From PR Newswire: Strengthening its position as the leader
in Linux computing, Compaq Computer Corporation (NYSE: CPQ) announced today
that it is offering Linux developers an Advanced Developer’s Kit (ADK) for use
with its high-end AlphaServer GS Series systems.

WartHawg clues us it to an interview at ITworld.com with Scott Draeker, founder of Loki Entertainment Software, who discounts rumors of Loki’s demise.

Mozillaquest.com reports this: “The most important improvement from Red Hat Linux (RHL) 7.0 to RHL 7.1 is the switch from the Linux 2.2.x kernel to the newly released Linux 2.4 kernel. Additionally, RHL 7.1 ships with KDE 2.1 as opposed to KDE 1.1.2, which ships with RHL 7.0.

You will have three browsers at your Web surfing fingertips with the new Red Hat Linux 7.1 distribution KDE Konqueror. Mozilla 0.7, and Netscape 4.76. Red Hat´s choices of Mozilla and Netscape 4.76 over Netscape 6.0 for RHL 7.1 peeked our curiosity. So we asked Red Hat´s Melissa London some questions about those browser selections for RHL 7.1.”

Rick Smotkin tells us: Wasabi Systems, Inc., a company founded by key members of the NetBSD project, today announced they have enabled VMware to run under NetBSD. Anyone with a valid license for the Linux version of VMware can now directly run it on NetBSD/i386, using the improved emulation. This means that NetBSD users can now run other operating systems on their NetBSD PC desktop at near-full speed.
Wasabi Systems developed a set of kernel modules and scripts that will allow owners of the Linux version of VMware to run their binaries under NetBSD. To use this software, a user will need to buy a copy of VMware for Linux and download and install the Wasabi VMware compatibility package. This can be downloaded at http://www.wasabisystems.com/vmware-survey.html.

“Wasabi Systems created the VMware compatibility package because we feel VMware is a valuable tool for the NetBSD community. Unfortunately, we were forced to do it without assistance from VMware, Inc., so we can’t offer a natively compiled, packaged and supported version,” said Perry Metzger, CEO of Wasabi Systems. “Luckily, NetBSD has the ability to run Linux binaries, and so by porting the Linux kernel modules supplied by VMware it was possible to make VMware run under NetBSD. We hope that someday VMware, Inc. will recognize the size of the BSD marketplace and choose to cooperate on making a native, supported version of the software available.”

VMware is a proprietary software package for the i386 platform that allows users to run “guest” operating system such as Windows inside a “virtual machine” run by another operating system such as Linux.

“Having the option to run a different operating system on NetBSD without having to restart the one that you are currently using is a powerful feature. For example, it makes running Windows applications easy; you just start up a complete Windows session using VMware,” stated Frank van der Linden, a senior developer at Wasabi Systems. “I have put this feature to good use myself already on a regular basis, and am happy to provide it to the NetBSD community.”

About Wasabi Systems
Wasabi Systems, Inc. (www.wasabisystems.com), is the premier source for commercial NetBSD development, support and customization, and offers a range of integrated NetBSD system solutions, including support contracts, focusing on the server appliance and embedded systems markets. Wasabi’s team includes the world’s foremost NetBSD developers, including several members of NetBSD Core and release engineers for the NetBSD project.

About NetBSD
The NetBSD Operating System is a fully functional Open Source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Networking Release 2 (Net/2), 4.4BSD-Lite, and 4.4BSD-Lite2 sources. NetBSD runs on 35 different system architectures featuring twelve distinct families of CPUs, and is being ported to more.

Reuters reports that a organization that’s fighting online music trading is blaming sites like Napster for a downturn in music sales. Surprise, surprise.

From a column at LinuxPlanet: “Yesterday I wrote about the need for a unified package handler for Linux that would not just reconcile RPM, DEB, and
TGZ packages but would include in the database of installed applications (along with dependencies and the like) those
things you build yourself from source.

Konstantin Malakhanov must have had his note pre-written, so quick was he to email a response to my plea. He clued
me in on something called ‘CheckInstall.’ It is the coolest utility I’ve ever seen. If you run Slackware or any RPM-based
distribution and if you ever compile your own applications, libraries, anything, it is a must-have, a really essential
application.”

