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Copyright Linux Magazine ©2002 FEATURE The Importance of Being Debian Why you should care about Linux's great non-commercial distribution by Robert McMillan Eight years ago, as Purdue undergraduate Ian Murdock flipped through a Unix magazine, he came across an intriguing advertisement. It was for a Linux distribution that promised to let you run your Windows applications on the free operating system. Linux had sprung into existence a scant year before and now -- according to the ad -- it could support Windows applications. This seemed too good to be true. It was.The distribution in question -- Murdock no longer remembers...

Lower costs, more flexible By Egan Orion: Wednesday 17 July 2002, 13:40 FOUR YEARS AGO the US Navy was embarrassed when a divide-by-zero fault cascaded through Windows NT systems on the cruiser USS Yorktown, leaving it dead in the water for hours. Now a US Navy organisation is using Linux in some mission-critical roles both shipboard and onshore with good benefits. The Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVOCEANO) is working with the Open-Source Software Institute (OSSI) to assess its current use of Open Source software and develop recommendations going forward, according to Andrew Aitken, Managing Partner of Olliance Consulting Group, which is...

Ballmer 'fesses up to Linux/Windows cost FUD By Thomas C Greene in Washington Posted: 07/16/2002 at 14:25 EST Windows is a lot more expensive to run than Linux, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has finally confessed. Despite Redmond's heroic efforts to defeat common knowledge with elaborately-rigged total cost of ownership 'studies', innuendo, FUD and outright distortions, the rhetorical power of common experience has become too powerful, even for a marketing behemoth like MS. According to an article by VARBusiness, Ballmer now concedes that MS execs "haven't figured out how to be lower-priced than Linux. For us as a company, we're...

Wal-Mart's Web Site Sells Computers Without Windows SoftwareBy Caryn Rousseau Associated Press WriterPublished: Jul 16, 2002 LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Saying it wants to offer its customers more options, Wal-Mart's online shopping site has started selling inexpensive computers without the Microsoft Windows operating system. "We're simply offering this to a specific niche looking for this specific operating system," Walmart.com spokeswoman Cynthia Lin said Tuesday. "It's about extending more choices to our customers." Instead of the popular Microsoft Windows software, the Wal-Mart computers come loaded with Lindows, a Linux operating systems company based in San Diego. Lindows says the operating...

Microsoft books LinuxWorld stand in bid for 'dialog'By John Lettice Posted: 07/04/2002 at 07:10 EST Microsoft is to exhibit at LinuxWorld Expo this August, and it appears that the company wants to be nice. Yesterday, Linux Today spotted the Beast's presence on the Expo exhibitor list, and after publicising this was contacted by an apparently kinder, gentler Microsoft. In the shape of Peter Houston, senior director of the Windows Server Product Management Group, who got in touch and explained that it's all about dialogue. The audience is important to Microsoft, and showing up is a first step "towards forming an...

Yesterday, as we all know, Microsoft fed an 'exclusive' story about its new 'Palladium' DRM/PKI Trust Machine to Newsweek hack Steven Levy (a guy who writes without irony of "high-level encryption"), presumably because they trusted him not to grasp the technology well enough to question it seriously. His un-critical announcement immediately sparked a flurry of articles considering what this means to the Windows user base. And that's as it should be. But my question is, what does it mean to the Linux user base? Well, of course no one knows yet; the Levy article is long on generalized promises but...

Study: Open, closed source equally secure By Robert Lemos Staff Writer, CNET News.com June 20, 2002, 6:00 PM PT Proprietary programs should mathematically be as secure as those developed under the open-source model, a Cambridge University researcher argued in a paper presented Thursday at a technical conference in Toulouse, France. In his paper, computer scientist Ross Anderson used an analysis equating finding software bugs to testing programs for the mean time before failure, a measure of quality frequently used by manufacturers. Under the analysis, Anderson found that his ideal "open-source" programs were as secure as the "closed-source" programs. "Other things...

Operating SystemsLinux Gets Boost From Dell, OracleLisa DiCarlo, 06.05.02, 3:00 PM ET NEW YORK - In yet another strong show of support for the Linux operating system, market leaders Oracle (nasdaq: ORCL - news - people ), Dell Computer (nasdaq: DELL - news - people ) and Red Hat Software (nasdaq: RHAT - news - people ) today combined strengths to make the software more reliable, higher performance and easier to buy. For the first time, Dell will resell licenses for Oracle's 9i database and application server software for Red Hat Linux. That lets customers avoid having to buy from...

In a move aimed at increasing security and cutting costs, the German government says it will switch most of its administrative computers from Microsoft Windows to the Linux open-source operating system. Tux the Penguin is invading Germany. No, the South Pole creatures at the Berlin Zoo haven't escaped. The bird behind this feathery technology attack is the coat-and-tie clad mascot for the computer operating system Linux. The German government said on Monday it had reached a deal with software giant IBM to deploy Linux software at all government agencies. Saving money, increasing security The move came as a serious blow...

