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(LinuxWorld) — Prior to Susan starting her first Linux installation, I had prepared the Sony Vaio laptop so that it was in the same state it had been for her installation of Windows XP. All partitions on the hard drive were removed, the Netgear PCMCIA NIC was installed, and the USB IBM PC Camera was attached. Just as I did for XP, I placed the installation CD in the drive and powered the unit down. All she needed to do to start the installation was power it on. I need to point out that Susan, who is smart but is not a computer-system administrator, was not installing a retail version of the newest Red Hat. Version 8.0 had not yet appeared on local store shelves when we conducted the test, so I downloaded the three ISO images from a site in Ireland. I tried to download them from Red Hat first, but even after subscribing to Red Hat Network, the speed was too sl... (more)

Industry leaders react to kernel 2.4

The long-awaited release of the 2.4 Linux kernel occurred January 4 without any of the hoopla that typically accompanies a major software release. Even vaporware announcements in the proprietary OS market include more banging of the drum. Linus Torvalds simply sent a short note (see Resources for a link) to the kernel mailing list, which was picked up by LinuxToday, saying he'd released the kernel. No rock band, no professional wrestler on stage, no laser lights. But even without the fireworks and glitter, the release generated a lot of excitement. By Monday morning following the... (more)

Linux.SYS-CON.com EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Nat Friedman, In His Own Right

(LinuxWorld) -- In August 1999 I ran into Miguel de Icaza and Nat Friedman in a gift shop not far from the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo (LWCE) in San Jose. Among other things, Friedman and de Icaza were kicking around the idea of forming a company. Later the same year they did exactly that in founding Helix Code, a company whose sole mission has been to bring the GNOME desktop to new levels of completeness, polish, and ease of use. In August 2000 I ran into the dynamic duo again at the LWCE in San Jose. This time it was at the GNOME party. Miguel de Icaza is normally the press-m... (more)

Linux.SYS-CON.com Flashback to 2002: The "Stallman Factor"

(Linux.SYS-CON.com) -- Richard Stallman is one of the best-known figures of the software revolution. Of all the other icons of the revolution, only Linus Torvalds shares the same kind of name recognition. Stallman wrote some of the most influential software of the age: tools like GCC and Emacs, which have had profound roles in the development of yet more free software. Linus Torvalds could not have written the Linux kernel without these tools. Perhaps as importantly, or maybe even more importantly, Stallman also crafted the GNU Public License: the license that guarantees the pres... (more)

Linux predictions for 2001

Happy New Year, everyone! I feel a little silly typing that greeting this morning, since it's still a couple of weeks before January, but not as silly as I do about writing the rest of the column. It must be a disease of some kind, or a rite of passage for journalists. What else could explain the strange notion that we must, in the last few harried weeks of the year, put on our turbans, hold an envelope over our third eye like Johnny Carson, and make predictions? So why am I doing it? I wish I could blame my editors, but they have too much sense to suggest such a column. The best... (more)