The Case of the Quake Cheats

by Eric Raymond The open-source community got a lump of coal in its Yule 1999 stocking from renowned hacker John Carmack, the genius behind id Software and such games as Castle Wolfenstein, Doom, and the Quake series. Carmack's .plan file noted a problem that has swiftly emerged since the Quake 1 source was released under GPL; it seems that some people have used their ability to modify the Quake client as a mechanism for cheating.... Read more... (13 comments)

Choosing Between BSD and GNU

by Jonas Öberg During the past years, the free software community has gained much popularity. Many people have found themselves engaged in an ongoing battle between what is normally called the ``open source'' faction and the ``free software'' faction. Several has gone to the extreme point of thinking that everything in systems like Debian GNU/Linux and Red Hat Linux developed by the Free Software Foundation, a well-known free software advocate, should be replaced by utilities from the various BSD computer systems.... Read more... (27 comments)

What is Linux Missing?

by Andy (three55ml) With all of the hype in the media about Linux, you would think that by now it would be on every computer in the world. However, we all know, it's not. While the Linux community is growing rapidly, there are still a number of drawbacks that Windows (and other OS) users experience in the transition process.... Read more... (55 comments)

545 Technology Square

by Jonas Öberg When you're at 545 Technology Square, the reputable headquarters of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, it is hard not to wander around in the empty hallways and wonder where time went. You see the old filing cabinets filled with papers from so long ago. Old editions of Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) scattered about together with magazines and journals on Artificial Intelligence. On a board in the hallway, someone has scribbled "I've smoked lots of stuff in my time," attributed to Gerald Sussman.... Read more... (2 comments)

Hyping Linux

by Dale Franks This article originated in osOpinion and is provided under the OpenContent License. It seems like everyone in the computer industry is championing Linux to sound the death knell to the Microsoft Windows monopoly. Yet, despite the hype, a large percentage of the user community doesn't even know what Linux is. Ask ten average computer users about Linux, and eight of them will tell you that it is a character in "Peanuts."... Read more... (23 comments)

Waste Not, Want Not

by Luke Groeninger As computer hardware becomes faster and cheaper, I have found that people always want to go to the cutting edge of hardware and find the best computer they can. Instead, I propose an idea that seems to have been forgotten: reuse old hardware. Although this concept is not a new one, and has gone hand in hand with the Open Source and Free Software movements, it seems to have been forgotten in recent times.... Read more... (18 comments)

Linux: Time to Get Serious

by George Fotis Linux is a revolution in the world of computing. Powerful, stable, and free, Linux is the ideal system if performance, features, integration and system stability is what you're after. But how about a user-friendly environment?... Read more... (33 comments)

Crystal Space: An Open Source 3D Engine

by Jorrit Tyberghein One of the most heard criticism on Linux is the lack of support for games. There still seem to be many people that think that Linux is a boring operating system with a command line interface and a few text-based games like hangman or NetHack. Of course, there's nothing wrong with those games -- NetHack is a very good game and is probably my all-time favorite.... Read more... (1 comments)

Holiday Reflections

by Jerry Hatchett With Christmas and a New Year only days away, I'm entering my annual ritual of nostalgic reflection. I like to look around at the way things are, and compare them to the way they used to be. It puts things in perspective and always invoke a series of different feelings.... Read more... (0 comments)

Linux Advantages for Small Business

by Scott Nipp Long known only as the mysterious box in the corporate server room which runs the intranet, or one of the many developers' databases, Linux also has a lot to offer to small businesses. It is safe to say at this point that Linux has managed to firmly entrench itself into the server rooms of corporate America. The stability and flexibility of Linux has led many organizations to implement it in various ways. The key point is that the benefits which Linux offers to large organizations are equally important to smaller businesses. A small business inherently has a much smaller budget to spend on computer systems, and Linux can provide these businesses with an extremely cost-effective and reliable solution to a wide range of computing needs.... Read more... (7 comments)

The Linux Router Project

by Dionne Saunders The Linux Router Project, or LRP for short, came to my attention from Charles Shapiro's phenomenal presentation about the project. He was the special guest speaker at the Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts meeting on December 9, 1999. The purpose of LRP is to have a Linux-based router and configure downline computers on a LAN to connect to it.... Read more... (12 comments)

Coming Soon to a File System Near You!

by Luke Groeninger As Linux gets older, parts of it get older as well, with little or no modification or updates. One of these components is the ext2 file system. With the size of hard drives quickly growing to far beyond what anyone ever imagined four or five years ago would become standard, ext2 was developed. The inherent limitations of the ext2 file system were not apparent, but as newer, faster hard drives with larger capacities appeared, some of the kludges that went into the ext2 file system have shown their ugly heads.... Read more... (21 comments)

The Spotlight of Attention

by Jerry Hatchett Two weeks ago, I thought the business of Linux was booming. I really did. I wrote about it, explained my opinions as to the reasoning behind it, and expressed my optimism that it would continue. I was wrong. This is not a boom. The activity of Linux as a business over the past two weeks is more akin to a nuclear explosion than a simple boom. Investors -- and traders -- are scampering about in a frenzied search for anything that might have the Linux buzzword attached to it in any way, because these companies are just plain hot! It's grown even more interesting lately, and I'd love to dig a bit deeper into it.... Read more... (4 comments)

1999: The Year of the Penguin?

by Scott Nipp Linux has been the buzzword throughout the computer industry for well over a year now. This past year has seen incredible growth for Linux in virtually every aspect. What started out as a college project by one lonely Scandinavian has become the fastest growing operating system in the IT world today. The success of Linux is well deserved, as it has enjoyed a worldwide development effort the likes of which has never been seen before. Linux is a relative teenager when compared to the venerable UNIX, developed in the late 60s, and even the various Microsoft operating systems that have been around in one form or another since the early 80s. Let's take a look at what this year has meant to Linux as an operating system, and the greater Linux community.... Read more... (2 comments)

Linux Employment Opportunities

by Dionne Saunders As we approach the new millennium, more employers appear to be in search of some form of Linux experience. For those of us working with information technology, Linux is now becoming a sought after skill to have displayed on your resume.... Read more... (6 comments)