PapaZit writes: "Government Computer News is reporting that the DOD isn't willing to adopt Linux...yet. They're eager enough to do so, however, that they're considering relaxing the requirements for POSIX compliance and Motif." That may be true, but the article only mentions folks from VA Linux and Red Hat as advocating this idea. After all, those wacky Linux people favor "letting anyone have a crack at modifying it, which could represent a security compromise for military systems for command, control, communications, computers and intelligence." Not to worry -- you're probably aware that Free software has long been at work and play in serious government applications; reader sdriver points out a few of them below.

truefluke writes: "This was forwarded to me, from a friend who is a very loyal Debian supporter, with the cool news that Debian could become 'more up to date more often'. This news appeared here on the Debian news source. A good idea, and prob incentive for more folks to try out Debian without resorting to the old saw of 'too old / too slow.'" Debian developer Anthony Towns says in the list posting mentioned there that "[t]his is a (mostly finished) project that will allow us to test out distribution by making it "sludgey" rather than frozen[.]" Sounds like the same logic behind the Caldera "Technology Preview" and Red Hat's Rawhide -- give people more of what they want of The Bleeding Edge, without getting reckless with the official release.

chromatic is back with a mini-compendium of introductory Linux texts -- and yes, they have the famously protected "Dummies" trademark. Don't scoff at the nature of these books, though; the skill of translating the arcana of any computer topic (and boy are they all arcane to the uninitiated!) into language that mom, kids and the guy down the street can understand is not a common one. If you don't know what a root prompt (or an editor) is, or why you might want one, it's hard to do much else with your system.

Spiral Man writes: "There has been a lot of talk lately about Linux on handheld and embeded device. One interest of particular interest to me is in-dash computers for cars. Probably the most important app for one of these (aside from the CD player) would be a navigation and trip planing package such as DeLorme's Street Atlas, and Microsoft's Streets USA. My question is: Are there any apps, or even plans to write apps like this for Linux. Preferably these would use a commercial, or at least well updated, street database, and would have to be able to track you current location with a GPS." Especially considering the coming flood of GNU/Linux-based handhelds and dashboard computers, this question will be one of the toughies for folks who want to use Free software wherever possible, but who also want the capabilities in applications like Streets USA. Are there any competitors out there in the Free world?

A reader writes " According to the German Heise Newsticker Linux is the top server for .de-domains both in terms of IP addresses and domain names hosted. The survey carried out by the company iKu Netzwerklösungen surveyed all of almost 2.5 million connected .de-domains distributed over 205.540 IP addresses with the port scanner nmap. 44 percent of IP addresses surveyed were hosted by Linux, 30 percent by Windows. In terms of domain names hosted Linux has an even greater lead, with over 1.1 million domaines. Solaris follows with about 850,000 names, of which 180,000 are hosted on just two Solaris boxes belonging to Germany's biggest webspace provider Strato. Windows follows in 3rd place with just 10%. " Check out the fish if you don't jive deutsch.

Paul Bristow writes "I've been using a Headless Linux server at home for years and years, but I always find myself putting off doing a distro upgrade. It always means digging out the old graphics card, keyboard and monitor, dusting them off and plugging them in, just so I can have a console to upgrade on. Are there any linux distributions that will allow remote upgrades? You know, log in as root viua ssh, webmin, whatever, run upgrade prog, remotely reboot, off we go. ;-) I know I'm not the only one running a headless server, and I *know* how stable it is, but occasionally RedHat (in my case) come out with a nice new feature that I might want to upgrade for. Also, with just one server it might just be possible, but how do you upgrade a headless server farm?"

TillmanJ writes: "Just a quick note to let everyone know that the New Linux Myth Dispeller is online at http://www.eruditum.org/lin ux/myths/myth-dispeller.html It is not, however, ready for prime-time, but is usable. If anyone has anything to add/correct/bitch about, send me some email. In patricular, I would like to work with some non-english-speaking folks to translate it into whatever langs we can" Useful for clearing up the misconceptions of PHBs and other folks.

A reader wrote to us about "Notes From The Cathedral", which is sort of a tell-all from a former developer of a "major software company". An interesting, if somewhat sad, read.

Thanks to several of our readers who noted the public version of the Wall Street Journal's interview with Linus, conducted by Lee Gomes. Some of the standard issues - 2.4, Linux on the desktop are talked about but the statements concerning ye olde Mindcraft tests are particularly interesting.

briansp asks: "What hardware vendors are people most happy with for rackmount Linux servers? We've looked at IBM, Dell, VA Linux, and others, as well as putting stuff together from parts. Important evaluation points for me are: price, quality, reliability, support, and quick turnaround on orders. Anyone have any vendors they've been particularly happy or unhappy with?"

