It’s posted at LWN.net. Among the items: “Bug-fixing for 2.1 remained a priority for python-dev this fortnight
which saw the release of 2.1b2 last Friday.”

Nando Media has a feature on the merging of TV with the Internet. “There are some emerging alternatives for interactive, Internet-based TV that might appeal even to the
critics. A company in Santa Ana, Calif., called Ch.1 (http://www.ch1.com) is working with TV set
producers such as Princeton Graphics and Sylvania to hook high-definition, digital TVs directly to the
Internet.
The Ch.1 TV sets offered now run a modified version of the open source operating system, Linux. Ch.1 is
using Linux in the hope it will lure designers to write applications for example to transfer data to Palms
and other hand-held computers, and embedding certain kinds of video and audio formats in the system.”

The Register reports that Red Hat is used by 77.2 percent of Linux developers, according to a recent survey. SuSE and Mandrake are next, but Debian makes a good showing, too. Which of these distributions are “forgotten,” we’re not sure.

Reuters reports that heavy metal band Metallica is complaining to the U.S. District Court in San
Francisco that Napster has failed to block access to its music as ordered under the
court’s injunction.

– by Tina Gasperson –
There is a ton of software designed for use by chemists and other scientists, that runs on Linux. I’m not kidding. OK, maybe not a ton. But if you put it all on CDs and weighed it, it’d be quite substantial. How’s that for scientific?Linux and Chemistry isn’t the only site of its ilk — but it is the most logically done and easy-to-read-and-navigate that I’ve seen. Here, the selections are sorted according to their function and then alphabetized. There’s biology, computational, database, graphics, molecular, spectroscopy, and the catch-all “other.”

Each section has summaries and links to dozens of titles. In the “molecular” section, for example, there’s DOCK — it explores ways in which two molecules, such as a drug and an enzyme or protein receptor, might fit together. Sounds like it would be fun to play with.

Being a visually-oriented person, I found several good goof-off time candidates under the graphics section. Like CACTVS, a visualization package for chemists, with a full-featured 2D structure editor — whatever that is. That, and Cn3D, a 3D molecular structure viewer that allows you to “visualize and rotate structure data entries.”

Then there’s Chemtool, which is a program for drawing organic molecules. Reminds me of seventh grade when I had a fascination with organic chemistry and would sit around sketching out molecule structures when I was supposed to be listening to the teacher talk about … well, I don’t know what he was talking about because I wasn’t listening. Anyway, now I can relive my fascination digitally.

Under database, something called GeneMine caught my eye. It says that its the “first expert bioinformatics data mining system to automatically query independent sources.” Hmm. Is that the scientist’s version of NewsVac? Unfortunately, when I tried to visit the site, it was just a placeholder page.

Even though Linux in Chemistry is the best site of its kind that I’ve found, it is not without faults — bad links is the worst one. Someone needs to go through and weed out the 404s. It is disappointing to find what looks like an interesting, download-worthy application, click on the link, and get nothing.

Another shortcoming is the short list of chemists under the chemists section. There’s only one, Mathieu Didier, with just a couple of sentences and a link to an email address. Come on! If you’re going to create a section especially for chemists who use Linux, make it worth looking at.

The links section is short also, and the first one I clicked on, “Steven’s Linux Home Page,” was a “not found” one.

To end on a good note, the site is searchable, so if there’s a scientific application you’ve heard of but can’t find anywhere, Linux and Chemistry might be a good place to look.

If you know of a great site you think we should review, share it with us.

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

Our friends at The Register have a story asking if Be is planning to Open-Source the BeOS. The evidence: Be has registered the domain name openbeos.com.

ZDNet has a column about Linux’s presence at the German technology show. With Linux booths scattered through the show, you didn’t have to look far to find it. And SAP had a large penguin across the aisle from a Microsoft booth.

The Economist has a story comparing the three recent releases. Eazel’s “idea is that when an update to a particular piece of software becomes
available, Nautilus allows the user to download and install it with a single click.
Security and bug fixes are thus installed quickly, and each upgrade is small and
painless. This is a radically different approach to most software updates, which
aggregate lots of fixes into infrequent, large and painful upgrades.

Windows XP and Mac OS X are, in comparison, the software equivalents of
baroque cathedrals: vast, complicated edifices built by thousands of workers over
many years. But though its approach may be more elegant, Eazel must show that
its business model, as well as its technology, will work. That will not be easy. Many
software firms that are trying to make money from Linux are struggling, and Eazel
recently announced layoffs of its own.”

From a press release at LWN.net: Today, SuSE Linux, the international
technology leader and provider of Open Source solutions, announced the
upcoming release of SuSE Linux 7.1 PowerPC Edition in early April. SuSE
supplies the latest Linux operating system and more than 1,000 assorted
applications for Mac users on 6 CDs. With SuSE’s optimized Kernel 2.4.2
SuSE Linux 7.1 PowerPC Edition boasts a greatly enhanced USB support.
SuSE Linux 7.1 PowerPC Edition also features the support for the sound
system ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) for PowerMacs.

The announcement is posted at LWN.net and the kernel is available at ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/alan/2.4/.