Slashdot Mirror

An anonymous reader writes "Dell's Linux blog points to the news that Dell and SUSE have teamed up to start offering SUSE Enterprise Linux installed directly on Dell servers. Looks like Dell isn't just a Red Hat shop anymore."

as400tek writes "According to CNN, Sony Electronics Inc. has been opening stores in selected cities all over the US. Denver and Las Vegas are the next two location, or location numbers 11 & 12. Should the Apple retail model be applied to Sony, and if so why didn't it work for Gateway? Should Dell be next to enter you local shopping mall? Should large retailers like Best Buy and others be afraid of this model? Does this mean better service for Sony's already nice line up of electronics?"

thejoelpatrol writes "So did Slashdotters call this one? Windows XP SP2 seems not to be so secure after all. A Register reporter goes in depth to find out just how safe a fresh install is. He provides a list of which dangerous ports are left open and which services are left on by default. I guess now we know why Microsoft's security timetable is 10 years." Reader ack154 writes "ZDNet is reporting that many Dell Inspiron users are reporting an extreme performance decrease since installing Windows XP SP2 - decreases as much as from 2.6ghz down to 300mhz. Dell claims no responsibility, claiming it is 'externally loaded software' and they don't support it. In the mean time there has been a fix posted on Dell's forums, which rolls back the processor driver." Finally, Marxist Hacker 42 writes "Amid complaints of too much XP Service Pack 2 coverage on ZD Net, David Berlind writes that Service Pack 2 deserved the scrutiny it got- and charges that it failed to live up to Gates' Trusted Computing Initiative." Finally, Microsoft warns that installing SP2 on a spyware-infested PC is a bad idea.

Mz6 writes "Dell unveiled an offer that grants music player customers a $100 rebate on a 15GB Digital Jukebox when they send in an Apple iPod music player to be recycled. 'We want to help drive further awareness of the products we have available and...the plusses we have to offer,' said Dell spokesman Jess Blackburn. Thus the iPod offer 'is a way to call out what separates us from the understood leader in this particular market.' Dell is also offering free shipping, free software, and 25 free songs through MusicMatch and brings the overall cost for the DJ down to $99." Helpful tip: If you have a dead iPod, do the rebate offer, and sell the Jukebox on eBay.

Mz6 writes "Dell unveiled an offer that grants music player customers a $100 rebate on a 15GB Digital Jukebox when they send in an Apple iPod music player to be recycled. 'We want to help drive further awareness of the products we have available and...the plusses we have to offer,' said Dell spokesman Jess Blackburn. Thus the iPod offer 'is a way to call out what separates us from the understood leader in this particular market.' Dell is also offering free shipping, free software, and 25 free songs through MusicMatch and brings the overall cost for the DJ down to $99." Helpful tip: If you have a dead iPod, do the rebate offer, and sell the Jukebox on eBay.

Chroniton writes "According to InternetNews.com: 'HP stepped up its commitment to open source software Monday by pledging to offer and support the MySQL database server and JBoss application server software in its servers' - it's also mentioned: 'The deal is truly symbiotic. While MySQL and JBoss get backing from a technology driver such as HP, HP gets the added credibility of being cozy with open source, a label many enterprises and HP rivals, such as IBM and Dell, are working toward.'"

Sir Pallas writes "Intel settled a patent infringement suit over SSE and Hyperthreading for $225mil with Intergraph. Furthermore, Dell, also named in the suit, claims that their indemnity agreement with Intel applies in this case and requires Intel to take any bullets headed Dell's way." Update: 03/31 17:49 GMT by T : philthedrill writes "The Intel/Intergraph article title is incorrect. Technically," (according to this story at out-law.com), "Intel/Dell and Intergraph settled a longstanding suit which dealt with Itanium (not SSE/Hyperthreading). Another company, MicroUnity, is now suing Intel and Dell over SSE and Hyperthreading."

RebornData asks: "I do freelance computer support for small businesses, and after running into a string of hairy hardware problems, decided to buy some generic PC diagnostic software. My searches turned up numerous vendors but very few independent or reputable reviews and comparisons, so I embarked on an evaluation of my own. What I found was an industry filled with con artists, bitter feuds, and outdated products. I'm now out $400 and am wondering whether my hope of finding useful diagnostic software was a naive dream. Has anyone found something that works for you?"

"The premise of PC diagnostics software is simple: provide an easy way to test for PC hardware problems, independent of software configuration. Some hardware vendors (like Dell) provide diagnostics with their systems, but they are usually model-specific and not even all major vendors provide them. Of course there are free utilities like the well-known memtest86, but I was wanted something more comprehensive.

So I started my research, and found a variety of packages, including PC Doctor, PC Check, Microscope, PC Certify, Tufftest Pro, among many others, ranging in price from $500 to $35. Some come with associated hardware, such as loopback connectors for parallel, serial, network or USB ports, or ISA / PCI cards that will show low-level POST codes for machines that appear completely dead.

Some of the vendors provided demos, but most were severely crippled. The cheaper software tended to be outdated and incomplete, lacking support for newer hardware features. Almost all practiced high-pressure sales tactics over the phone, and I discovered that one company was actually a spinoff of another by a disgruntled former employee, resulting in a bitter, lawsuit-ridden feud.

