In order to take GNOME to the next level, Ximian addresses not only the polish of the overall desktop environment, but the usability issues presented in getting the software onto an end user's machine in the first place. In the first of a two-part look, Michael Hall examines getting and installing Ximian GNOME 1.4 on Red Hat, Debian, and Progeny systems, with a special eye to straightening out a few bugs and snags he found along the way.

Ministry of Finance (Poland) in response to parliamentary inquiry took a stand in case of taxation of free software. In the opinion of Finance Minister in case of using free software there is no income from free services. Use of such a software isn't taxed with the Inheritance and Donation Tax either. The reason is that it is impossible to find the financial value of such a service when it is addressed to unlimited number of users on the same basis, free of charge.

The end of the merger isn't the only change. According to this article, LinuxCare is throwing in the towel on technical support and moving to developer support. This change, more than the failure of the merger, is a mark of the changing Linux market.

Electronics makers are creating Palm-like gadgets based on Linux software, a development which shouldn't please its rivals Palm and Microsoft. Can Linux kill the Palm platform? No, but it can compete with Palm and Microsoft's Pocket PC, and it may ultimately dominate the market with an 85% share and maybe even more than that.

Microsoft Corp. boss, Steve Ballmer, said that a $135 million investment in competing software developer Corel Corp. -- the subject of a U.S. antitrust probe -- does nothing to crush Corel's fledgling Linux business.

We’ll start off with Quake 1. One prerequisite to getting Quake 1 (and Quake 2) running on your system is `svgalib’. Svgalib is a general graphics library used by non-X applications. It’s also used to process the mouse and keyboard input.

To the casual observer, Microsoft seems to have changed its ways. According to The Economist, closer inspection shows that it has done so only superficially. Inside the software industry’s 800-pound gorilla, the heart of an incorrigible monopolist beats still.

This article covers a no-compromise approach to securing a home network intended to provide no services to the outside world while also tightening down internal services. The author deals with not only the old stand-bys such as securing inetd more thoroughly, but how to lock down services such as X.

GNOME has launched a binary packaging project headed up by Gregory LeBlanc. Designed to help users test upcoming beta releases of GNOME 2.0, the project will initially focus on providing RPM's and Debian packages.