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Robert Outlaw wrote in to tell us that GNOME 0.20 has made an appearance on the Official FTP Site. Tarballs and RPM's are availiable at RHAD's Site as

Jesse wrote in to tell us that RH5.1 (Manhattan) has made an appearance on kernel.org's mirror. Interested folks should definately check the mirrors list and be warned- I checked a few other mirrors and am not seeing the 5.1 dir on most of them, but kernel.org is on the official mirrors list, so I'm assuming this is legit.

Juhapekka Tolvanen wrote in to say that Red Hat has now really announced the release date of Red Hat v5.1. I screwed up this one, thats for sure. Oh well. You can pre order your CD at their web site. The 3rd CD is full of Bonus Apps- lite versions and demos. They should throw in a 4th CD in 5.2 and dump their contrib dir in :)

Red Hat Software has announced that they will ship v5.1 of their distribution on June 1. The full distro will come on 3 cds, feature better installation and administrative tools, as well as updating everything you'd expect from the previous release.

Red Hat Software recently announced they will make their latest product, Red Hat Secure Web Server, available on May 21. The package will cost $99 and contains the Apache webserver (enchanced with RSA key technology), a search engine, log analysis software and the Netscape browser. Buyers also get a $25 discount for a certificate registration at Thawte Consulting. Unfortunately the software can only be sold in the United States and Cananda, due to export restrictions. People outside those countries can always take a peek at the replay site, where they will find all the crypto goodies they want.

Red Hat Software recently announced they will make their latest product, Red Hat Secure Web Server, available on May 21. The package will cost $99 and contains the Apache webserver (enchanced with RSA key technology), a search engine, log analysis software and the Netscape browser. Buyers also get a $25 discount for a certificate registration at Thawte Consulting. Unfortunately the software can only be sold in the United States and Cananda, due to export restrictions. People outside those countries can always take a peek at the replay site, where they will find all the crypto goodies they want.

Raster wrote in to tell us that he has released another preview of E14 to FTP. He says this one is getting usable (actually, the last one was pretty usable for me, but I can't function without keyboard shortcuts for some stuff :) So anyway, I'm gonna go get my copy now...

Yesterday Red Hat Software announced the $29.95 parallel supercomputer. This CD-ROM is the result of the a collaboration between NASA, Red Hat and a number of research centers. Extreme Linux (some of you will know it as "The Beowulf Project") is all the software you need (with source code, of course) to cluster several computers and create your own giant parallel processing unit. For more information on this, zap to the press release.

Several people dropped this in my box, so I'm not going to name anyone in specific, but apparently Raster has a Snapshot of E14 available here. It's been a long time coming, and I gotta wait until tonight to try it out! Maybe this will give me the incentive I need to finish my Slashdot theme.

The Great Linux Experiment. The guys over at C|Net's Builder.Com are entering week 2 of Project Heresy. The technical guys over there are playing with Linux to test its viability as a real world OS. I have no doubts they'll catch some problems, but I know they'll be pleasantly surprised. Some RealAudio over there, too. Thanks to Marc Ewing for letting the world know.

Running Linux, Second Edition
by Matt Welsh and Lar Kaufman
reviewed by hemos

Being a relative newcomer to the Linux world, I needed more assistance then one can obtain simply by reading Slashdot. Imagine my delight in finding/using Running Linux. The book will work for a variety of people , whether it be setting up Linux for the first time, or for those who feel more comfortable with Linux. The book's authors, Matt Welsh and Lar Kaufman, obviously understand Linux, and more to the point, the mentality behind the operating system itself.

The book was designed along with the fine folks at Red Hat and is available both with a companion disk, or separately. For someone just setting up Linux for the first time (and how many people haven't been converted ye t?) the first option is perfect. They can not only get a fairly recent build of the OS, but also have the knowledge base provided to them that will allow them to understand Linux in a non-threatening, and more importantly, non-frustrating way.