Microscope, by Micro 2000, seemed to have the most online feedback, mostly positive, but they didn't provide a demo. After contacting their sales, they suggested that if I bought a full copy for my evaluation, I could return it in 30 days if it didn't meet my needs. Well, it turned out to be buggy and missing important features found in other, cheaper products. When I called to return the product, the salesman disclaimed all knowledge of the promise they made, and they've refused to take it back. Some further digging found that I'm not the first person to be taken in by these tactics.

I still would like to find worthwhile PC diagnostics software, but the (a) lack of independent reviews, (b) shady industry sales tactics and (c) poor performance of a 'well regarded' package leave me wondering... am I a sucker for buying into the whole concept in the first place? Can anyone point me towards a reputable vendor, or an alternative set of independent tools that will do the same job?"

Carpoolio writes "TechTV has a good first look at the new Dell Inspiron XPS -- the company's first foray into portable gaming systems. The notebook -- a beast at 9 pounds -- puts the company squarely against the likes of Alienware. The price tag is steep, too, at $3,350. Are you buying?"

comforteagle writes "I've just written up an interesting find: Linux engineers at Dell have started their own Linux site and weblog about Linux at Dell. From the announcement: "Welcome to the Dell Linux Community Web. This site is dedicated to providing any information that may be useful regarding your usage of Linux on your Dell equipment. While Dell primarily works with and officially supports Red Hat Linux, many of our customers choose to run other distributions." And perhaps more importantly it appears that the new site and weblog is run and maintained by the engineers themselves. It certainly has that 'made with vi' look." And kudyadi points to this PC Magazine interview with Michael Dell, in which Dell talks "about Dell's expanding product line, the company's late entrance into the Media Center space, and where the PC giant and the industry go from here." He touches on Linux just a bit, too.

comforteagle writes "I've just written up an interesting find: Linux engineers at Dell have started their own Linux site and weblog about Linux at Dell. From the announcement: "Welcome to the Dell Linux Community Web. This site is dedicated to providing any information that may be useful regarding your usage of Linux on your Dell equipment. While Dell primarily works with and officially supports Red Hat Linux, many of our customers choose to run other distributions." And perhaps more importantly it appears that the new site and weblog is run and maintained by the engineers themselves. It certainly has that 'made with vi' look." And kudyadi points to this PC Magazine interview with Michael Dell, in which Dell talks "about Dell's expanding product line, the company's late entrance into the Media Center space, and where the PC giant and the industry go from here." He touches on Linux just a bit, too.

BenchmarkingFreak writes "OSnews is running a story about a new benchmarking competition: OSU Open Source Lab wanted to take the concept of benchmarking a little bit further with the Beaver Challenge 2004. In this competition they will be allowing a community of experts in each OS to tweak their configurations to ensure maximum performance. And they are running it all on wicked machines, just imagine... well you know."

Zed writes "Showing a distancing of itself from Microsoft, Dell now offers businesses a chance to purchase computers without a Windows operating system. The N-Series computers start at $319 from Dell's website and ship with a FreeDOS CD in the box."

Slowtreme writes "There have been many attempts recently to cash in on Apple's iPod success. Napster, Dell, and others have made iPod clones. This Korean Dcube looks like they are going all out. With 1.5 gig, Ogg and MP3 support, grey scale display, USB2.0, wireless, FM radio, it looks like a nice device. Most noticeable however is the scroll wheel, Apple holds patents (pending) on scroll wheel design. How much noise will this make?" (The Napster-branded one is actually a Samsung product; Samsung, too, is supporting Ogg Vorbis in some models, though not in that one.)

An anonymous reader notes: "SecurityFocus has published a hack that can be used to unlock Microsoft Word documents that have been password protected. The 'secure' file can easily be edited and the original password re-inserted, removing any trace of the modification. A ZDNet UK article says Dell uses password protected Word files to send quotes, which could make for a messy legal battle." This feature, known as 'Password to Modify', is not the password protection on the document itself, just the protection that restricts unauthorized editing of the file. This hack allows someone to download such a file, edit it, and restore the password...effectively allowing changes to the file to go potentially unnoticed.

guess-for-success asks: "In Lester Thurow's latest book, published by HarperBusiness Books (Fall 2003), Fortune Favors the Bold: What We Must Do to Build a New and Lasting Global Prosperity, there is a chapter which discusses the beginning of new industries. During this time, several business models are introduced and only a few will survive. Looking at the PC industry, Commodore was the industry leader in the 1980's, but ultimately failed and went bankrupt in 1994. Successful business models such as Dell were not introduced until years after the industry began. I now ask the Slashdot community: which internet business models they believe are going to succeed? Which companies will rise to the top? Will they be infrastructure related companies such as Cisco and even FedEx, or will they be true dot.com's such as eBay or Amazon?"

"You can find out more about Lester Thurow here. He is a professor of economics and management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has been the Dean of the Sloan School of Business at MIT. He has three New York Times best selling books to his credit and consults widely around the globe."

srothroc writes "Dell has been selling DVD+R burners for a while, but now they're tossing them in on free deals with some decent everyday consumer systems. I wonder if this increased support from one of two companies to pull a profit on PCs is going to tip the scale towards the +R format... If not, what's going to happen to the Dell users who have all of these +R drives if it turns out that -R wins out in the long run?"

Slashback tonight with another round of updates and corrections to recent stories, including transgenic fish, Hilbert's 16th problem, Microsoft's FAT patent plans, Utah's hyped public fiber network, and more. Read on for the details.

