An anonymous reader writes "LinuxDevices.com has published the proceedings from the Fourth Real-Time Linux Workshop. 26 of the papers are now available as PDF downloads, on topics which include robotics, chemical process control, digital PID controller, medical imaging, real-time graphical programming, device driver architecture, shielded processors, quality-of-service, real-time FIFOs, and more. Check 'em out!"

DiZASTiX writes "An article from Zdnet says Linux on the desktop has become a reality. It is now possible, for example, to buy a Linux-based PC (running LindowsOS) from Evesham. In the United States, Wal-Mart sells machines based on Lindows, Mandrake Linux and others. But though Linux may have its foot in the door, taking the next step to becoming a mainstream success is proving a more difficult proposition."

Fembot asks: "The Samba team are doing a great job, but I can't help but feel that making Unix machines serve Windows-based protocols is the wrong approach. Back in the days of Windows95 it shipped with an NFS client on the CD which could be installed optionaly. Are there open source (or even just free as in beer) NFS clients for Windows 2000/XP, and is it possible to authenticate users on Windows desktops via NIS?"

Michael Cray asks: "I'm an MIS student and a pro-Linux / Open Source guy. I've been trying to find an article, that serves as an introduction to Open Source, which my Professor could use in class. To me, Open Source is more philosophical than technical. Since this is an IDS/MIS course called 'Management of Information Systems', the professor picks articles from journals like the Harvard Review to be used in class. So if you are a teacher, what article would you use to present 'open source' in a college class room?" What articles have you found that would serve as a good introduction to Open Source? Documents like The Cathedral and the Bazaar and the GPL would be good intro pieces, but are there other pieces that might flesh out these two as an introduction to Open Source?

0x0d0a asks: "Slashdot has now had a number of articles on package management. Strong opinions about the management approaches of Red Hat, Debian, Gentoo, Slackware, and BSD have all been expressed, some quite negative. What suggestions do you have for improvement? What features do you value in a package management system, and in what areas would you like to see additional functionality?"

An anonymous reader writes "This year has proven most interesting for GNU/Linux. While there was not any amazing surprises, there were numerous events that are noteworthy for review. The upshot to all of this is that most of what happened was good overall for the Free Software community. Read the full story."

dbarry writes "Many here have read recently about the FSF membership program. The much-coveted membership card is to be a version of the Bootable Business Card distribution. We are curently looking for testing of our pre-2.0 releases and automated builds. The 2.0 release of the LNX-BBC (and, thus, the FSF membership card) will use the powerful GAR build system to compile nearly all software on it from source code. As such it has changed greatly since the 1.618 release from 2001." Is it ok to covet the card but not the membership? :)

Jon writes "For those lucky readers who received an iPod for Christmas I've put up an article on LinuxLookup.com on how I got my iPod working under Linux. I've given a little overview on the different options available, and which one worked best for my needs. All in all, I'm extremely happy with the outcome. I can transfer my music, create playlists, and add all of my contacts. The only thing missing is a nice GUI."

davorg contributes this review of Wiley's new Red Hat Linux 8 Bible, writing "I've never been much of a fan of large computer books and, to be honest, this one hasn't done much to change my opinion. These large books often seem a little confused about their target audience. They often cover everything from very basic concepts to very complex ones, and I don't really believe that anyone really needs that breadth of coverage. Or, at least, not all at the same time and from the same book." You'll find the rest of Dave's review below.

Anonymous Coward writes "The Register has a story about traveling to a magical country where seeing Linux laptops displayed in stores is perfectly normal. The author then goes on to predict that this year will see much more desktop action coming not from Red Hat or Euro-Distros, but from China and India. Makes sense to me."

An anonymous reader writes "The Age interviews Rick Moen, a software generalist from the Linux community and an advocate for Open Source software." Rick's been a real catalyst for the Linux community over the years, helping organize the LINC Expo, Windows Refund Day, Linux birthday parties, and more. An entertaining read.

Webi writes "The government of India has started taking precise, wide-reaching steps to usher in a Linux wave in India." India sure seems to be a highly contested arena lately. Interestingly, India's plan calls for government-sponsored support and call centers. Looks like they've really thought this through.

rjnagle writes "I've always been surprised and even disappointed at my friends' lack of curiosity about Linux. Maybe geeks and slashdotters understand why Linux is so appealing, but many people simply don't have time for it. Even the more open-minded people refuse to consider Linux until it runs a lot of commercial applications (does it support Photoshop? Video games? MS Word? Etc)." Robert reviews below Linux in the Workplace, a book intended to surmount this understandable gap in knowledge.

slashdotess writes "Information Week reports: "About a year ago, Patrick McCartney, a Johnson Center project manager, created a Linux desktop environment that could also run government-mandated Microsoft apps. This let his team of 30 engineers continue to program in a Unixlike environment and create Word documents and Outlook E-mail all on the same PC. This mixed-use scenario is slowly taking hold, encouraged by a growing number of applications for running Linux on PC desktops." Score another one for Linux on the Desktop."

Alkini writes "Red Hat just announced a new beta, codenamed Phoebe. Their highlight list includes Mozilla 1.2.1 with Xft antialiased fonts and glibc-2.3.1. The new beta can be downloaded from RH's FTP site or one of the mirrors."

Someone who can read Danish writes "According to this story (in Danish) Denmark has taken the first steps to start using Linux and Staroffice in all schools (1.1 million students). Sun has agreed to provide Staroffice for free, or on a CD-ROM for 10 Danish crowns ($1.5)."

inode_buddha was among a handful of folks who submitted linkage to Dvorak's latest column where he talks about Linux being to much like Windows. It's not really a slam, just a challange to be more innovative and look beyond feature creep and UI concepts that are old and tired. Hard to disagree with most of it.

ungulation writes "A joint project of SFMOMA, The Goethe-Institut, ZKM Karlsruhe, and the Walker Art Center, a group called CrossFade broadcast the entire linux kernel 2.4.18. From the CrossFade website: "In Free Radio Linux, the entire source code of the Linux kernel will be webcast over the Internet. A speech synthesizer will convert into talk radio the 4,141,432 lines of code, which will take about 600 days to read." According to the Free Radio Linux website the stream is only available in ogg-vorbis format."

Cpyder writes "The fine folks over at Linux Weekly News have just released their 2002 Linux Timeline. It's nice to see what good things have happened to the community this year."

An anonymous reader writes "It seems that MandrakeSoft's short-term financial problem is worse than was thought. A new page on the Mandrake web site says: 'Everyone who is concerned with the company's future is encouraged to read and distribute the following message. In order to reach the next release, MandrakeSoft currently needs to raise cash, and quickly complete the Increase of Capital.' Darn, and I thought they were almost over this hump. Looks like a good time to help recruit Mandrake supporters for the Club."