Linux

Yeah, baby! After over 1 year in the making, Gentoo Linux 1.4 has finally been released. Features include:

• Support for x86, PowerPC, UltraSparc and Alpha processors
• Latest stable KDE and GNOME
• Various optimized Linux kernels (2.4.20, 2.4.21_pre)
• Very modern GNU development environment (glibc 2.3, gcc 3.2.2)
• Excellent filesystem support: ReiserFS, XFS, ext3, EVMS, LVM
• Excellent hardware support: NVIDIA, Creative Labs Live! and Audigy
• New "hardened" Gentoo security initiative
• 4000+ packages of the latest and greatest software

This release also marks the first official release of the Gentoo Reference Platform. Unlike the traditional Gentoo installation method (compile everything you want from source), the GRP is a full, compiled distribution, optimized for various hardware architectures. As of this posting, it's currently available via tw disc sets for i686, Pentium 3, Pentium 4, and Athlon XP.

Please see the list of official mirrors to download. Additional, you'll want to refer to the Gentoo Installation Guide, and also perhaps my own unofficial installation and configuration guide. Enjoy!

More on the SCO drama:

The SCO Group ... today announced the availability of the SCO Intellectual Property License for Linux®. The run-time license permits the use of SCO's intellectual property, in binary form only, as contained in Linux distributions. By purchasing a SCO Intellectual Property License, customers avoid infringement of SCO's intellectual property rights in Linux 2.4 and Linux 2.5 kernels. Because the SCO license authorizes run-time use only, customers also comply with the General Public License, under which Linux is distributed.

The price? Introductory $699 per CPU through October 15. How gracious!

Press release

For the latest news on this continuing drama, check out these two press releases:

Red Hat Takes Aim at Infringement Claims

Statement Regarding Red Hat Lawsuit

The first is a press release by Red Hat in which they state that they have sued SCO to prove that their products (and Linux/OSS in general) do not infringe upon any of SCO's copyright claims. They also announced that they have setup a community fund to defend against these accusations, called the Open Source Now Fund.

The second is a press release by SCO in response to Red Hat's suite, which basically claims that they were specifically not trying to spread FUD, and instead just wanted to educate end-users.

Now hmm..., who should I believe....

A study on ease-of-use between Windows XP and Linux (with KDE 3.1.2) returned some interesting results:

The study findings suggest that it's almost as easy to perform most major office tasks using Linux as it is using Windows, which has a long history in the consumer market.

Linux users, for example, needed 44.5 minutes to perform a set of tasks, compared with 41.2 minutes required by the XP users. Furthermore, 80% of the Linux users believed that they needed only one week to become as competent with the new system as with their existing one, compared with 85% of the XP users.

This sounds about right to me. KDE has come a long way, but it's still easier to to do some stuff in Windows (GUI file management, desktop settings, etc.) than in Linux.

Full article

The Samba Team is proud to announce the availability of the first beta release of the Samba 3.0.0 code base. While we are significantly closer to the final release, I will remind you that this is a non-production release provided for testing only.

Please read the full announcement for more information and changes since the 2.x series.

This IBM developerWorks article is thorough guide to using the /proc filesystem to administer a Linux system. If you're unfamiliar with everything /proc is capable of doing (as I am), this is a must read.

Full article

Get it while it's hot.

Release Announcement
Changelog
Download mirrors

I think this may have been mentioned on Slashdot recently, but it deserves mention here as well. The SCO vs. IBM lawsuit isn't anything new, but this article does the best job I've seen yet of presenting all arguments against the SCO lawsuit in a tidy, professional manner. Definitely worth a read.

Full Story

I recently came across this cheat-sheet-style site, and it seems to be really well done. It's geared towards Red Hat Linux, but most of the guides can be applied to other distributions as well. Check it out.

Linux Migration Quick Reference

A new review of Gentoo Linux is online at LinuxWorld.com. It provides a good introduction to Gentoo for those not already familiar with it, and overall it's a fair and accurate summary of the Gentoo experience.

Full review