Because let's be honest here: most of us won't be buying new copies of the books, or at least rarely. And as well, most of us get our updates through different sources. But if we are truly committed to making Linux into a viable alternative for the world at large, we will need books like these, because we need to make Linux an understandable and workable alternative for the world at large, who aren't particularly concerned with which diffs have been issued and such. Running Linux is a step in the right direction--bringing it to the people at home, bringing it to where they live at. Running Linux is a perfect book for the introductory and med-level user. Get it at Amazon.

Back in 1993 Larry McVoy from Sun Microsystems wrote a paper in which he proposed a cooperation between Sun, Novell and other companies to provide a an open source OS that would unifie the Unix market and run DOS and Windows applications. Five years later his visions seem remarkably correct and are still up-to-date. I read the document and it's definitely worth the effort. Some interesting quotes:

• "There is an alternative, should Sun and Novell be unable to cooperate. That alternative is Linux."
• "We have a chance of beating Microsoft by changing the rules."

RedHat recently rediscovered this paper. So go get the postscript file, take a deep breath and dive into a this remarkable vision from the past.

Back in 1993 Larry McVoy from Sun Microsystems wrote a paper in which he proposed a cooperation between Sun, Novell and other companies to provide a an open source OS that would unifie the Unix market and run DOS and Windows applications. Five years later his visions seem remarkably correct and are still up-to-date. I read the document and it's definitely worth the effort. Some interesting quotes:

• "There is an alternative, should Sun and Novell be unable to cooperate. That alternative is Linux."
• "We have a chance of beating Microsoft by changing the rules."

RedHat recently rediscovered this paper. So go get the postscript file, take a deep breath and dive into a this remarkable vision from the past.

Dave Blondell writes "Today at Comdex promptly at 11:30a.m. RedHat started handing out free CDs. by 11:32 the line was again a few hundred people long! The line had to be doglegged around a large booth at the end of the isle. RedHat people tried to move people along by walking down the line handing out CDs but this didn't seem to reduce the size of the line at all. This time I got pictures!!! You will find them at this location. These are raw and unsorted as they came out of the camera."

Allright I've had several people whisper this my way, and I just have to post it. The rumor is that RedHat 5.1 is coming rsn. Perhaps around the end of the month. Mind you this is just rumor so don't go bug anyone @redhat about it.

Dave Blondell writes "At Comdex, today, there was a line over a block long waiting to get a RedHat CD. This attracted the attention of several media people who had never heard of Linux before. Jon "maddog" Hall of Linux International was vary busy helping them all "see the light". Again, Chicagoland Linux Users Group With UIC will be hosting An evening with S.u.S.E. on Wednesday and an evening with Jon "maddog" Hall on Thursday. For address, travel info and times, take a look at this location." Hand shakes to everyone involved in making the Linux booth happen. Very cool.

Vertigo writes " While reading some newsgroups i came across this article: http://www.32bitsonline.com/Issues/april98/redhatlinux.shtm it's a very positive review of RedHat 5.0 .. it was published today, 15 april.. so still fairly recent ;) " Ya gotta love this kinda press.

Atul Chitnis wrote in to tell us "India's premier computing magazine, PC Quest takes on the "real corporate world" with it's April issue's editorial. This is a curtain raiser for the May issue, which will have RedHat Linux 5.0 plus huge amounts of apps and utilities (plus all the bug fixes) on the cover CD."

Ed Boraas writes "Those who pay attention to the gnome CVS tree may have noticed that the version number on GTK+ has now been incremented to 1.0.0. The completed GTK+ 1.0 release can't be far away! The archives can be found here."

TNT has announced that the show even Dilbert finds the best (Babylon 5) will be followed by a new series Crusade, also authored by JMS. This is great news to all of us who knew that Babylon 5 was to be only a 5 year series and who felt sad that such a rich universe would come to an abrupt end. However, progress will be slowed in the seething pit of software development.

