(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)
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)
(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) -- 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)
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)
Joe Barr is a freelance journalist covering Linux, open source and network security. His 'Version Control' column has been a regular feature of Linux.SYS-CON.com since its inception. As far as we know, he is the only living journalist whose works have appeared both in phrack, the legendary underground zine, and IBM Personal Systems Magazine.
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