Still an acorn at this point. Jose Nazario writes with a correction to my recent post claiming that OpenBSD had gained a "fuzzy" user-profiling IDS. Jose writes: "It is NOT in tree. it is a privately developed research project. It is not an official project."

And Yes, the Apple I schematics were available, too. In response to the recent article about the freely available chip design from opencores.org implemented by Flextronics, Henry Keultjes offers a reminder that this is not the first time chip whose internals have been open for inspection:

"Happened quite some time ago with PowerPC. That's the essence of Microsoft's deal with IBM because without that Open Architecture Microsoft would have had to buy a lot more than it did. This for example is used in a roughly $150 French set-top box that has USB and, according to a friend in the UK who has tried that, runs just fine as a PC with the attached USB HDD, KB and rodent."

Could Wayne Inouye sell you an eMachine? After reading many pointed comments in the story about eMachine's Athlon offerings, arrasmith writes "To add to the topic of AMD64 eMachines and the launch of "I hate eMachine" posts I'll throw out why you should buy one.

eMachines are the number-3 seller of computers, only behind Dell and HP. If you are wondering about how that happened, you need to read about the new CEO.

Wayne Inouye has had some articles published about him in Business Week and Forbes. Great articles on how you can sell good computers at reasonable prices. And if you are wondering why eMachines is selling an AMD64 system read the Business Week article."

OK, as long as you buy it from us. Alien54 writes "As reported in the most recent Spyware Info Newsletter, Dell seems to have listened to the criticism handed to them last week, after their decision to forbid tech support persons from providing assistance to spyware-infected customers became public knowledge. They have partnered with PestPatrol, Inc. to sell Pest Patrol's spyware removal software to Dell customers. It is interesting to note that Dell does not recommend any freeware or shareware product because 'we cannot test these open source utilities reliably.' Which is simply silly, of course."

Utah may not be Utopia after all. brysnot writes "The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the Utopia project, which plans to run fiber to every home in Utah, has miscalculated its 2003 budget and now needs each member cities to come up with an additional $250,000. Also reported is that 'Its largest member, Salt Lake City, is uncertain whether to provide financial backing to guarantee payment of the principal and interest on the bonds the project needs -- a development that could force the project to be scaled back.'"

Writes Lighthop "The best way to overcome Qwest's vast resources and well orchestrated opposition is for citizens and business owners to speak out and let their city council members know we support them in approving UTOPIA's funding. We have to be visible and give them some political cover.

The 18 UTOPIA member cities are Brigham City, Cedar City, Cedar Hills, Centerville, Layton, Lindon, Midvale, Murray, Orem, Payson, Perry, Riverton, Roy, Salt Lake City, South Jordan, Taylorsville, Tremonton and West Valley."

Hilbert's 16th is still a problem. commodoresloat writes "The work of Elin Oxenhielm, the 22-year old Swedish student who apparently solved part of the 16th Hilbert problem, is coming under heavy fire from some prominent mathematicians, including her own adviser, who said the work contained "serious mistakes, which I think any educated mathematician can easily see." Here's an article in English. Oxenhielm responded to the criticism by saying that the journal that accepted her work, which now owns the copyright, is responsible for any errors. More information on this weblog."

Periscope is up, showdown commences. McSpew writes "The Register states that Microsoft's patents on the FAT filesystem may be subject to new scrutiny, thanks to their announced plan to collect royalties from media and CE manufacturers. The Public Patent Foundation is behind the effort to get the USPTO to start from scratch with Microsoft's FAT patents."

FDA gives GM fish sales the eerie green light. fishfishfish writes "The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Tuesday released a statement saying that it will not be stopping the sale of transgenic Zebra danios in the USA. The move could allow fish retailers in any U.S. state to sell the fish. Apart from California, where Arnie has banned them..."

Slashback tonight with another round of updates and corrections to recent stories, including transgenic fish, Hilbert's 16th problem, Microsoft's FAT patent plans, Utah's hyped public fiber network, and more. Read on for the details.

Still an acorn at this point. Jose Nazario writes with a correction to my recent post claiming that OpenBSD had gained a "fuzzy" user-profiling IDS. Jose writes: "It is NOT in tree. it is a privately developed research project. It is not an official project."

And Yes, the Apple I schematics were available, too. In response to the recent article about the freely available chip design from opencores.org implemented by Flextronics, Henry Keultjes offers a reminder that this is not the first time chip whose internals have been open for inspection:

"Happened quite some time ago with PowerPC. That's the essence of Microsoft's deal with IBM because without that Open Architecture Microsoft would have had to buy a lot more than it did. This for example is used in a roughly $150 French set-top box that has USB and, according to a friend in the UK who has tried that, runs just fine as a PC with the attached USB HDD, KB and rodent."

Could Wayne Inouye sell you an eMachine? After reading many pointed comments in the story about eMachine's Athlon offerings, arrasmith writes "To add to the topic of AMD64 eMachines and the launch of "I hate eMachine" posts I'll throw out why you should buy one.

eMachines are the number-3 seller of computers, only behind Dell and HP. If you are wondering about how that happened, you need to read about the new CEO.

Wayne Inouye has had some articles published about him in Business Week and Forbes. Great articles on how you can sell good computers at reasonable prices. And if you are wondering why eMachines is selling an AMD64 system read the Business Week article."

