Beneath the roar accompanying the release of Windows 2000 on Thursday is a conspiratorial whisper. There's an alternative to Microsoft's sophisticated new business operating system, it says, and it has a name we're hearing more and more: Linux.

Intel Corp. said it is considering dropping Sun Microsystems from its roster of partners supporting Intel's upcoming IA-64 platform. Intel and Sun have a contract for Solaris on Itanium, which is the first member of Intel's IA-64 family and is due this year. But an Intel spokesman said that while Intel will honor that contract, it dropped Sun's name from its marketing materials in December and is already putting its resources behind other operating systems, including Linux and Project Monterey from IBM.

I fear this might be the slow painful death bell for Novell, unless they act now. I cannot think of a more robust combination of technologies than Linux at the desktop coupled with Novell Directory Services for connectivity to networked resources. But client connectivity provided by the open source community through the use of SAMBA does not support authentication of credentials to NDS. And Novell has not yet released an NDS client for Linux, under a proprietary nor an open licensing system.

Heretic 2 is a fine addition to anyone's Linux gaming library... and I'm not just saying that because their Linux gaming library is likely sparse! It really is a very enjoyable game, with an awful lot of nice elements and features. The game's Tomb Raider like play is a welcome change on a platform that has largely seen Doom/Quake style 3D games. Other than the minor sound problems, the 3D sound environment is one of the best I've ever heard in a Linux title.

Microsoft continues to enjoy supremacy in the operating system market. One would expect that Linux, being free, would by now have gained a vast majority of the market share that Microsoft has so carefully compiled. And yet this is not the case. Large firms and corporations continue to use Microsoft products, as does a large percentage of people not involved in "big business." Why is this happening? How can Microsoft retain its competitive edge when its products cost in the upward regions of $300 and Linux is free?

The event was the Linux World Conference in San Jose, a gathering of thousands of computer geeks abuzz with an almost conspiratorial energy. Surrounded by an army of insurgents, the feeling was akin to having stepped into the mythical Sherwood Forest.

The Internet has spawned a plethora of specialty sites dedicated to hot topics such as Linux and Perl, but the new forums haven't displaced the old: Magazines named for popular software, operating systems and program languages are springing up in bookstores everywhere.

SCO announced that it is readying its award-winning Tarantella web-enabling software for the Monterey/64 and 64-bit Linux platforms utilizing an Intel Itanium processor-based server prototype. Users of these forthcoming operating system platforms will benefit from the remote administration capabilities provided by Tarantella, and provide users with secure, web-based access to Windows, mainframe, Linux and UNIX applications.

Microsoft is bracing itself for protesting hordes of Linux supporters at this week's Windows 2000 launch. The Great Satan of Software yesterday confirmed it was expecting direct action from members of the Linux fraternity on both sides of the Atlantic.

UpsideToday reporter Sam Williams talks to Klaus Schleicher, director of product management, Lernout & Hauspie. Klaus Schleicher: We went to Linux because all these new processors for the mobile market, specifically the StrongArm II processor, are designed for low power consumption. Linux seems to be the operating system optimally designed for these processors.