I've only been using GNU/Linux since 2001, so I won't say that I'm by any means an expert yet, as most of those that are reading this, probably have been using Linux much longer than I have. However, I still have high hopes for the Linux scene. The purpose of this article is to voice my personal opinion on what I feel is keeping GNU/Linux from taking over the mainstream operating system market. My intentions aren't to "badtalk" the open source kernel+apps, but rather give constructive criticsm on what I personally feel it could be done better.

PalmOne released today a sequel for its popular Tungsten E. The Tungsten E2, looks essentially identical to its predecessor, but offers Bluetooth wireless networking, and a more powerful battery. Like the original, the E2 has a 320-by-320-pixel display. This is 30% brighter and has 40% better color saturation. This handheld has 32 MB of NVFS memory, with 26 MB available to the user. NVFS memory holds information without a charge or power. It runs at 200 Mhz, it has a headphones-in jack, but it lacks a microphone. It uses PalmOS Garnet 5.4.7 and sells for $249. Reviews here, here and here.

VIA releases Linux Driver source packages: On top of the UniChrome drivers, VIA also offers display driver sources for the VIA ProSavage and ProSavage DDR integrated graphics controllers as well as the integrated Network driver source supporting six VIA Chipset South Bridges.

The phrase "de facto standard" can denote anything from proprietary tyranny to a healthy, vibrant, market. What makes a standard viable without the formal blessing of a standards organization? Should you use such informal standards, or ignore them?

GeekOS is a tiny operating system kernel for x86 PCs. Its goal is to be simple enough for beginners to understand and modify, but realistic enough to be interesting and fun. Version 0.3.0 has been released. In addition to many critical bug fixes, there's now seamless support for compiling under Cygwin.

At university, I didn't lift weights to keep in shape. I carried my textbooks in one arm and lugged a 12-pound laptop in the other. That heavy beast never lived up to its promise of freedom but my T20 running Debian Linux has. A modern notebook is compact and portable, runs its quiet fan only when necessary, uses less power than a desktop, and offers instant access to running applications by opening the lid.

Trolltech has released the second and final beta version of Qt 4. You can download it from ftp.trolltech.com or from one of its mirrors. The online Qt Reference Documentation has been updated. Qt 4 is currently scheduled for final release in late Q2, 2005, with an intermediate Release Candidate planned for May.

Over the past several weeks, Tom Lane has been working on replacing our old Cache Management Alorithm (ARC) with a new, patent free one (2Q). In order to reduce the number of 8.x deployments out there that are using the old manager, they have just released 8.0.2, and encourage adminstrators to upgrade at their earliest convience.

Linare Pro is a commercial GNU/Linux distribution based on Fedora Core. It is themed to look and feel like WinXP and aims to be a full-featured well-integrated desktop OS. Read its review at NewsForge. OSNews also learned that the very affordable Linare laptops are selling extremely well via Wal-Mart.

XGI has released some source code of their Linux driver hoping for some help from the community.

With some free time and some spare equipment lying around, I decided to give Novell's Open Enterprise Server an install. I work in a Netware environment, but given recent trends, I decided to try and drop OES on a fresh SuSE Enterprise install. This isn't a comprehensive review; rather it's just some comments while I was just playing around. It might give people a better idea what OES actually is.

One of the major advantages Linux has to offer is cross-platform functionality. Far from being a PC operating system that has been extended for other uses, it runs on cell phones, mainframes and everything in between. This offers IT departments the possibility of using Linux to consolidate resources into a single skill set, or at least a single OS. The danger, however, is that since developers are free to conduct extensive customization, it may fork into a number of incompatible versions, says EarthWeb.

I'll try to explain my experience on updating Ubuntu 4.10 Warty to 5.04 Hoary. I've been a Debian user for some years, and updated the system at least twice (Woody -> Sarge -> Sid) with apt-get dist-upgrade. I followed exactly the Hoary release notes with Synaptic, but life isn't always a path of roses, and there are some glitches that need to be solved. Discover which ones

Why did Mandrakesoft buy Conectiva, anyway? Duval told LinuxPlanet that the biggest driver was a desire to extend the company's user base into Latin America.