshow. Eager vendors try to get their names into the heads of buyers, and the aisles are jammed with swag-toting prospects. The show floor has plenty of the power suits and eager vendors that any other shows do, but also more than a scattering of military insignia, camouflage and Marine crew cuts. And for the first time, just a quick stroll from the 50,000 square foot Microsoft display, this year's FOSE floor also featured Linux vendors and a dedicated Linux pavilion. (Read more.)

Well, here are Patrick Volkerding's answers to your questions, "Just in time for St. Patrick's Day. :)" as Mr. Volkerding himself put it. Read and enjoy!

Jon "maddog" Hall is the head honcho at Linux International. Monday we asked him questions about the future of Linux, his beer preferences, and other burning issues. Today, as our premier interview guest in the last year of the 20th century, maddog answers with his usual wit and candor.

Xiong Jiang sent this to us from Beijing. We're running it exactly as he wrote it, without a single word changed: The curiosity from the world on Linux and China is so high these days. :) Yes, I am a Chinese and I am curious on other parts of the world, particularly, the Linux world, as you are never the less curious on China. :) These days the business of Graphon Corp. with some China companies makes a tremendous fuss on slashdot and LinuxToday." (More --->)

Joseph Pranevich has written up an excellent piece on Linux 2.2 where he practically sums up the major features of the new kernel. This will be quite useful to any of you who are curious, but haven't been reading LinuxHQ every patch for the last year. Related, 2.2.0ac1 is now out.

This Internet World article makes some interesting predictions. The first being that Kaffe will end up shaping Java as much as Sun does, and even that Microsoft will end up adopting Kaffe. While that might be a little far out, the second set of predictions are believable: IBM and Compaq may be lining up a ton of software to release as open-source. However, unlike the article I expect it will be go beyond server software. Improving support for Java, existing Xterminal and WinTerminal support will increase the number of users whose GUI is Linux based. By helping make Linux into a fully fledged desktop OS, large vendors' reliance on Microsoft is reduced, increasing the ability of their own software departments to compete without being constrained by undocumented APIs, and the like. I'll make the bold prediction that by 2000 Linux will be a very strong desktop contender, with some desktop features Windows 2000 does not have.

Well, a friendly bird over at IDG has dropped me a line saying that a LinuxWorld press release has come. It's so new, it's not even up on the web site-click below for details. Exhibitors are signing up, and things are starting to take a more concrete shape-looking good. Rob and I will definitely be there-maybe more. Click below to read more-and to find out who the keynote speakers are.

Red Hat is releasing the source for their Neomagic chipset XF86 server. This was part of their XBF project, which releases binaries of X-Servers that you would otherwise not be able to get an server for. (note to video manufacturers:release specs! this is dumb!) Anyway, Neomagic has given Red Hat permission to release the source. Very cool. I've attached the official press release after this.

Michael Bacarella wrote in with the first essay on Linux Standards. I've got several more of these left to post today, and I'll continue to post them as I have time.