It’s posted at LWN.net. Linus Torvalds notes, “User-noticeable things: if you are tired of not being able to NFS-export
your reiserfs tree, this should make you happy.”

– By Dan Berkes–
Add another convert to the enterprise tote board; this time it’s White Cross Systems Ltd. The Web site data analysis and reporting provider is moving its massively parallel processing platform away from LynxOS and over to Linux.UK-based WhiteCross provides hosted site traffic and analysis reporting for corporations through a service it markets under the name WebAnalytics. Essentially, the service siphons raw Web log data from its clients, and combines it with that company’s customer data, which might include demographics, registration information, or purchasing history. The numbers are crunched according to the client’s need, and an easily-understandable report is then produced to make sense of it all.

Since introducing the service several years ago, WX/DES has chugged along satisfactorily on LynxOS. All that is about to change, however, as the company moves its services over to its very own custom Linux distribution.

While WhiteCross will likely save a few dollars with its new Linux systems, the move wasn’t prompted by any executive suite navel gazing.

“Our technical staff proposed the change for the sake of easier administration and customization,” says John Thompson, v.p. of global marketing for WhiteCross. “But we do expect to see some bit of performance improvement as a result.”

The brains behind WebAnalytics are the Data Exploration Server (WX/DES), described as a massively parallel processing platform. Through this system, WhiteCross can process — at minimum speed — more than 60 million page views per day. That means the company can churn out a report for one of its large clients like Sprint or British Airways in less than an hour.

Thompson describes the hardware end of the systems as traditional rack-mounted servers, powered by one or more AMD K6 processors — the exact configuration is left up to the needs and desires of client companies. Those dedicated servers are maintained at one of two data centers owned and operated by WhiteCross — one in San Francisco, the other in Bracknell, in the United Kingdom.

Because all the gory technical stuff is handled by the WhiteCross staff within its own data centers, most customers didn’t need to take notice of the change. Thompson said that the feedback he has received from customers regarding the Linux switchover has been positive.

If anything, WhiteCross’ new Open Source direction meshes well with the systems their customers already use: When asked if there was any one Web server in particular his clients preferred, Thompson replied: “Apache, definitely Apache.”

From Reuters: “Microprocessor design company Transmeta Corp said on
Wednesday its lead was widening over industry heavyweight Intel Corp
in technology for low-power chips used in ultralight notebook
computers.” More from Wired.com.

A column at LinuxPlanet talks about digital photography, CD burners and finally gets around to a Linux subject, the community and how it’s really a bunch of little communities tied together by an interest in Linux.

The Register follows up on the Gartner Group study that claims Linux has less than 9 percent of the server market. “Gartner analyst Jeffery Hewitt claims that this figure — which includes ‘white box’
shipments, but excludes server appliances such as Sun’s Cobalt range — is
dramatically lower than the 20 per cent plus cited by arch rivals IDC. Of that 8.6 per
cent, eight per cent is attributed to Red Hat and 0.6 per cent to other distros.”

On MozillaQuest Magazine (mozillaquest.com): MozillaQuest Magazine (mozillaquest.com) reports: “AOL-Time-Warner´s Netscape division placed its Netscape 6.1 Preview Release 1 (NS 6.1, PR1) browser-suite upgrade for the Linux, Macintosh, and Microsoft Windows platforms on its FTP servers overnight. Netscape 6.1 could be the make-or-break, do-or-die, and last gasp Netscape browser offering. (Download links and release notes information further down.)”

Patrick Mullen writes: “The Duke of URL has just posted its review of the Plextor PlexWriter 16/10/40A. The review covers the drive’s performance in audio extraction and CD recording, as well as its features and exactly how it fares at the fabled 16x writing speed.”

PRNewswire: “Wasabi Systems, the leading provider of
embedded BSD products and services, today announced completion of a port of
NetBSD to IBM’s PowerPC 405GP processor.”

IDG.net: “A New York judge late last week found MP3.com liable for copyright infringement in a lawsuit brought by the music publishing division of the Zomba Group.”

“The Register: “The UK government e-Envoy, he of the Microsoft-only Government portal, seems
to have got religion after all. In what unkind individuals might term one of the great
u-turns of our time, an open source approach to PKI currently looks very close to
being adopted for the second round of PKI interoperability trials, to be conducted by
the UK Communications-Electronics Security Group [CESG] later this year.”