TNT has announced that the show even Dilbert finds the best (Babylon 5) will be followed by a new series Crusade, also authored by JMS. This is great news to all of us who knew that Babylon 5 was to be only a 5 year series and who felt sad that such a rich universe would come to an abrupt end. However, progress will be slowed in the seething pit of software development.

Miguel de Icaza writes "Red Hat labs has setup a daily process that takes the latest versions of GNOME, GIMP and Gtk out from the GNOME cvs server and makes rpms for people to try gnome without having to manually install all of the required packages. " You can read about this over at RHAD labs.

Well, even though Alan Cox apparently doesn't think that Slashdot is as cool as freshmeat *grin*, it still is really cool that he's been hired to work at RedHat in a paid position developing (surprise!) Linux Stuff. Good move for all involved.

Jon Read wrote in to tell us that Ed Bailey from Red Hat is porting the Linux Kernel to t the CL-PS7110 chip (Psion Series 5 and Geofox One palmtops use 'em) check out more at RedHat. Very excellent. Ya know the first company that makes a wireless Linux palmtop will make some money. 900mhz ethernet or so?

Christopher Blizzard wrote in to tell us that RedHat has updated their Linux Marketshare page with new and improved 1998 numbers. There are a ton of interesting numbers in here ranging from Linux's share of Unix users, circulations of various magazines, FTP downloads, Mirror sites, CD sales.

Christopher Blizzard wrote in to tell us that RedHat has updated their Linux Marketshare page with new and improved 1998 numbers. There are a ton of interesting numbers in here ranging from Linux's share of Unix users, circulations of various magazines, FTP downloads, Mirror sites, CD sales.

Raster has been busy over at RHAD. He has a screenshot available on the Themes for GTK Page where you can see his themified button widget. This is definately cool for all of us complete control nuts.

Raster has been busy over at RHAD. He has a screenshot available on the Themes for GTK Page where you can see his themified button widget. This is definately cool for all of us complete control nuts.

Redhat has won the Jolt Software Productivity Award. This award recognizes computer innovations that "jolt" the computer world. On t'other hand, Visual Basic, from Microsoft (never knowingly missed an oppurtunity to slam Unix) won the Hall of Fame nomination.

Redhat has won the Jolt Software Productivity Award. This award recognizes computer innovations that "jolt" the computer world. On t'other hand, Visual Basic, from Microsoft (never knowingly missed an oppurtunity to slam Unix) won the Hall of Fame nomination.

Partisan sent us this link over at redhat where you can learn about how Linux will help do more Important Stuff(tm).

Simon Janes wrote in with a very interesting editorial for us to read. This marks the first time that someone besides me has had an Editorial posted on Slashdot, but this piece is so worth reading that I just had to post it. Simon writes about the hardware and software industry, and specifically Sun. His conclusions are "out there" but each time I read this thing, I think he's more and more right. Pay attention guys because this is a big one. Everything after this point is written by Simon Janes.

After reading The Washington Post today (" Sun's Lonely Battle", 8 Feb 1998 H1, H15), it struck home to me that Sun needs to be given hope against Microsoft and we all need some kind of hope for a good machine architecture in return. First look at what has happened to other processor architectures in the last 12 months:

Alpha Compaq has stated nothing about what it plans to do with Digital's Alpha making everyone wildly speculate about what is is going to do with it. Some do not like how Compaq has made its hardware very Windows specific or hard to administer at the bare-metal level (no BIOS? you mean I need a floppy disk with Compaq tools? how INCONVENIENT!)