OK, as long as you buy it from us. Alien54 writes "As reported in the most recent Spyware Info Newsletter, Dell seems to have listened to the criticism handed to them last week, after their decision to forbid tech support persons from providing assistance to spyware-infected customers became public knowledge. They have partnered with PestPatrol, Inc. to sell Pest Patrol's spyware removal software to Dell customers. It is interesting to note that Dell does not recommend any freeware or shareware product because 'we cannot test these open source utilities reliably.' Which is simply silly, of course."

Utah may not be Utopia after all. brysnot writes "The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the Utopia project, which plans to run fiber to every home in Utah, has miscalculated its 2003 budget and now needs each member cities to come up with an additional $250,000. Also reported is that 'Its largest member, Salt Lake City, is uncertain whether to provide financial backing to guarantee payment of the principal and interest on the bonds the project needs -- a development that could force the project to be scaled back.'"

Writes Lighthop "The best way to overcome Qwest's vast resources and well orchestrated opposition is for citizens and business owners to speak out and let their city council members know we support them in approving UTOPIA's funding. We have to be visible and give them some political cover.

The 18 UTOPIA member cities are Brigham City, Cedar City, Cedar Hills, Centerville, Layton, Lindon, Midvale, Murray, Orem, Payson, Perry, Riverton, Roy, Salt Lake City, South Jordan, Taylorsville, Tremonton and West Valley."

Hilbert's 16th is still a problem. commodoresloat writes "The work of Elin Oxenhielm, the 22-year old Swedish student who apparently solved part of the 16th Hilbert problem, is coming under heavy fire from some prominent mathematicians, including her own adviser, who said the work contained "serious mistakes, which I think any educated mathematician can easily see." Here's an article in English. Oxenhielm responded to the criticism by saying that the journal that accepted her work, which now owns the copyright, is responsible for any errors. More information on this weblog."

Periscope is up, showdown commences. McSpew writes "The Register states that Microsoft's patents on the FAT filesystem may be subject to new scrutiny, thanks to their announced plan to collect royalties from media and CE manufacturers. The Public Patent Foundation is behind the effort to get the USPTO to start from scratch with Microsoft's FAT patents."

FDA gives GM fish sales the eerie green light. fishfishfish writes "The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Tuesday released a statement saying that it will not be stopping the sale of transgenic Zebra danios in the USA. The move could allow fish retailers in any U.S. state to sell the fish. Apart from California, where Arnie has banned them..."

geoff313 writes " For all of you who might be worried about what financial consequences Linus Torvalds might have to endure as a result of being subpoenaed by SCO, fear not: the Open Source Development Lab (OSDL) will pay for its law firm to represent him. the OSDL, who are Torvalds' employer, will announce on Friday that the "OSDL has agreed to fund legal representation for Torvalds and any other employees of the lab who may become involved in the litigation." Just in case you didn't you didn't know, the OSDL is funded by a variety of corporations including (but not limitied to) IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Sun Microsystems, Red Hat, Cisco, Computer Associates, Fujitsu, Hitachi, and Nokia. "

X Bass writes "Available Tuesday, Dell's 15 and 20GB DJ adds to the growing field of iPod wannabes. Is it worthy or is it just another player that falls short of the iPod's greatness?"

arashiakari asks: "I have to buy a new laptop soon and I am having trouble settling on a brand or model except one that I cannot use. Apple's iBook laptop is beautiful, functional, lightweight, and made of high quality materials. I would buy one today except that I am a professional programmer and MUST use the same platform my compiler targets: Intel. So far each Intel-based laptop I have looked at is both grossly over-decorated (Compaq, Toshiba) and made of cheap flimsy materials (Dell), or has the combined problem of being overpriced and under-powered - with external bays for everything (Sony). IBM is expensive, but they are as close as I've found to "right" ... with Toshiba in second place. It seems like Intel-based laptops are either hot ugly tanks or oversized PDAs, there seems to be a scarcity of balanced well-thought-out and produced machines. Does the Slashdot have any suggestions?"

bwdunn asks: "Do we need to run screen savers again to prevent the burn-in we saw on the very old CRTs? Dell's latest and greatest laptops, the Latitude D800 and Inspiron 8500 both suffer from horrible screen burn-in problems with burn-in visible after as little as 2 hours. Dell claims this is an industry wide problem. The high end displays from Apple also seem to have this problem. I have never seen this problem before 2002. Is this something new due to inferior LCD screen manufacturing compared to screens from just a few years ago?"

bwdunn asks: "Do we need to run screen savers again to prevent the burn-in we saw on the very old CRTs? Dell's latest and greatest laptops, the Latitude D800 and Inspiron 8500 both suffer from horrible screen burn-in problems with burn-in visible after as little as 2 hours. Dell claims this is an industry wide problem. The high end displays from Apple also seem to have this problem. I have never seen this problem before 2002. Is this something new due to inferior LCD screen manufacturing compared to screens from just a few years ago?"

