DaimlerChrysler unveiled its newest concept car at the North American International Auto Show: the Dodge Super8 Hemi "all-American sedan" -- with Linux and Java inside. The project team chose Linux primarily due to the requirement for complete and unencumbered access to all low level drivers -- something much easier and simpler to do with Linux than with most other operating systems.

Now that the Linux 2.4 kernel is finally actually here, the biggest question among commercial distributors is what effect this will have on their business. This may become another case where the rules of the Linux market are different than the traditional software marketplace. If so, many commercial vendors may not think much of those rules.

Chinese PC manufacturer Legend Computer said it will create Linux-based Net devices for the Asian market. The company said the devices, the first of which will be a set-top box, will use Legend's Happy Linux embedded operating system and Cyrus InterSoft's Speiros.

Aston Linux, a joint venture with the embedded Linux solutions company, Lineo, Inc. of the United States, is poised to advance into the world embedded market. Spearheaded by CTO Dr. Kim, Aston Linux is striving to develop an array of Linux-backed embedded solutions in such fields as internet applications, telecommunication devices and real time and high availability solutions.

Mission Critical Linux recently released Version 1.2 of its Convolo Cluster server failover software for Linux. The highlight of the latest version of Convolo is its support of Network File System (NFS). According to the company, the new version now allows a Linux server running NFS to seamlessly failover to a back-up node, while maintaining the entire NFS configuration of file access privileges and support for NFS locking protocols.

This article is a practical guide giving you some shortcuts to ease your way around Linux. This is a compilation coming out of some reading on our part, references from various resources on the net and of course the many gray hairs that we have acquired -- administrating and using Linux. Apart from a whole lot of tips out here, we will also be dealing with some common commands that you will need while working on any *nix system. In general it would safe to say that almost all the commands mentioned here should work in the same manner on the other Unices out there. Well, almost.

There are some significant features introduced in 2.4. But these facilities have been around for weeks, even months, in the 2.3 development kernels. Nobody who really follows Linux is being taken by surprise, which is another reason why you don't see much rejoicing among real developers and users.

The "enhanced-security Linux" code includes stronger protections against tampering and bypassing of application security mechanisms, as well as greater limits on damage that can be caused by malicious or flawed applications, according to the agency. But analyst Eric Hemmendinger at Aberdeen Group Inc. in Boston said he is leery that the open-source development community will want to embrace the NSA project.

Speaking at an Internet conference hosted by Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Steve Ballmer said that both Unix and Linux threaten Windows' stronghold in the marketplace, but that the latter is the bigger headache.

"No, there's nothing inherently difficult about Linux. There's nothing particularly difficult about driving a car, either -- but a lifetime of riding the bus does not give one the skills necessary to drive the thing. The desktop developers have made Linux far easier than it used to be."