mduell writes: "Saw these three on the Technology front page at MSNBC.com. First off, This story on how GNOME Foundation takes aim at Microsoft. Secondly, this story about what Michael Dell thinks of Linux. Lastly, this story about Linux on mobile devices." Some other links that have been submitted: a reader submits pictures from the Expo, a Linux PDA is announced, and Michael Dell tries to figure out why he's selling overpriced Linux systems.

batsman was among the countless folks to announce that Potato is now Stable... i.e., Debian 2.2 has been released. The ISO is available, but I'm not linking (not because I'm an elitist (although I am) but to at least try to let the mirrors do their thing). No official word outside of mailing lists, but the 'stable' directory is now Potato. Congrats to all the ever slaving Debian developers... time to dist-upgrade those boxes that aren't already running woody! It's official now since the release is on Debian's site *grin*

beagle asks: "I just signed up for Time Warner's Road Runner service, and I'm concerned for security on my home machine now. As I started to crack down on my box over the weekend, I noticed that GNOME has about ten ports open in the range of 1030-1040, for such things as gpilotd, tasklist (sp?), and other similar apps. I shut off inetd, named, sendmail, and all other basic services except httpd. Of course, ssh is the only remote login method I support. However, I run Helix GNOME at home (I don't at work; I only ssh into the work machine - no console) and I don't want to stop using GNOME."

drift factor asks: "I work for a small company with about 200 Linux desktops, all identical aside from hostname and IP information running Redhat from a kickstart install. Currently, when something needs to be changed on all of them (say, the default gateway) we either have to ssh into all of them and do it manually, or write a Perl script to do so for us. Is there a good remote configuration system that will also allow some level of automation, i.e., I tell it what IP I want the default gateway to be on each machine and it updates them for me?" If you manage a large server farm and have used or written utilities that do this, please share your experiences.

allanj writes "Have you seen the Clinux stuff running of the uCsimm modules? They are pretty little machines with a version of Linux that, with kernel and the entire filesystem needed to boot, comes in at only 900 Kb. The whole thing took 30 minutes from initial power-up to first boot. Some (quite basic) assembly of hardware required though. The best part? The entire computer fits in a 30 pin RAM socket, with 8 Megs RAM, 2 Megs Flash ROM and an ethernet controller chip. It's powered by a Motorola DragonBall, so it's not for too processor-intensive tasks, but most things run just fine. Oh, and it has a gcc cross-compiler pre-packaged to run off your host system, so development can start immediately."

Spasemunki writes: "The NYTimes has a piece today on an agreement reached among I.B.M., Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems and several other developers to create the Gnome Foundation, a developer consortium that will undertake, among other things, the creation of a standardized desktop interface for Linux, and a suite of productivity programs designed to compete with MS office. As the name might imply, their efforts will center around the Gnome desktop manager, with Sun moving to adopt Gnome as the GUI for Solaris. Looks like some big names are getting interested in putting Linux on the desktop."

esimp writes: "In the August issue of CFO magazine, their tech report on servers goes on to say, "Linux has a passionate following among the tech-savvy, and mainstream support from such hardware and application vendors as IBM,Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, SAP, and others. But not everyone is a fan. Meta Group Inc. analyst Peter Firstbrook goes so far as to say that 'Linux should be shunned. It should not be a part of the business process.' Firstbrook objects to the very feature that most tout as Linux's number one asset--the fact that anyone can tweak the code--because it creates a situation in which an IT staffer may make changes that no one else knows about, and that probably go undocumented." That's right, because if someone you hired doesn't have proper documentation skills, it's all Linux's fault.

wishus writes: "The Compaq iPAQ is Compaq's PocketPC offering, with a 206 MHz Intel StrongARM. Microsoft beware, though, because there are now 2 different ways to put Linux on it - Compaq's own is at handhelds.org and the second, announced yesterday, is from Century Software. They are actually two very different means to the same end - Linux and X running on the iPAQ, complete with handwriting recognition." If only it had 802.11 wireless support, I'd be there.

Andreas Krennmair asks: "I'm planning to build my new Linux system from scratch, similar to Linux From Scratch. I'm currently collecting all source packages, and I wonder how common it still is to use a self-built Linux system, although graphical (or pseudo-graphical, curses-based) installation programs with automatic hardware component detection and great software package management systems are used in almost every modern Linux distribution. And are there any people left who still use Jurix or Yggdrasil?"

Deven Phillips, CISSP asks: "Recently, the company that I work for bought some VA Linux servers for our network and Web site. I was the one who recommended VA, due to the idea that they would give good technical support. When we purchased the servers, we were a bit dismayed by the fact that VA would not install Mandrake on our servers. Never to be daunted, we ordered the servers, and installed Mandrake ourselves. One of the servers (our file server to be) wouldn't load, wouldn't boot, and wouldn't even give us a good error indication. This is exactly why we chose VA, customer support. We returned the server and requested an immediate replacement. We were told 'No problem'. After the 7th day, still not being built. At two and a half weeks we got our server. The server came back to us missing parts, and still suffering from the same problem we were having before!"