PowerPC Motorola is retargetting PowerPC towards embedded applications because of Apple's monopolistic intents. Personally, I think Steve Jobs has a deeper plan of revenge against Apple, and is running it into the ground under the guise of being a saviour. Motorola was *just* about to come out with a line of G3 based PC's and Apple ruined it. I can imagine a lot of people at PowerComputing are so agry with Steve Jobs, that they would surely create an instant medical condition if they met Steve on sight. Motorola ate a $100M loss because of it-- which was really immature (the "we won't play your game anymore" game), Motorola & IBM should have sued the collective pants off of Apple for turning over the PowerPC apple-cart (the "we won't play your game anymore" game played the CORRECT way).

Intel Intel's offerings are increasingly getting proprietary, and proprietary means expensive. When and if the Merced processor based on IA-64 comes out, it will require a massive compiler re-engineering on the hands of the Free Software Foundation/Cygnus/LDC. On top of that Intel is targetting the Merced for "mainframes". Once you append the word mainframe to a computer, the price of that computer multiplys by several hundred percent. AMD and Cyrix are working hard to present alternatives to Intel, but in a market dominated by Intel and Microsoft, I fear that they will have limited sucess in this arena.

StrongARM A majority of the StrongARM design team have left their posts rather than work for Intel, who apparently now owns the rights to StrongARM. Granted, the StrongARM isn't your super-duper high performance server-class type of microprocessor, but I felt that it would have made for an excellent base for laptop computers.

MIPS MIPS machines sit there in the background. Acer at one time had a MIPS machine you could buy, but that disappeared into the chasm of Wintel. Cobalt Microservers is a start-up who could potentially turn MIPS around. Silicon Graphics is constantly in trouble with shareholder lawsuits so therefore has a cloud over its future.

Where is the hope then? I feel that it is with Sun. The SPARC and UltraSPARC have not had this kind of mayhem perpetuated on them. They are open specifications of which many other companies have implemented and sell-- however Sun is the largest, and most recognizable of them. Much of the hardware Sun has produced is still usable today so except for volume, Sun hardware has a similar history to that of Intel-based hardware (starting from the 386).

Sun needs help for this lonely fight, and it has one excellent place to turn to for it: The Linux Developer Community. Sun needs to follow the two-step method of world domination:

1. Officially support the Linux developer community (LDC) to support all grades of Sun hardware, from the low end (which are already pretty well supported) to the higher end (which are hard for the LDC to support because of lack of access and documentation. Sun needs to recognize that even though its Solaris is good, people love to have choices when it comes to what they run on their hardware. Sun, when it takes this first step, which Digital has already taken, must follow it with the step Digital has not taken--
2. Recognize and promote Linux as an alternative operating system for workstations and servers and ship it as a preinstalled option. I followed a banner advertisement yesterday from Wired news to Digital's little press story on the Titanic being rendered on Alpha hardware. Linux was not even mentioned ONCE in this press statement from Digital. This is not support of Linux on Digital's part, this is a cover-up. (If you go to Digital's Sucess Stories site to find customers who use Digital hardware, you will not even find Linux listed as an operating system option. Another coincidence?) When and if Sun takes the first step of supporting the LDC, it must also follow with the second step-- Promoting of the alternatives as well.

Sun is fighting a lonely battle indeed, but the Linux Developer Cavalry is there, waiting in the woods for Sun's call. Sun, are you listening? Victory is two years away, shine in the next millenium.

Ok, now I'm (Rob) back with a few closing remarks. I think that RedHat has proven that you can take the Linux OS, treat the Linux Community good (RPM, RHAD) and produce a quality product that you can sell. Sun is in a similiar position- they control the hardware, but if they were to openly support and port to Linux, they could take advantage of the amazing power of the Linux Community. Then Sun could concentrate on the 'value added' stuff that makes their platform special. Sure, it means ditching Solaris, but it allows Sun to focus programmers on stuff that isn't already being done better, elsewhere. I'm sure a handful of specialists devoted to Sparc/Linux would produce an amazingly optimized Linux Kernel. This would produce the fastest possible Linux platform, and it woudl make the rapidly growing Linux Population buy Sun hardware instead of Digital.

It wouldn't be easy, but I suspect it could be done. What do you guys think?

