From Linux kernels and chemistry to lawsuits, all things nerdy and newsworthy were fair game at the Golden Penguin Bowl, a fixture of the LinuxWorld conference meeting here this week.

SGI, which sells a 64-processor Altix 3000 computer based on the open-source operating system, will release a 128-processor version in spring 2004, the company said Tuesday.

Networking software maker Novell on Monday boosted its Linux portfolio with the acquisition of Linux software maker Ximian for an undisclosed sum.

Red Hat escalated the legal war over Linux on Monday by announcing that it has filed a lawsuit against the SCO Group.

Red Hat has put out a beta for version 3 of its enterprise class operating system, offering up support for a host of processors.

The Open Groupware.org (OGo) project, a sister organisation to OpenOffice.org, has announced the formation of an international development community and an initial release of Open Source groupware server software, writes Martin Langham of Bloor Research.

Oracle will launch a Web-based center for Linux application developers working with the Perl, PHP, and Python programming languages. The site will initially provide sample source code for Perl only. PHP and Python code will be added later, in that order.

Intel joins other major platform companies such as Hewlett-Packard Co., Oracle Corp., SAP AG, Hitachi, Fujitsu, Borland Software Corp. and a host of others in the IBM Corp.-sponsored effort to create an open platform for Java-based tools integration.

Red Hat released a new test version of its Linux operating system on Monday along with a new development process that's designed to include outside programmers.

Asia could leapfrog Western countries in the development of Linux-based applications, but some governments are not latching on to this opportunity, says a senior IBM executive.