Taiwan is turning its back on software from the likes of Microsoft to develop its own open-source project, according to a recent report. The Taiwanese government plans to start an open-source project as early as next year that could save it as much as $295 million in royalty payments to Microsoft, according to a report from Taiwan's Central News Agency. Open-source software such as the Linux operating system may be freely modified and redistributed without the legal and financial constraints of proprietary software from Microsoft, Oracle and others. An official with the National Center for High Performance Computing, Chuang Tze-nan,...

Digital ToolsLinux Gets FriendlierStephen Manes, 06.10.02, 12:00 AM ET Installing Linux on PCs was once an exercise in nonstop profanity. Now it works--mostly. Since its introduction as a free operating system in 1991, the Linux variant of Unix has become such a popular way to run servers that a business has grown up around supplying, supporting and charging for it. Even IBM has gotten into the act. Now, frustrated by a monopoly whose innovation in the face of slower growth amounts to finding more efficient ways of extracting money from captive customers, users are beginning to wonder whether Linux could...

NEW YORK, May 29, 2002 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- Linux, the open-source operating system with an outsider mystique, is now proliferating on powerful government computer systems in the United States and abroad with technology giants increasingly providing support. At a Tokyo trade show on Friday, IBM Corp. was announcing the sale of more than 75 Linux-based computer systems to U.S. agencies including the Air Force, the Defense, Agriculture and Energy departments and the Federal Aviation Administration. Overseas, Linux systems help keep order in Germany's parliament as well as China's post office, France's culture, defense and education ministries and...

<p>From upstate New York to Seattle, teenagers drop into a shop called Zumiez to find snowboarding and skateboarding hardware, clothes, and shoes. In a retail sector where "bleeding edge" threads and gear have driven rapid growth, this 89-store chain, based in Everett, Wash., can't open outlets fast enough. Given the anti-Establishment bent of some of its young customers, it's appropriate that Zumiez also has tapped into the anti-Establishment software trend by bringing Linux to the mall.</p>

A leader in the push by nine states and the District of Columbia to pursue harsh antitrust remedies in the case against Microsoft Corporation is distributing Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser from his official state website. Readers who visit the website of Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal using a browser that identifies itself as something other than Internet Explorer or Netscape are given a modal Javascript error box (screenshot) which says that a "newer" browser is needed to view the page. Clicking on the "OK" button brings readers to a page captioned "*** Please Update your current browser ***" and...

States: Microsoft Urged Linux RetaliationTue May 14, 1:26 PM ETBy Peter Kaplan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Microsoft Corp. executive urged the company to quietly retaliate against supporters of the rival Linux (news - web sites) operating system in an August 2000 memo that nine states still suing the software giant want admitted as evidence. Slideshows The nine states seeking stiff antitrust sanctions against Microsoft late on Monday asked the judge in the case to reconsider her decision that shielded Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates (news - web sites) from the e-mail message during his testimony last month. In the memo, Microsoft...

<p>SEATTLE - Fierce resistance is brewing to Microsoft's new software licensing program for businesses.</p> <p>By Aug. 1, Microsoft will cut the 30% to 50% discount it has long granted businesses for upgrading to the latest version of its software. Instead, it is pushing companies into paying upfront subscription fees locking them into future upgrades.</p>

Linux Enables Safe Computer Donations to Schools Tuesday, May 07 2002 @ 05:23 AM The Internet, Tuesday, 07 May 2002: In an official announcement from the SchoolForge[0] group today, spokesman Leon Brooks refuted statements on Microsoft's website which have been widely interpreted as a roadblock to the acceptance of donated computers by schools and other needy organisations. "Using Linux, OpenOffice.org and other Open Source software, a school or charity can safely accept almost any donated computer," he said. "Simply wipe it and replace the software with Linux[1] and Open Source applications[2], then use the computer as a powerful workstation or...

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Hewlett-Packard Co. said Wednesday it will build the world's most powerful supercomputer using the Linux operating system to study biotechnology and radioactive waste detection. HP won the $24.5 million contract from the Department of Energy to install the computer at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., the company said in a statement. The computer will have 1,400 Itanium processors from Intel Corp. Linux is an open operating system that companies can copy or change without charge.

Hollywood's new enemy--Linux fansSun Apr 14, 7:43 PM ETBy Lisa M. Bowman, ZDNet NewsSpooked by Hollywood-backed legislation that seeks to regulate technology, Linux (news - web sites) geeks plan to launch a political-action committee that fights back.Jeff Gerhardt, host of "The Linux Show," and Doc Searls, senior editor of the Linux Journal, are forming a lobbying group called GeekPAC that would try to convince lawmakers to consider developers when they draft laws concerning technology. The goal is to ensure that legislative attempts to protect the interests of companies such as Walt Disney and the Baby Bells don't stifle technological development....

Editorial For whom do they speak? It seemed as if the mystery had finally been solved.The mystery is what the "K" in KDE stands for. There have been various explanations offered over the years, but nothing has "stuck."For a time last week, one might have had reason to suppose that "K" was chosen because it is the letter that most resembles a goose-stepping soldier, arm raised in a salute not widely seen since the dark days of the early 1940s.It began when KDE developer Waldo Bastian posted to the KDE-Cafe mailing list, an off-topic list organized a month or so...