Subaiku asks: "Next semester my girlfriend will be traveling to Japan to continue with her studies. As a going away gift I plan on buying her a laptop of some sort. I've been thinking about going with a PowerBook, or maybe a Dell, but I really need advice as to which brand/configuration/platform would be best in terms of ease of use/connectivity in foreign places (namely Japan). Any suggestions?"

schm00 writes "A Dell press release today announced an expansion of thier recycling program. For $15 they will arrange to pick up used computer equipment from your home and transport it to an EPA approved recycler. You can order pickup starting on March 25th. It's nice to see an alternative to the darker side of computer recycling."

schm00 writes "A Dell press release today announced an expansion of thier recycling program. For $15 they will arrange to pick up used computer equipment from your home and transport it to an EPA approved recycler. You can order pickup starting on March 25th. It's nice to see an alternative to the darker side of computer recycling."

Cutie Pi writes "Dell has just released the Inspiron 8500, a new 15.4" widescreen notebook with a WUXGA screen--thats 1920x1200, high enough resolution to watch HDTV quality movies. Couple that with the new nVidia 64MB GeForce4 4200 Go (much faster than the ATI Radeon 9000), and you've got quite a notebook!! Can't wait to get my hands on one!"

watzinaneihm writes "Dell has released its Axim X5 handheld as as promised . At $299 after rebate, a reasonable buy, price-wise. "

cworley submitted - several times - this well-linked submission about a slightly boring topic - fast computers. "Top500.org has just released its latest list of the world's fastest supercomputers (updated twice yearly). For the first time, Linux Beowulf clusters have joined the teraFLOP club, with six new clusters breaking the teraFLOP barrier. Two Linux clusters now rank in the Top 10: Lawrence Livermore's "MCR" (built by Linux NetworX ) ranks #5 achieving 5.694 teraFLOP/s, and Forecast Systems Laboratory's "Jet" (built by HPTi) ranks #8 reaching 3.337 TeraFLOP/s. Other Linux clusters surpassing the teraFLOP/s barrier include: LSU's "SuperMike" at #17 (from Atipa ), the University at Buffalo at #22 and Sandia National Lab at #32 (both from Dell ), an Itanium cluster for British Petroleum Houston at #42 (from HP ), and Argonne National Labs at #46 (from Linux NetworX ) reached just over the one teraFLOP/s mark with 361 processors. In the previous Top500 list compiled last June, the fastest Intel based Netfinity 1024 processor clusters from IBM were sub-teraFLOP/s and the University of Heidelberg's AMD based "HELICS" cluster (built by Megware ) held the top tux rank at #35 with 825 GFLOP/s."

soundsop writes "CNET News.com reports that Dell is poised to enter the PDA market. Michael Dell states that announcements for US PDA products are coming "really soon". Will I have 50 configuration options on my Dell PDA?"

scompt asks: "I've been looking around for some information on building a custom docking station for my Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop. The barrier is obviously the odd, jumbo connector on the back. Does anybody know the pinout of it? Hacking the insides of a laptop is almost a lost cause, but opening up the docking connector might provide a nice way to expand a previously dead end box."

scompt asks: "I've been looking around for some information on building a custom docking station for my Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop. The barrier is obviously the odd, jumbo connector on the back. Does anybody know the pinout of it? Hacking the insides of a laptop is almost a lost cause, but opening up the docking connector might provide a nice way to expand a previously dead end box."

nexex points to this Financial Times article, which says that HP has dropped Microsoft Word from the software lineup in the personal computers it sells to customers. From the article: "The move follows a decision last week by Dell Computer, the number two PC maker, to replace Microsoft software. Both companies said they would offer WordPerfect productivity software from Corel of Canada instead of Microsoft's Works, a scaled-down version of its top-selling Office software." Nexex writes:"I think it should be noted, MS Works does include the full version of Word."

thebrix asks: "I've acquired a Dell OptiPlex GX150. It's a pleasant machine to use - small, quiet and uses only 145 watts at full tilt with my flat panel - but its Achilles heel is the feeble i815 on-board graphics which steals RAM from main memory and plasters black bars onto my KDE desktop at inconvenient moments. There's a 4xAGP slot, but it's low-profile because of the small chassis and finding a low-profile graphics card is proving difficult because, invariably, manufacturers are more interested in listing whizzo features than how big the card is. So far, the Matrox G550 Dual DVI is the only card I've come across which definitely fits. Does anyone know of others?"

mike asks: "I'm mulling the logic of my company building its own desktop computers. As the IT Manager (plus sysadmin, janitor...) of a struggling-yet-thankfully-still-alive dotcom, money is really tight. We have around sixty ~400MHz desktops which are increasingly showing their age. Acceptable P4 systems from the big guys run at least $1000. By recycling the OS (Win2k), case, cdrom, floppy, and K/V/M, I figure I can assemble a good AMD system for about $600. That's a 40% savings. Is it worth it? The cost difference could very well determine whether this project proceeds or gets put on the back-burner again."

"Some negatives about rolling my own:

• Management: I won't get the special business features offered by some manufacturers. Dell's OpenImage, for example, looks awfully nice. But how much does that really buy me in a company of 60 machines? I don't use such stuff now; am I missing out on nirvana?
• Time to build: Even though we'd leverage Ghost wherever possible, handmade systems nevertheless take time to build, load, & configure.
• Supporting different platforms: Because money is so tight, I can at best afford a capital replacement rate of 25%-33% (15-20 units) per year. That means I'm committing to the support of 3 or 4 different platforms. Having just one platform is great, but how many companies, even ones that actively strive for it, truly enjoy that luxury? I inherited two platforms (Micron & Gateway); support isn't that bad. With proper planning, I don't see why we can't support four.
• Hardware quality: How much can I trust a popular Athlon chipset in a business environment? I feel silly bringing this up because I have a few Athlon systems at home, each with a different chipset, and they've been nothing but rock solid. But I know the lack of a really good chipset has been a large contributor to why AMD's aren't more prevalent in the business world. (well, that and long term bullying by Intel).
• I don't get a proven, prepackaged system that works right out of the box.