Imlib is now important to non-E users now as the Gnome support is apparently coming along rapidly. If you're curious, Raster released version 1. Read more at RHAD. Thanks to araWn for hooking us up.

Here is something to think about. A friendly war is being waged over what your X desktop will look like in the years to one. Hit the link below to read about the two major contenters, KDE and Gnome, what I think about them, and why they need to work together.

The Battle for the Unix Dekstop is on. It's pretty much accepted that nobody cares about CDE anymore, and the future lies along another path. But what path is that? Two have emerged now. The major contendors for our future are Gnome and KDE.

There are many similiarities between the two standards. Both feature good looking, extensible widget sets. Both provide a unified look and feel accrossed applications. And both have an army of passionate supporters.

But the differences are where the problems lie. KDE has been criticized for it's use of Qt, Troll's popular widget set used in numerous applications. The problem is that Qt isn't "Free" in the RMS definition of the word. People beat on K for this. Realisticly, Qt is 'Free Enough' for all but the most hard core user, but many people are opposed to the tool kits we rely on being anything less than Free. I don't think that this alone is reason to shelf KDE, but it looks like public opinion is headed that way already.

The second major opposition to KDE is the similiarities that it has with Windows. Hard core unix users often use unix to get away from the interface that KDE has tried so hard to emulate. The similiar widgets, and the start-button like cascading menu however are a good start for new users seeking handholding as they adapt to a new OS. I think it's important that the veteran Unix users realize that, and just remember that this interface is for the newbies.

Gnome doesn't have license issues- the G in Gnome stands for GNU, and the whole package is under the GPL. Gnome is the younger of the desktop options, and it shows. While K has a full Window Manager and numerous applications showing off slick integration, Gnome is all rough edges. But these rough edges are being smoothed at an amazing rate as GTK gets closer and closer to one point oh. And don't forget the premiere Gnome Application, The Gimp. A new desktop won't drive installation for many systems, but the Gimp will. And since you already need GTK, why not throw the rest of Gnome on too? This reasoning will drive Gnome forward.

Recently RedHat opened up their Advanced Development Labs and announced that one of their major projects was advancing the X desktop. To that end, they snagged Raster, one of the talented programmers largely responsible for The Enlightenment Window Manager. Soon after, Raster ported E's image library (imlib) to work with Gnome's GDK.

But now KDE has released beta 3, and while the stability is a bit lacking, and there are holes you could drive a family sized sedan through, it is a cohesive product that is getting very close to it's goal of producing a standard X based desktop that looks good, is easy for a new user to adapt too, and is reasonably customizable and extendable. Some distributions have decided that K is already strong enough to ship.

But what now? I wish I had a simple answer here, but I don't. I see 2 groups of people working on amazing software. But I don't want this whole effort to result in the need for every modern unix system to install 2 more sets of libraries to run a few more applications. And I don't want to see programming efforts duplicated by multiple people around the world.

I don't mind diversity, it really is what makes Unix the cool thing it is today, but this time we need to work together. Both KDE and Gnome have a web browser. This can't be efficient! Both will have status indicators, irc clients, panel applications, task viewers and text editors. And each of these programs will have a couple of talented coders hacking away on them.

So I don't know what the answer is. Perhaps a set of C++ wrapper classes that allow KDE applications to compile under GTK? There must be away to bring together these 2 wonderful products in a way that allows both of them to accomplish their goal of a better UI for X in less time.

What do you guys think?

RedHat has announced that future versions of their very popular Linux Distribution will include Netscape's Navigator web browser. It's a lot to think about, what with the DOJ/MS issues with browser bundling, and the recent netscape bombshell. One thing is for certain though, having Netscape preinstalled for RedHat users is very nice for the newbies that Linux is winning over every day courtesy of all the positive press it's been getting.

meese wrote in to tell me that RHAD is holding a Screen Saver contest. Winners will be decided by votes at the Linux Expo, and the prizes will be various video cards (Winner gets a 3dfx). I wish I had time to enter this one.

