The Linux albatross just wouldn't sell. And the Linux platypus, well, who'd buy anything from him? Ah, but the Linux penguin, there's a bird that could really drive an industry.

Having a 64 bit machine sitting around collecting dust is not my idea of a good time, so I decided (since the semester is over :) to have another go at installing again, and also to see what improvements were made in distributions since some new releases have come out. Specifically, I have installed (or tried to) the following 64bit versions: Gentoo LiveCD beta, Mandrake RC1, Suse 8.2 beta2, Suse 9.0 and Red Hat Taroon.

Top programmers on Wednesday released a major update to Linux, version 2.6.0, a change that's expected to help carry the open-source operating system into new markets.

A recent SG Cowen Securities survey of more than 500 North American IT users found that more than 80 percent of respondents were currently using Linux and that more than half planned to increase their use of the open-source operating system within the next two years.

BEA Systems will make proprietary technologies from its WebLogic Workshop tool freely available to the larger Java development community, a company executive said.

Q: Tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, and integrated search are some of the distinguishing features of Mozilla. What's coming next?

A: We are working on developing Mozilla as a platform and Web services are where we are putting the bulk of our efforts.

While the LinuxBIOS effort fully supports Linux, other modern operating systems, e.g. *BSD, and Windows 2000/XP, could not be directly supported because of their reliance on a few services provided by those legacy BIOSes. In this paper, we describe how we have combined elements of the LinuxBIOS, the Bochs PC emulator, and additional software to create the first open source firmware for the IBM PC capable of booting most modern operating systems.

If you've followed Linus Torvalds' postings on the Linux kernel mailing list (the LKML) for awhile, then you're aware of the high esteem he has for kernel code written with "good taste." It seems the highest compliment Linus ever pays to other kernel hackers is to refer to them as having "good taste."

Linus Torvalds can muster more creativity from his

far-flung rank and file than Bill Gates can from his

corporate monolith.

Linus Torvalds and Open Source Development Labs plan a big coming-out party late next month for the Linux 2.6 kernel. Partners won't see commercial distributions based on the updated kernel until well into 2004.