Positives of rolling my own:

• Cost savings. Plain & simple.
• Increased horsepower per dollar spent.
• By choosing my own equipment (mobo especially), I suffer fewer OEM shortcuts.
• I have to admit that I'd enjoy the pure geek satisfaction of rolling out 'my' creation to the company.

So is it worth it, or am I setting myself up for disaster?"

For those that are curious, Ask Slashdot did an article on the AMD issue, here.

As a person who's owned no less then four GW machines, two Dells, and now have two VA, one DIYS, and one IBM Thinkpad, I found the SatireWire about the Dell-Gateway Amensty pretty amusing.

odoa4 asks: "What do you think will make a better 1u Apache Server? A Sun Netra X1 or a 1U Ontel box such as a Dell PowerApp.Web 120 or a VA 1220. This is a difficult question because the Intel boxes are about $1800 a piece and the Sun machine is only $1000. The Sun machine can only use 1 CPU and it runs at 400Mhz, where the Intel machines run at 800+Mhz with up to 2 cpus. Keep in mind that the web servers will be clustered, so the real question isn't so much about whether the Intel boxes are faster, but more along the lines of are they worth the $800 more when I could almost get another Netra for the cost. As far as OSs go, I would use Solaris 8 on the Sun machines and FreeBSD on the Intel boxes. Here are some links to various servers I've looked at: Sun Netra X1, VALinux 1220, and the PowerApp.web 120" Are there other alternatives for 1U servers, that the submittor might do well to look into?

Cerlyn asks: "I am the network administrator of three server grade machines purchased from three separate companies. The recent power problems in California reminded me of the fact that none of these servers seem to support power management. The operating systems these systems run (Linux 2.2, 2.4, and FreeBSD 4.2) are compiled to support power management, but do not detect any power management capabilities at all. Granted, no one wants a server sleeping on the job. But the way things seem to be coded, processors can not even sleep while idle without known hardware support. Lightly loaded machines are often idle 75% of the time or more. Sleeping while idle could make them save a significant amount of power. For many companies, the extra ten seconds it would take to spin up a backup server's hard drive(s) likely would be a non-issue. So, why don't server grade computers support advanced power management (APM), APCI and the like?" And in the land of the rolling blackout, one has to wonder if the potential power saved could help the situation, assuming a good percentage of the big iron in Silicon Valley were configured to conserve what power it could (as opposed to adding on to the drain as it is now).

miester writes: "Sun has recently announced that it will take advantage of Eazel's Nautilus software. The article also mentions that Dell has invested in Eazel and will be shipping all Dell Linux workstations with Nautilus as well." The Nautilus previews have been slick and pretty -- you can tell that the Mac folks involved haven't lost their touch. And more hardware vendors installing a nice Open Source file manager can only be good for users.

cluge asks: "MS still proudly presents their Linux Myths Page and recent Dell commercials show Linux as a 'lower end' solution. This seems even stranger coming from Dell when you look at all the the Linux solutions that they are offering. The comparison made in their print adds compare 2 machines with vastly different amounts of memory (or so has been reported here and elsewhere). With a new kernel coming out, should the Linux community tune a couple of machines and set up an open test? Test the following: static Web serving, file sharing (Samba or NTFS), and routing performance. Having Linux knowledgeable people run the test allows performance tuning for the application being tested. The testers comments and recommendation on performance tuning will be valuable to the entire Linux community and the tests will let the community know where it stands, win, lose or draw." So how much difference does a year make? Do any of the claims on that page still hold any merit today?

Fervent writes "Dell has started offering laptops today with the new UXGA screens. These higher-res LCD screens proport better, clearer graphics at no extra power cost. Details on the new laptops are available at CNet." They don't say how big the actual screen is, but ya gotta be scared... I can see 1280x1024 on a 15" screen, but 1600x1200 is pretty scary... I find a lot of things to small at that res on a 21" monitor. Then again, just pump up the font size and everything is crisper... of course those icons on web pages sure don't get any more legible.

With a planned move to San Francisco next summer, last week saw San Jose's last Linux World Expo, at least for now. The future as always is stubbornly uncertain, but it's impressive that the serendipitous combination of Free tools (from GNU) and a Free kernel (from Linus) has inspired enough interest and prosperity to excite a larger group of people each year. If you've not had the chance to attend one of these expositions, we hope this article will give you a flavor of what it's like. Note: Here are a few pictures from the floor (Day 1 & Day 2) contributed by Sensei^); do you have any cool shots to link to in comments?

First, the prelude: If you've worked on the pre-show aspects of anything from a high-school play to a LAN party, you know all those booths, displays, people and computers don't materialize by themselves. For several days before the show floor opened on Tuesday, forklift crews zipped cargos of wooden, fiberglass, plastic, aluminum and steel cases from moving trucks to exhibit spaces. These contained banners, snap-together modules, computers, lighted signs -- and Yes, more gratis logo-imprinted toys than you can wave a TuxTops LED light at.