Well the only reason I ever watch the super bowl is to see the fantastic commercials, and this year those ads have a bonus. The RedHat Linux based Alpha Render Farm that Digital Domain built up for rendering scenes in Titanic will apparently be use to render 10 commercials for Super Sunday. Hope they post mpegs or something so I can see them. Follow the link below to read the official RedHat press release.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

HIGH VALUE RED HAT LINUX BAILS OUT THE TITANIC AND IS POISED TO TACKLE
THE SUPERBOWL


Research Triangle Park, NC--January 14, 1998--On the heels of the
revelation  that Red Hat Software's Red Hat Linux operating system was
used by Digital Domain as a component in the rendering of  visual
effects for the blockbuster movie, Titanic, Red Hat Software now
announces that Digital Domain will again use their operating system in
a "rendering farm" for the visual effects to at least ten commercials
to be shown during the Superbowl.


As to how and why Red Hat Linux has come to find a home in Hollywood,
Digital Domain's Daryll Strauss tells of rendering the visuals for
Titanic.  "We had several Alpha systems running on other operating
systems, but they kept crashing down,"  said Strauss.  "So we
partitioned the hard drive and put Red Hat Linux on the Alphas, and our
Linux boxes were more productive and we got  more out of them."


In fact, Digital Domain will continue to get more out of their Linux
boxes.  Ten commercials in prime Superbowl slots will be rendered using
the Red Hat Linux "render farm,"  indicating that Red Hat Linux may
have found a home in Hollywood.  The exceptional value, versatility and
interoperability of Linux make it extremely attractive to production
studios and graphic artists all around the world.   And Hollywood's
widespread use of free software is proof positive that people are
indeed getting the most out of their Red Hat Linux operating systems.

Look for Red Hat to sponsor a contest to see who can guess which
Superbowl commercials are rendered with Red Hat Linux.  Details about
this event will be forthcoming.  Which commercials will it be?

?About Digital Domain


Digital Domain is a full-service production studio located in Venice,
California.  They generate visual effects for feature films and
commercials, as well as new media applications. Digital Domain's
feature film credits include Interview with a Vampire, True Lies,
Apollo 13, Dante's Peak and The Fifth Element.  For more information
about Digital Domain, please visit the web site at http://www.d2.com.


About Linux


Linux is the cooperatively developed POSIX-oriented, multi-user,
multi-tasking operating system used world wide.  Linux is a high value,
fully functional  UNIX workstation for Internet servers and other
applications.  Red Hat Linux is maintained as "freely distributable"
software available from many sites on the Internet.


 About Red Hat Software, Inc.


Founded in 1994, Red Hat Software is based in Research Triangle Park,
NC, where it builds and maintains the Red Hat Linux distribution of the
Linux operating system for Intel, DEC Alpha, and Sun SPARC platforms.
Red Hat Software also publishes and maintains commercial applications
for Linux including OSF Motif, CDE, and the Applixware Office Suite.


CONTACT:                                        Melissa Trenkle

                                                Red Hat Software, Inc.

                                                (919) 547-0012, x226

                                                melissa@redhat.com

RedHat software, makers of the most popular Linux distribution has announced that they are now partnering with Collective Technologies to provide phone tech services to RedHat users. With this announcement, RedHat is standing on the edge of being the easy to use Unix of the masses. The quality of Linux is already there, but easy tech support for people who buy the software is, in my opinion, the last major puzzle piece for a vendor to offer. Now we just need a unified desktop and Linux can take over the world.

In what will undoubtedly be the single most important achievement in the development of free software, the vi vs. emacs war will be settled at the Linux Expo. The war will be settled in the only fair way:Paintball! Thanks to Michael Maher for sending this my way. I hope I can make it... guess which team I'll be on!