– by Tina Gasperson –
The Star.Linux section at the StarOffice portal would be a good thing if it weren’t so clunky. Funny, that’s that same thing I say to myself everytime I decide to give StarOffice another try. I say, “Self, this StarOffice sure takes a long time to open. And self, why is there a split-second hesitation on everything when I’m working in StarOffice?” Self usually just tells me to shut up and get back to work. I installed Star Office again recently, on a foolish whim, I’m sure — after all, the basic text editor that comes with KDE suits my needs 99.9% of the time. I guess Jupiter aligned with Mars last week and that .01% window of opportunity (or imagined need) popped up. It was the perfect excuse to waste some time downloading and installing the 90-odd MB file, and to investigate the special portal set up by a group unaffiliated with Sun, the company that owns StarOffice.

The portal is a kind of Open Source project in itself. It is staffed by volunteers from the community who commit to answering user questions, writing documentation, and doing general maintenance on the site. The StarOffice.com community also accepts monetary donations, as well as offers for free advertising space.

But back to the Linux section. Specifically, I’m referring to the discussion forum where users can post and get answers to their burning installation and usage questions. There are good things and no so good things about the forum.

Good: every question posted has at least one reply, and most have more. It looks like you will find the solution to your problems here, either by searching the existing threads or posting your own query. Not so good: clumsy interface. I spent some time rummaging through the posts and found that browsing threads is time-consuming and frustrating because for each post viewed it is necessary to back out of the thread, find the next post on the subject, and click back into the thread. Why isn’t there a function that allows logical thread browsing?

And maybe I just had a bad connection to staroffice.com on the day I was reviewing it, because it certainly loads slowly, adding to the frustration I felt trying to get at any useful information the site holds. However, I pressed on in my investigation for your benefit, gentle reader.

Another particularly irritating phenomenon is the one I’ll call “login syndrome.” Every time I went to a new section on the site, I had to login again. I thought perhaps I had cookies turned off (the default setting in Konqueror), but I didn’t. In fact, at first I blamed the slowness and other problems on poor Konqueror, and switched to Netscape. It didn’t help. Konqi accepted my apology and we’re moving forward in our relationship.

At this point I’m sure you’re wondering, “Is there any other useful information at the StarOffice portal?” Here’s a quick rundown of features at the site:

• StarDesk — allows you to upload and share documents with other users; manage your desktop online, and store/publish HTML documents. I’m not sure why this is a “good thing,” after all, if I want to share documents there are certainly many ways to do that; and as far as managing my desktop online, I can’t think of one reason why I’d want to do that.
• StarOffice news — latest press releases and information about what is going on in development.
• User support — this is where the forums are for installation and general help.
• Developer support — forums for developers.
• Other resources — this section could be great, but it is only a few links to books at Amazon.com.
• StarOffice tutorials — this made me mad! You don’t get free tutorials, they’re for pay only at Fatbrain.com.
• StarOffice CDs — if you don’t want to take the time to download StarOffice, you can send for a CD, for $34.99 plus shipping.

StarOffice is a good thing because many more computer retailers are bundling it with the hardware instead of MS products. Whether that’s lowering the price you and I pay for computers is debateable — but the fact remains that we can download it ourselves for free and it is a full-fledged, professional product that provides a full suite of applications for business use. The portal needs some work, though. If you have some ideas to make the StarOffice portal a better place to visit, contact webmaster@staroffice.com with your offer of assistance.

Let me know what you thought of the StarOffice support portal. And if you know of a site our readers should visit (or avoid), let me know.

NewsForge editors read and respond to comments posted on our discussion page.

OK, not quite all.ecompany.com has an interview with Gates about XML, .Net and something called “the future of e-business.” The BBC has more on Microsoft’s “gamble” with XML.

From LinuxPR: e-smith, inc. is pleased to announce the availability of the e-smith server and
gateway version 4.1.2.

Version 4.1.2 is a security update to the 4.1.1 package and also contains several
new features and corrections. These security updates have been released as a
result of an ongoing review of the e-smith configuration, and in response to
external security advisories.

eWeek reports that the chip-maker beat analyst’s expectation last quater, but warned that the good times may not last.