Spiderwebs of CAT-5 and electric cord (run beneath the show floor) sprouted from the centerpoints of many booths, with strands for each computer to be connected to the Net during the show. Rolls of padding and carpet came next, then the slow assembly of display booths. These ranged from no-nonsense fabric partitions that housed companies like TuxTops and Sendmail (and legions of volunteers from PerlMonks, the Simple End User Linux project, Flightgear, and many others), to elaborate constructions with motorized signs, projected lasers and huge illuminated logos. Note: Slashdot (the site) was put together last week mostly from the comfy chairs of the PerlMonks booth.

The "C" (as in conference) part of LWCE got started on Monday, and for the days that followed, attendees got instruction -- on everything from Linux security to evangelizing Free software to their bosses-- in half-day doses. Meanwhile, the setup work continued into the wee hours, as exhibitors raced the clock to make sure that at least their signs, if not their networks, were up for the next day. And at the OSDN booth (home of the red-carpeted Slashdot stage and beanbags), prep work included stacking thousands of boxed distributions of Debian, and attempted to pawn a few copies off on every passer by.

Tuesday morning, at a shade before 10:00, visitors willing to miss Michael Dell's keynote began to stream into the halls, on a quest to find new distros, old friends, and swag. It's amazing what companies will give away in order to snag a little nook in your brain. Besides the usual trinkets (keychains, T-shirts, stickers) and the distributions that a Linux show would be empty without, booth visitors were handed everything from knives (Sendmail) to cute monkeys (Helixcode) to embarrassing pictures of themselves (BSDi), as well as too many toys with embedded LEDs to bother counting. Rather than a full swag accounting (which would only annoy those unable to attend), let me just say that you won't hurt for toys when the chance presents itself. (CT:I just wanted to note that VA gave away 2300 pounds of shrink-wrapped boxed Debian. Like 5000 copies. It was beautiful)

The things on display around the LWCE floor were more interesting than the toys, though. (And unlike a museum, most were available for hands-on demonstration, not hidden behind glass.) Indrema showed a prototype player (not in the sleek black box you see on their Web site, but still sporting that cool blue LED) hooked up to a HDTV display, playing a very fast game of Quake. (CT:Actually it was an HDTV demo, they promised the real deal will be less vaporous before I have children) In the Intel booth were server clusters populated with quad Itanium processors, demonstrating failover when one system was rudely but intentionally shut down. The amazing-like-emacs-is-amazing Flightgear project showed a really nice looking demo which is enough incentive by itself to invest in a better video card for my system so I can play with it.

Both Helixcode and Eazel made their first LWCE appearance this time around, exciting for those filling their anti-FUD cannon for the perpetual "Linux is tough to use" argument. The Eazel folks showing off Nautilus seemed to be all but cackling as they showed off the smoothness of the zooming information available for documents and the cool music-integration abilities it contains. It would have been cool if they'd had some sample CDs, but they promise a developers' release soon. (CT:They also promised .deb's, but I'll believe it when I see it. The UI was awesome, I just hope that someone hacks in something like the GUI command line in EFM)

Considering that Sun was showing off the GNOME desktop on Solaris (hinting at its inclusion in stock Solaris systems sometime very soon, too) and that the GNOME project itself was not only in one of the small booths against the wall but the subject of a big announcement -- about the advent of the GNOME Foundation -- it looks it's showing up everywhere. Happily, there seems to be no shortage of room for window managers right now: the KDE folks were also there not only in their own booth, but showing up in software demonstrations all over the floor, as SuSE, Caldera and others demonstrated the very slick KDE 2.0. (Can't we all just get along, anyhow?)

SuSE, by the way, was the only distributor I noticed showing off Linux on Apple hardware, and their current distro was sweet and fast on a G4. Beyond the curious lack of Apples, and the obvious ubiquity of x86 machines, there were machines based on everything from microcontrollers to StrongArm, MIPS, Alpha, Itanium ... even the IBM S/390s which have gotten attention for the ridiculous number of concurrent Linux systems they can support.

For all the cool hardware and cusp-of-reality, bleeding-edge distros, it's interesting that the announcement which seemed to generate the most buzz of the entire show was the long-awaited release of Debian's Potato. Considering the reputation that Debian has for intelligent upgrading, stability, and diligence in guarding the license of the software which makes it up, it's not as surprising as it might otherwise be that Debian's new release made people sit up a bit more than the newest offerings from the large commercial distros.

(CT: Also extremely impressive was the Pocket Linux booth, where they actually had iPaq's running Linux. The first dude that demoed the box to me was very nice, but what I really wanted to see was X11 running on it ... oddly enough, I encountered one of his cohorts in the bar later that night who showed it to me: X, xeyes, xterm, and twm running on an iPaq. When they get the wireless action going on these things I'm totally there ... I'll just need to hack minimalist interfaces onto pronto and my MP3 player software and use the thing as a portable X terminal on the local 802.11 wireless lan. Yum.)

Oh, and there were people on the floor as well -- close to 20,000, all told. I met some folks I've known previously only through IRC, and quite a few I might never have otherwise encountered.

It's interesting to see in the space of a few hours many of the smart people who you may experience vicariously through writings, speeches, code, art or IRC chatter -- and it also belies the idea that software celebrities of the Free software world are becoming celebrities of the traditional variety, since everyone from ESR to Jon "maddog" Hall (and Linus himself) are willing to talk to anyone who catches up with them long enough to say hello. The atmosphere (especially outside the mondo corporate-castle booths) is mellow and accomodating, and suprisingly so even within most of those castles. There were undoubtably personality conflicts at work, but it seems like most people have the good grace to deal nicely with each other for these few days at least.

