A good break down of what needs to be done for the Linux kernel 2.6 (which might be coming out as soon as in November) can be found on LWN and on KernelTrap.
"Turbolinux, one of the four main Linux commercializers, closed down on Monday, multiple sources say. The company could not be reached for comment late last night when reports started filtering in. It was after normal business hours anywhere in the US. If true, the unconfirmed disaster will be a black eye for the newfangled United Linux initiative that Turbo, Caldera, SuSE and Conectiva, all second stringers, put together a few weeks ago to prop each other up and create a common operating system platform to take up against Linux market leader Red Hat." Read the (unconfirmed yet) report at LinuxGram.
"As part of our 100th issue celebration, we present 100 of the most significant events in Linux history. As shown in the timeline, the first issue of Linux Journal coincided with the release of Linux 1.0. Ever since, the fortunes of our magazine have followed those of Linux at large." Read the Linux Timeline.
An interview with Robert Love is at KernelTrap. Robert is author of the kernel preemption patch which has been merged into the 2.5 development kernel. In this interview, Robert discusses the status of Linux kernel preemption, talks about his recent involvement with the O(1) scheduler and explains his recent VM overcommit work. He also reflects upon Linus' use of Bitkeeper, the future of Linux, and the recent Kernel Summit in Ottawa.
Adam Wiggins has put together 10 reasons of what he believes it is wrong with Linux today. Our Take: Some of his points seem correct, but others are already fixed for most distributions. I really had a smile in my face reading his point No 5. It is exactly what I was talking about 2 weeks ago, and only the Amiga, OSX and BeOS-6/Dano people were able to follow of what it really means to have a smooth desktop! Read the discussion and explanation starting here and especially here.
There are two recent articles about the current state of Linux in the embedded world: "It's raining penguins. Or rather, that's what many people would like you to think. Linux vendors are laying off scores of workers. Linux publications are folding. So is it doom and gloom time for Linux lovers? PDF here. "The law of supply and demand will face a curious test over the next few years, as embedded Linux vendors search for a way to make engineers pay for an operating system that appeals to users largely because it's free."Article at EETimes.
The new Linux kernel maintainer speaks to ZDNet UK about opportunities for Linux in applications big and small, and explains why UnitedLinux is a good idea.
The concept behind rxLinux, is to centralise configuration and management of multiple GNU/Linux servers. New servers can be deployed in minutes. A web interface is used to build custom iso cdrom dedicated for specific servers. Server, also called rxnodes, boot up from that cdrom and get the rest of configuration and software from a master server. No administration is done directly on nodes. Everything is controlled from the master servers. rxLinux is based on the GNU/Linux system and related Free tools, ensuring your Freedom as a user and an admin.
The Cosmoe 0.5.4 release is a relatively minor update which further improves the configuration script and the Makefiles that it touches. New in this release is the ability to create a DirectFB-enabled target.
"In this article, I'll ignore for the sake of argument that I am a developer, and side with users. Nowadays we have tens of thousands of applications available for Linux. Some are simple, some are rather complex, some are huge. This ought to be enough to achieve world domination, according to some Linux proponents."Read the editorial at LinuxAndMain.
YDL 2.3 surpasses YDL 2.2 with an array of timely updates, improvements: kernel 2.4.19, the 'Liquid' theme, CUPS print system, apt-get, OpenOffice 1.0, Mozilla 0.9.9, Galeon 1.2, Evolution 1.0.5, AbiWord 1.0.2, netatalk 1.5.3.1, and support for the Radeon 7500 (excluding 'Mobility') video card among its 1000 packages spread across 3 CDs.
"It's important to bear in mind that UnitedLinux is purely an enterprise play. While the new UnitedLinux distribution will be their in-common product targeted at you folks, the four companies will continue to maintain their own product lines for other markets. Since the Linux enterprise marketplace is dominated by Red Hat, you really have to wonder how big a ripple this will make in the pond."Editorial at ZDNews.
Bill Hayden released version 0.5.2 of his Cosmoe environment for Linux. The new version fixes a dozen of include file problems during compilation, API and source changes etc. The new version should compile now cleanly on all Linux systems, x86 and PPC. Check out the Cosmoe mailing list if you still are getting problems with compilation.
"So far, Linux has run just fine, hasn't crashed, and seems to offer tremendous flexibility, but this comes at the price of complexity. Up to a point, Linux is as easy to use as any other mainstream operating system. But after that point is passed, the water gets very deep, very quickly--as my monitor resolution issue serves to illustrate. Windows also suffers from this "easy up to a point" issue, but the point is a good bit farther down the road than it is in Linux." The second part of David Coursey's trip to the Linux world.
"What are your experiences with the RPM package format? Do you install/uninstall RPM packages frequently? Do you upgrade every time a new release comes out? If so, does it go smoothly? Have you ever switched to an RPM-based distribution from Debian or Slackware? Have you tried other packaging formats? Have you tried source-based distributions?"Read the article at DistroWatch.
ZDNews' David Coursey is the person who was a long-time Windows user, but after pressure from his readers gave a month-long try to MacOSX, and since then he enjoys every minute with it. The other camp, the Linux users, now ask David to give a long shot at their favorite operating system. David installed Red Hat 7.3, and here is where he got stuck so far.
"You will find the Cosmoe 0.5.1 tarball on the download area of www.cosmoe.com. Please read the README before building to avoid problems. This version should compile cleanly under any gcc 2.96 through 3.1. I did
not test under 2.95.x" Bill Hayden announced the release to the Cosmoe mailing list. This version should also build cleanly on PPC.
ELX Power desktop 1.0 is ready to be shipped. The first 100 users will receive an official ELX T-shirt as an early bird offer. Prices for the three versions of ELX are between $70 and $105 USD. Here is a comparison chart between ELX, Windows and the rest of the Linux distributions.
"eWeek Labs' tests of SuSE Linux Inc.'s SuSE Linux 8.0, MandrakeSoft SA's Mandrake Linux 8.2 and Red Hat Inc.'s Red Hat Linux 7.3 revealed that the penguins have made some great strides in usability—to the point that users unfamiliar with Linux could comfortably find their way through a machine installed with any of these Linux variations."Read the review at eWeek.
