– by Tina Gasperson –

Double agent Robert Hanssen purportedly is (was?) a Slackware user. Lots of people use slackware, and there’s a big active Web site for them at www.slackware.com. But there don’t seem to be many other sites dedicated to this distribution.Search for Mandrake sites, you’ll get a nice long list. Pretty much the same for Debian, and Red Hat. But for some reason, Slackware doesn’t get the same concentration of basic “here’s the distribution” sites.

There is another destination for Slackware people, though. It’s called Userlocal.com. The site focuses on the new slackware user, providing how-to articles on topics like Slackware packaging tools, upgrading KDE, locale settings, and other “stuff,” including a good tip on mounting multiple cdrom drives as a regular user.

Userlocal sports a very cool page full of desktop screenshots that will make you jealous or spur you on to new heights of creativity. I didn’t see any I didn’t like. The only problem with pretty desktops is … well, I can’t think of any problems, other than the fact that I need to get one of the contributors to Userlocal to make one for me.

One particularly useful tutorial that is evidently still under construction is the EMACS how-to. It started out great, and even spurred me to fire up the fancy text editor to write this review. But it was a sad case of tutorus interruptus, as the article ends just as it was gathering a full head of steam. Where’s the part about using EMACS as a browser? Or using it as a mail client? Again, give us more, please.

They’ve also posted a couple of interesting interviews with David Cantrell, core developer with Slackware, and James Simmons, the creator of Linuxmafia.org. Nicely done, but since it takes all of 15 minutes to read those, how about rounding out the selection a bit, guys?

Userlocal posts links to daily news, too, and original articles and reviews. The news links are updated frequently throughout each day, but the articles and reviews are a bit thin. The quality is good though, so we respectfully request, “more please.” Forums, which we love in general for their searchability and helpfulness when facing a problem that needs fairly quick resolution, are also in need of fattening up. Userlocal just needs more traffic — and it is worthy of more traffic.

Perhaps Slackware users feel they are getting all their needs met at slackware.com. But here’s the deal: Userlocal is updated much more frequently with news of interest to the Slackware subset of the community, and it is a few degrees more friendly and personal than the slackware.com site. Not only that, but slackware.com doesn’t link to Userlocal.com, and if it is truly the site of record for Slackware, then it should.

As a last word, we encourage the Userlocal.com people to keep going with their efforts at creating a useful community for Slack-people. Don’t throw in the towel just because the audience participation isn’t where you want it to be yet. Userlocal is a good thing, and we need all the quality we can get when it comes to distribution-specific Web sites.

Check out Userlocal.com and tell us what you think of it. And if you know of a site that is worthy of the NewsForge spotlight, send us email.

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

ZDNet follows up on reports that MIT student Keith Winstein and alum Marc Horowitz have published a seven-line DVD descrambling code, saying they’re trying to teach about copyright issues and the action is thus protected under the
First Amendment.

ZDNet Asia has a short item about Donovan Systems offering the Donovan System Configurator, which is supposed to simplify the installation of a wide range
of Apache Web-server setups and email. Version 1.0 of the software, which the company
says will be pre-installed in every SPARC-based Linux server purchased from Donovan,
can be downloaded from the company’s Penguin64 Web site.

“A new study by PR firm Brouillard Communications proclaims that, given a choice as to
what corporation should run the U.S., “most Americans would vote to hand Microsoft the
keys to the White House.” Particularly noteworthy is the study’s conclusion that approx.
50% of those surveyed ‘cited corporate character as a strong point, which many
respondents describing the company as creative and innovative…'” Read more at Cluebot.com.

ZDNET.co.uk: “Hewlett-Packard hopes to put the pressure on rivals IBM and
Sun Microsystems with its workhorse based on the upcoming
PA-RISC 8700 processor.”

BBC.co.uk: “UK scientists have forced silicon to emit light, a discovery that may make it possible to maintain computer chip speed improvements.”

Wired.com: “Computing power becomes a public utility, where scientists, corporations and individuals can tap in whenever necessary. That’s the vision driving this week’s Global Grid Forum meeting.”

gatha of FreeOS.com writes “This distro of Linux is for all those who are desperate to try out Linux but are scared to make the jump. Check out Phat Linux – you can’t get any closer to Windows than this. It not only installs on your Windows partition but also starts up from there. Phat Linux Review“

NetworkWorldFusion: “OpenReach leases its Linux-based gateway software to
customers and manages their VPNs for a monthly fee.
Customers have to supply their own PC hardware and
Internet connections.”

Businessweek.com: “Schmitz’s biography is the stuff
of local tabloid legend, beginning with his arrest six years ago for allegedly hacking
into corporate computer systems and stealing telephone calling-card numbers.
Schmitz spent several months in pretrial detention, an experience that inspired him
to try using his skills to make a legal profit. “That’s where I decided to use my
knowhow and skills to become the world’s most successful businessman,” says
Schmitz, with characteristic modesty. He adds, “Wasn’t Hitler writing Mein Kampf
while being arrested? Not that I like Hitler hehe, it’s just that strange people can
have strange ideas while being arrested.” He punctuates the sentence with a
smiley face.”