At the close of each day, people shuffle out to drop laptops, T-shirts and bags of stuff at their hotels, then thousands of them show up to parties sponsored by companies from AMD to Red hat to VA, which are full-blown events in themselves. Mandrake's party, for instance, had go-go dancers in cages, which may be the most bacchanal thing I have ever witnessed. Ironically, though, many coders couldn't attend even events sponsored by their own companies, or thrown in the honor of their projects, because of strict carding policies. Wouldn't a chem-free party or two be a thoughtful way to include people?

(CT: This has been a consistent problem for several years. Although I know at "Someones" party (no names *grin*) they weren't carding, and I recieved many a happy note from fellow attendees proclaiming that they were able to get in. The parties themselves weren't bad: the OSDN/Potato release party was fun, with San & Zak spinning the tunes (next time we'll force CowboyNeal to scratch for us under threat of death). They had 2 buildings: one was a pool hall, where we tormented The Pope for nearly an hour, carefully distracting him, and then returning his balls to the table. He never noticed. We also met up with Nitrozac from After Y2k, and I snuck accross the street to the Eazel party for a bit, and got to meet Dave "You might remember me from cheat codes in some first person shooter" Taylor.) Attendeees mostly filed out for flights or drives home Thursday and Friday, but some are still in San Jose for the Intel Developers Conference, or otherwise enjoying the Northern California weather. It's a strange familiarity that many of them will feel when the next big conference rolls around, to see many of the same fellow attendees or workers -- of course, by the time the next big conference happens, perhaps we'll all be too excited by the release of 2.4 to notice.

Cerlyn writes: "As was pointed out in a previous editorial, OEMs dealing directly with Microsoft are forbidden to ship a standard Windows CD-ROM disc with a computer. Instead, they must use one locked to the computer sold. I wish to bring up an interesting situation related to this."

"Recently, my school purchased a large number of computers from a certain OEM that likely has to follow these restrictions. These systems came with the obligatory label on one side of the case with the CD-Key, and a particularly interesting bootup screen.

One of the first screens displayed when you first turn on the computer is quite interesting. It is one which asks you to hit any key to confirm your acceptance of the license agreements that came with the computer. This alone would not be unusual (of course, the fact that this now may be legally binding is). But one line stands out to me from all the others: it claims that for the sake of the license agreements, the vendor supplied CD-ROM discs count as a backup copy! Now given I was not doing the installing, and did not see the paper EULAs, the following is pure specualation. But given most license agreements allow only one backup copy, no more can be made.

So my school has one backup disc per computer that can only be used in the lab, with apparently no rights to dupilicate secondary copies. If this was my personal system with only one of these, I would be quite nervous; I have an old office CD gone bad, and as far as I know, I never mistreated it.

On a side note, I sure hope the systems administrators here have copied all those specialized key numbers down and noted which system took which; once the kids get back in the fall, they love scribbling on the computers... and for MS's sake, you better hope no kid finds an ISO online and uses a key stuck to one of those systems to install it."

Several people noted that Red Hat is now partnering with Dell and offering Red Hat as one of its strategic operating systems, as well as shipping Linux web/proxy boxes to Lexus and Toyota dealerships. But thats not all... Big Blue apparently is now shipping T20 Thinkpads with Caldera and Star Office preloaded.

Several people noted that Red Hat is now partnering with Dell and offering Red Hat as one of its strategic operating systems, as well as shipping Linux web/proxy boxes to Lexus and Toyota dealerships. But thats not all... Big Blue apparently is now shipping T20 Thinkpads with Caldera and Star Office preloaded.

Several people noted that Red Hat is now partnering with Dell and offering Red Hat as one of its strategic operating systems, as well as shipping Linux web/proxy boxes to Lexus and Toyota dealerships. But thats not all... Big Blue apparently is now shipping T20 Thinkpads with Caldera and Star Office preloaded.

You've seen Penguin Computing's "Tux stomps Microsoft HQ" ad, right? It's the one with the caption, "Good evening, Mr. Gates, I'll be your server today!" This morning, when I opened up my copy of the Washington Post, that ad, in full color, dominated the entire front page of the business section. Below it was a story headlined, Microsoft's Next Trials - Windows Case Could Open Doors for the Upstart Linux Operating System. This may be the most unabashed piece of journalistic Linux advocacy ever published in a major daily newspaper. The print edition, but apparently not the Post's Web site, also contained a sidebar story about how the article's author installed Corel Linux on his home desktop computer -- and found it fairly easy to do. Indeed, he says, the hardest part of his personal Linux foray was parting with the high-end Linux-loaded Latitude laptop Dell loaned him to test. "It will pain me to give it back," he said.

SPI3LB3RG writes "Dell now supports Linux for it's laptops. Down at the bottom of the page is a listing of Drivers by OS." My old Inspiron basically fell apart. But it was running Linux for years before I wore out the keyboard, broke the CD-ROM drive, and the hard drive started failing ;)

noom writes "Dell and Redhat have extended their strategic alliance", with Dell agreeing to install RH Linux on all of it's PowerEdge servers and Redhat agreeing to provide support. Sheesh, that was unexpected. "