Aron Hsiao sent us a link to a Mining Co article on the LSA. ZDNet also has another story on the same topic. This one talksd about the division in the Linux community over the issue. Personally, I think the world has spoken and the LSA will be passed up in favor of Linux Compatibility Standards Project, and open collaberation between Red Hat and Debian. Update Michael McLagan of the LSA wrote back in to make this statement. Click on to read it.

I know a lot of you still had trouble compiling v0.27 of GNOME, so it's probably worth noting that GNOME is now available in binary format. You can download the latest RPM's from the FTP-site.

Melissa London of Red Hat wrote in to alert us that Raw Hide has been announced, and is up for testing. It's rough stuff, but it shows promise. The system will very possibly get all of us stabler systems, faster. No arguments here.

You knew it was coming, but not you know what it is. Raster has taken all his experience from Enlightenment, and hacked GTK to themable. Once the bugs are ironed out, all Gnome applications will be able to be customized to whatever bizarre extremes the user desires. The RHAD Themes Page has been updated with a gigantic screenshot showing what this really means. You will be impressed. Oh, and somebody probably ought to mirror that screenshot somewhere.

So many people submitted this story that I wonder if any readers might not know about it yet, but here it is. Debian and Red Hat are now collaberating to produce Linux Compatibility Standards (LCS) Erik Troan (Red Hat) and Dale Scheetz (Debian) are managing the project. I've attached the press release, so click on if you want more.

Yoav Cohen-Sivan wrote in to tell us that Marc Ewing has posted his take on the Qt License. The final result is that Qt will not be included with future versions of Red Hat's distro.

Peter D. Junger writes "I am sending this message, at the suggestion of Eric Raymond, to both the slashdot news service at www.slashdot.org and comp.os.linux.announce." Click below to read the whole message.

C'T, the best European Computing Magazine in my opinion, has published an interview with the divinity Linus. For those of you that do not read Teutonic, here are a few key points: Oracle's database port to Linux is important in that it shows how important Linux has become. Linux is squarely targeted at the desktop since that market is harder to penetrate than the server market: you have to get more things right than just the network-code. Linus uses neither KDE nor GNOME, staying with fvwm. He liked what he saw of KDE, but the constant flame wars have made him develop a certain aversion towards both of them. While Linus feels that Qt is a technically excellent product from a good company, he worries that the Linux community cannot accept KDE's political implications, which is a shame. But he understands Redhat's concern that it cannot do everything it deems necessary with KDE, for instance that it cannot repair a security flaw if it finds one in Qt because of Qt's license. Finally, while Linus himself does not want to sign any NDAs with Intel over Merced, he knows other Linux developers who have and is therefore sure that a Merced port will not be a problem.

I was tickled to see the Tool of Objective Truth at the UK branch of ZDNet showing... Linux crashing less than NT. This nonsense is accompanied by a positive Redhat 5.1 review

Redhat's president Bob Young argues in an Internet World article that Java has not taken off, because it is not Open Source. Apparently the remedy for Redhat Linux will be including the latest version of Kaffe. With Kaffe and Jikes the ground would be covered. Let's just help and hope.

Elliot Lee wrote in to tell us that Linus is the cover story in the next issue of Forbes. It proclaims "Peace, Love and Sofware". I find it strangely appealing that the Free Software Movement is so often thought of in hippy terms. Peace man. Anyway, uber cool for Linus and big PR for open source. Always enjoyable to see that sorta stuff.

Christopher Litsinger writes "I have a computer that I share with my wife, who is a slight technophobe. I've tried to make our computer as easy for her to use as possible. As I result I've setup my computer as follows. It has an Adaptec 3940 card, set to boot off SCSI ID 4. A Jaz drive is set to SCSI ID 4. There is another SCSI drive set to ID 0. Now when I want to load any given operating system, I just stick a Jaz disk in and boot from it. When I'm done, I pop out the Jaz disk. When my wife starts up the computer, it finds no cartridge in the Jaz drive, it defaults to boot from ID 0. RedHat 5.0, and then I get to the LILO part, it tells me I can't load LILO onto the MBR of device 4. Now I obviously could put LILO on device 0, but I'm sure there's a way around this. "

A new Linux distribution has been released. This one is called Linux-Mandrake and has nothing to do with Mandrake of Enlightenment fame. Its goal is to provide an easy to use environment for beginners, and provides out-of-the-box support for French users (accents, etc). It's based on Redhat 5.1 (with all bug fixes up to 17th July) and a fully functional KDE. Users can mount their CD's without messing with /etc/fstab. It seems a good idea as an introduction as long as it does not lead to dumber users.

BOredAtWork writes "gtk.org received an update recently, and it includes links to lots of language bindings, and a new GTK-developers-list being hosted by redhat. They also promise to update more often ;-). "

vasquez was the first to tell us that X inside, now Xi Graphics, the makers of Accelerated X, will be releasing a new Linux distribution targeted at Fortune 500 companies. As they already sell and support their own commercial software to the above companies, they know what level of support to provide, and how not to get sued. What's funny is that they were asked to do this by the said companies... what's wrong with Redhat? Suse? Dld? Caldera? Maybe Xig will produce updates at a slower rate. Let's hope they also contribute to all Linuxes, like Redhat, Caldera and Suse have done.

Phil Smyth writes "I toured the under-construction Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at an open house at Brookhaven National Laboratory yesterday. One of their systems people told me that they will be using a massive array of Pentium Pros running Red Hat to analyze the terabytes of data streaming from the experiments. NT was rejected because of the difficulty of administering the array. Incidentaly, the RHIC is an unbelivable piece of engineering. "

Jesse Barnes wrote in to let us know where to get at the non-alpha, full version of Linux for many Indys. Additionally, check out the page for more information.

Bob Bell was the first to write in and let us all know KDE has finally hit the big 1.0! Something that a lot of you have been waiting for a long time, I'm sure. Markus Fleck (aka python) wrote in to tell us that Red Hat has hired Preston Brown, the author of KOrganizer, and a recent volunteer to the Harmony Project. Harmony is the project to provide a free and superior Qt replacement. An interesting turn of events, indeed...

endisnigh writes "I am a smalltime sysadmin working in a cyber cafe in Dublin - my problem is that the linux server that we have here (redhat 5.1) attracts system crackers for some reason - people from a few different countries who seem to be portscanning etc.. I wouldn't consider myself totally green as regards to linux, but find it hard to get good up-to-date linux security advice that covers everyting from shadow passwords, to secure finger daemons to immutable file systems to just *exactly* what daemons don't need to be running on a mail/web/name server. I want answers! I want advice! I want cheesy poofs! "

Well folks, its friday, and I'm ready for the weekend. And I'm gonna celebrate by cleaning out the submissions box. What follows is a fairly sizable list of quickies that have been built up over the last week or so. First off, Felix Finch sent us a link to IllusionWorks.com. It is exactly what you would expect. Kinda cool. Frank Berger sent us a link to a Chicken Conversion for Quake II. What a strange world we live. Oliver Fischer, the guy who was working on those Linux Keyboard Keys has updated his page with more information for anyone interested. Mike Roessing wrote a sort of zd parody. It's friday, you might enjoy reading such thing. Christopher Lee sent us a link to a NY Times Writeup on VA Research and Linux. Fict wrote in to tell us that the latest issue of Phrack is now online. Matthew Miller wrote in to say that Red Hat is selling, well, Red Hats like the one in their logo. Fict wrote in to send us a link to Denounce.com (uber cool fake news site) one MS buying Linux.