Kernel release: 2.4.28-pre3, Sep 11, 2004

2.4.28-pre3 has been released today.
See changelog for full details.

Files added: 31
Files changed: 533
Files removed: 2

Linux has global coverage, with support from companies such as IBM, Oracle, SAP and Siebel, making it a viable strategic option," the report stated. "This ecosystem is developing quickly and is a major driver for the adoption of Linux, especially for the main enterprise distributions from Red Hat and Novell.

As I said in the #102 Mailbag, I've been wanting to try Gentoo. I hesitated to install it because I knew it would take three days since you have to compile your own software, and I assumed I would have lots of compilation errors to troubleshoot. But four of my friends have been running it at their workplaces and say they rarely get compilation errors -- mirable dictu. Three of them are solidly convinced for Gentoo; the other is a little tired of having to wait for a package to compile. But everyone says you just run "emerge PACKAGE" in a shell window and leave it alone, and 90% of the time you end up with a flawlessly installed package. No mess, no fuss, just pure impact. The way Unix was meant to be. This article describes my experience installing Gentoo, some things I learned along the way, and describes the Gentoo features I found the most interesting.

Now through December 31, 2004, ShaoLin Microsystems offers free download of their flagship product, ShaoLin Aptus - the Linux "Fit Client" enterprise desktop network computing environment. This allows users to download ShaoLin Aptus and use it at no cost.

International Business Machines Corp. late on Wednesday rolled out a new version of its database software aimed at users of Linux and Unix operating systems that it hopes will help the company take away market share from market leader Oracle Corp.

IBM said the latest version of its DB2 software that runs on Linux and Unix automatically self-manages databases, allowing companies to better manage, process and retrieve data such as product pricing.

When one compares the enterprise market to the consumer market, one can understand why Red Hat, Novell SuSE, IBM, HP and Sun have put their focus on the enterprise market. That doesn't provide accountability to the tens of thousands of people who made GNU/Linux competitive in the enterprise market in the first place, however. So, let's look at the current situation.

Novell became a major Linux promoter worldwide with the acquisition of the Ximian and SuSE Linux operating systems in the second half of 2003. Alan F. Nugent, CTO of Novell, explained that the open-source operating systems have not only seen broadening acceptance in server applications, but also in a wide range of other IT applications.

There’s open source software (OSS), there’s what Novell Inc chief technology officer Alan Nugent calls “closed source” -- meaning proprietary -- software, and then there’s Novell’s own “mixed-source” software.

Nugent was describing Novell’s own policy, one that he said brought together the best of open source and Novell’s proprietary software, and was periodically realigned so that the two complemented each other as best as possible.

“We make our proprietary technology available on open source platforms, and we participate in the OSS movement,” said Nugent, who was in Malaysia for Novell’s Linux Day event here on Monday.

i3 has announced that its Linux based customer premises equipment (CPEs) and newly updated, Linux based XoIP central management server will be used in iDTV and IP-TV test networks, respectively, in Belgium and Sweden. Additionally, i3 says its CPEs support extra-high speed ADSL2+ networks.

The need to justify one's decisions seems to be worsening. This is the sole reason for the never-ending moaning about the superiority of the Mac versus the Windows platform versus Linux. According to each camp, their solution—their choice—is superior. By what criteria? If you were to rate the platforms by the total amount of software that can run on them, then Windows is clearly superior. What other criteria would you suggest? If you were to choose the cheapest, highest-performing platform, then Linux is clearly superior. It runs faster than Windows and runs on the cheapest hardware. If you make coolness and usability the main criteria, then the Mac easily wins.

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