A PhD student has built one of the world's fastest supercomputers out of PC chips and open-source software. The design comprises 64 nodes, each powered by a 1GHz AMD Athlon processor and linked in a double helix shape. It uses the Linux operating system, tweaked for this application.

Look out PalmOS and Windows CE, here comes Linux. That's the warning given the two most-used personal digital assistant (PDA) operating systems as a flood of mobile devices based on the popular open source Linux OS reach mobile consumers.

"In fact, instead of Linus Torvalds on the stage promoting Linux at the event's initial keynote, it was none other than the president and CEO of IBM, Sam Palmisano. My initial reaction, after years of IBM-loathing, was to consider who had let the fox into the hen house."

Sharp is looking to Linux as the basis for the next generation of its Zaurus PDAs - at least as far as models sold outside Japan go.

The company has started promoting its new z900 mainframe as the cost-effective antidote to power-hungry "server farms" ... IBM already had been telling potential customers that a mainframe computer could replace a vast "farm" of server computers that drive corporate Web sites and process transactions.

IBM will introduce programs to make Linux available on its iSeries servers. The company will also unveil technology to allow the iSeries to be partitioned for both OS/400 and Linux on the same machine, and will discuss similar partionability on its pSeries - its previous RS/6000 line - servers as well.

IBM Norway and Trustix have signed an agreement to jointly develop and market a Linux training programme in Norway. The training programme will be centred around Trustix' Linux operating system - Trustix Secure Linux, and Trustix' Linux competencies.

The "Quake demo" consisted of running identical binary images of Quake on two side-by-side systems -- one running on top of Linux, and the other on the LynxOS RTOS. The intent of the demo, of course, is to raise the possibility that other Linux software might also run unmodified on LynxOS.

The AIX Toolbox for Linux Applications is a set of free software tools that can be used to write programs for both Linux and AIX Version 4.3.3.

Users looking to better integrate Linux into their Unix environments might want to check out Lxrun, an open source software tool that allows Linux programs to run on Sun Solaris and Santa Cruz Operation UnixWare platforms.