Rewbob writes "Northwest arlines is spending $34 million to convert its flight simulators to linux. " Nifty practical applications. Normally when neat toys like this come along, I beg for someone to send me one, but for some reason, I don't expect NW to ship an airplane simulator over to the Geek Compound. But the best part is that there will be one less Fortran program out there *grin*.

The Linux Mandrake team has released version 6.0 of their award-winning distribution. The new release includes software so new it's almost scary - kernel 2.2.9, KDE 1.1.1, and even GNOME 1.0.9. To go along with the new version, the guys have also redone their web page. Comments?

wendell wrote in to send us an interesting little article about VA Linux Systems and how the Linux companies are hiring major free software developers.

Rather than spending all week posting lots of little bits about Linux Expo, I've saved them up for now: Russ Nelson sent us a collection of pictures, Brian Smith sent us his, and our own Justin sent us his collection and a mirror, and nicedream sent us a collection of pictures from the Debian boys. (featuring many light saber battles and nerf wars from the Slashdot booth) Marc Merlin sent us linkage to a scan of the linuxcare poster that Red Hat got so cranky about. He has a full report on the show. An anonymous reader sent us a TechSitings Story, Jonas Öberg wrote in to send us Telsa (Alan Cox's wife) take on the show for something a bit lighter.

B. Galliart wrote in to tell us that the The LinuxHQ web site is now available at KernelNotes.org. The reason for the change is explained here. One of my favorite sites, I'm bummed to see trouble over there. Note that this also means that Kernel Edge Linux has moved. Update those bookmarks.

MECC wrote in to send us an evaluation of Linux vs. NT that appears over at network computing. The review is a little more evenly considering showing that the OSs are much closer in performance than a certain "other" test, and that either can be made to outperform the other (surprise surprise). Some numbers, some samba benchmarks, and more. A good looking piece.

RobertPearse submits this question: Here's an article about ILM engineers using a small Linux box to reboot systems quickly. They mention a "TTL data-acquisition card". Housed in a linux box, it allows them to reboot a system very quickly. Anybody know anything about this? My company is a Microsoft shop -- and given the fragility of NT, this sounds like a great idea. (God forbid we need to reboot an NT box ;-)"

PaulJS writes "The UKUUG are holding a Linux Conference on 25th - 26th June 1999. Topics include GNOME (design decisions) and the ext3 filesystem which is a contender for the replacement for ext2. "

crunge writes "SlackWare 4.0 is now available. It is based on the 2.2.x kernel. It is still libc5-based (but glibc 2.0.7pre6 compatibility libraries are available for those who want/need to run glibc2 applications. (My understanding is that the next release will be glibc2.1-based). Grab it from the usual usual places.

BoredSpy asks "I'm having an extremely difficult time attempting to build gated 3.5.10 on a Red Hat 4.2 box. Does anyone know if it will even build, or what the process is? Does it require glibc, etc? Any pointers to information or documentation on gated compilation under Linux (especially libc5) would be appreciated. "

Alex asks: "How would one go about calculating immediate costs and tangible benefits of migrating an NT/Novell IntranetWare LAN to Linux. I am not talking only about long-term benefits as in more uptime, fewer crashes, robustness, etc., but if I could use fewer and cheaper boxes for file, internet and print servers. What could I say to a company about the immediate benefits?" What about the costs associated with retraining? What pitfalls do NT admins have to worry about when moving to Linux?

afniv writes "Time.com as a short article about Linux. The reviewer talks briefly about Linux install troubles and will have future installments. "

Anonymous Coward writes "www.DarwinLinux.com is a collaboration between the team at Infomagic (Linux gurus), and the team at TwinForces (WebObjects/OpenStep gurus). The goal is to create a complete distribution on a CD. Incidently, Apple will sync Darwin (Apple's BSD core under OS X) with FreeBSD later this year. "

A number of people have submitted the Silicon.Com Linux week. They're doing an excellent coverage, with RealPlayer interviews with ESR, and other folks as well. This is a great story for your PHBs to look at-answering the perennial question of whether Linux is ready for wide-spread use.

So we're here, we're intact, and we've got our tickets to see Star Wars tonight. With the important business out of the way, I can finally give my first report from LinuxExpo- brace yourself for my quick summary.

Thomas Leineweber writes "Stardivision has just released the new version 5.1 of its StarOffice. You can download it as usual for free for non-commercial use. "

JariK writes "Linus Torvalds will recieve an honorary doctorate from the University of Stockholm Mathematical Department. The information can be found, regrettably in Swedish only. " Well, my Swedish is rusty - anyone post a translation below?

Chip Stillmore writes "Just read this news.com. Apparently Linux.com is supposed to be going live today. " The page simply says tonight. I've seen what they're doing over there. It isn't at all what I really expected when they announced that they had bought the domain, but it ain't bad. As long as it covers the newbie stuff though, I'm happy. As of 2300 Eastern, it's live!

An anonymous reader wrote in to tell us about a new expanded distribution for the SuSE distribution- it will now appear in places like CompUSA, Fry's, Microcenter, Waldenbooks, Borders, and Best Buy. Always nice to see those shrink wrapped boxes up on the shelves.

BTT writes "Parametric Technology is taking a poll on whether or not they should port Pro/E to Linux. Check out www.ptc.com and cast a vote. " For those of who aren't familar with Parametric, they make one of the premier CAD applications.