Linux Archive

"In recent years, Linux has proven itself a credible alternative server operating system, and application support has also improved greatly. These days, the question is not whether you can use Linux, but where you can best use it. Is there more to Linux than Apache and file and print serving? If you've spent any time hanging around Linux-friendly discussion sites such as Slashdot in the past few years, you could be forgiven for thinking that Linux is still poised to take over the world. Reality is not quite as kind." Read the article at TechUpdate.

David Mosberger, developer of the initial GCC port to IA-64 and lead kernel architect for Linux on IA-64, tells us why you should care about Intel's new 64-bit chip.

"It will never beat Windows on the desktop, but the Linux operating system has an undeniable charm in the world of corporate computing: It's free. Microsoft's Bill Gates may be richer, but when it comes to unvarnished business aggression, no one in the high-tech world can top Larry Ellison, the 58-year-old founder and CEO of Oracle. This is a man cocky enough to fly his own fighter jet, competitive enough to have his minions pilfer Gates' trash, and mean enough to verbally flog his executives in public. He's worth $14 billion, making him the fourth-wealthiest American at last count, and unlike his peers who demur on the subject of money, Ellison isn't afraid to admit that he loves being rich." At Fortune.com.

First of all, why is SCO in braces, you'll ask. The reason is, I have not seen anything in this linux distribution that sounds or smells like Caldera/SCO, even though I downloaded it through SCO's UnitedLinux beta tester website. I will mostly focus on the installation (as I am a UNIX installation developer in "real life"), but I will also discuss more parts of the UnitedLinux distribution. For more screenshots of UnitedLinux and its installation procedure, go here.

"The growing maturity of Linux is demonstrated by the way in which major vendors are beginning to deploy enterprise-class IT services on the operating system. Conversely, however, the open source environment's lack of maturity is clearly demonstrated by the fact that there is no single unified vision of its role in the corporate world. Instead respective vendors of the platform are busy tailoring very different products and services based on the operating system which integrate with their existing core business offerings. For the corporate IT manager these wildly divergent Linux strategies create little more than the familiar recipe of fear, uncertainly and doubt." Read the article at PCW.

Robert Love, author of the kernel preemption patch, has written an informative article for KernelTrap on debugging the Linux kernel. He says, "Recently, a lot of work has gone into the 2.5 development kernel to facilitate better debugging. Starting with the 2.5.39 kernel, an infrastructure is in place for tracking down a wide range of atomicity/sleep bugs."

Sun in August joined IBM, HP and Dell in offering Linux as a server operating system. A month later, IBM expanded its prepackaged Linux server offerings. Even Apple computers can be purchased with Linux preinstalled. Clearly, the Linux bandwagon is gathering speed -- Sun has said it anticipates a 30 percent annual growth rate -- but where is it going? For the first time in years, Microsoft’s unassailable lead in computer operating systems is being challenged by manufacturers offering Linux software. Even a puny challenge is better than none. Read more at Economist.

Cosmoe version 0.5.7 was released on Monday, September 23rd. A snapshot of the progress on DirectFB-based Cosmoe 0.6 is also available for developers who wish to work on it. Check the mailing list for more information.

The UnitedLinux organization plans today to release their first public beta. As of writing this, only the TurboLinux ftp site has an ongoing uploading of the UnitedLinux ISO file. Watch out for more. Update: More mirror sites here.

A recent feature on kerneltrap.org: "Ulrich Drepper recently announced the first public release of the Red Hat sponsored 'Native POSIX Thread Library' (NPTL). He explained, 'Unless major flaws in the design are found this code is intended to become the standard POSIX thread library on Linux system and it will be included in the GNU C library distribution.'

On September 18th, UnitedLinux, the consortium of Conectiva, The SCO Group (formerly Caldera), SuSE, and Turbolinux, announced that Paula Hunter, an "experienced technology executive and consortium leader," would be its worldwide general manager. The beta will be available on September 23rd, but not from the UnitedLinux site. Users, who want to give it a test drive, should go to one of the partners' sites to download copies of the binaries, ISO images or source code. Gregory said that the open beta would satisfy the needs of both the UnitedLinux industry partners and the open source community." In the meantime, the FSF sent an open letter to UnitedLinux, regarding the GPL violations that might be already in place or to be introduced by its license scheme.

With little fanfare, User Mode Linux (UML) has been merged into Linus' BitKeeper tree. The merge followed a patch by UML author Jeff Dike, resynching UML with the 2.5.34 development kernel.From the UML homepage, User-Mode Linux provides you with a virtual machine that offers "a safe, secure way of running Linux versions and Linux processes. Run buggy software, experiment with new Linux kernels or distributions, and poke around in the internals of Linux, all without risking your main Linux setup."

XFS is a GPL'd high-performance journaling file system developed by SGI since 1994 for the IRIX operating system. Version 1.0 was released for Linux on May 2001, with the current release being version 1.1. Christoph Hellwig has provided patches aimed towards getting XFS included into the 2.5 development kernel. Read more on KernelTrap.

UnitedLinux said on Wednesday that it would release a preview version of its business-oriented Linux distribution to the public in the last week of September, the first chance most potential customers will have to evaluate the results of the combined effort. UnitedLinux is based on SuSE Linux's enterprise server, but the public beta will reveal how technology has been integrated from the group's other three partners: Turbolinux, Conectiva and The SCO Group (formerly Caldera). Version 1.0 of the distribution is expected in November.