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HP says it has certified its complete business line of desktops, workstations and notebooks on Novell's Linux Desktop. It will sell and support the distribution to volume customers.

According to the Web site of its developers, the cAos Foundation, "The goal [of CentOS] is to reproduce RHEL in a freely distributable form that complies in full with RedHat's redistribution requirements. It is designed for people who need an enterprise class OS without the cost of certification or the RedHat brand name." To a large extent, it succeeds.

Commentary: Frank Ottink, COO at YEALD, recently opined that given Sun's recent moves, the Linux movement is dead and will only recede from its current market position. No, really. It's true. I saw a link to the story on Slashdot. Fortunately for Linux fans, Ottink's opinions seemed to be based on equal amounts of pre-revolutionary and wishful thinking. He may be a great guy, but he definitely doesn't grok free software and what drives it.

Linux industry observers were quick to draw comparisons between the Linux Core Consortium (LCC) and the pretty much dead and buried UnitedLinux commercial entity when the Consortium was announced last week. And while one of the founding members of the LCC agrees such comparisons are fair, it soon becomes evident that these two efforts are very different in terms of structure and goals.

Does getting rid of UNIX favor Linux? Or Does it play right into Microsoft's hands?

Like dozens of other federal, state and local entities, the U.S. Marshal Service is adopting open-source software for some information technology projects, a move that's making Red Hat a potent symbol within the service's IT department. Red Hat Linux may not directly nab more criminals, but it is helping the service run more efficiently.

Leader in Linux Email and Calendaring to Participate in Lab's Data Center and Desktop Linux Working Groups

This edition of The Locksmith provides a breakdown of the latest update to the SANS-FBI list of the top ten most exploited security threats in Linux/UNIX systems. [BIND, Web servers (Apache, etc), weak passwords, CVS, MTAs, SNMP, OpenSSL, NFS, databases, kernel.]

Massey University took delivery last week of its new Double Helix cluster computer and says it packs anywhere between five to ten times the computational power of the university's existing supercomputer, the 64-node Helix 1.

Red Hat Linux, Solaris 9, Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 Server Added to Supported Platforms

New Product Combines Two Most Popular Microsoft Alternatives Into One Cost-Saving Package

Steve Ballmer's warning to Asian officials that they risk legal action should they dare use Linux instead of Windows has drawn a strong response from a leading open source group.

Open-source software, increasingly popular with budget-conscious companies, is beginning to expand into a new area: The lucrative infrastructure-software market dominated by industry giants such as Microsoft.

This column gets results. A few months ago I suggested that Internet users would do well to give up on Microsoft Corp.'s buggy and insecure Internet Explorer browser and check out some well-crafted alternatives. And so you have, in a big way.

How is the FBI supposed to track down bad guys -- including terrorists -- if it can't rely on cross-agency handling of fingerprints? With new open source software developed on Linux and written primarily by a programmer working for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), fingerprint quality and the ability to match prints taken by a disparate variety of print scanners is improving dramatically.

Software licensing fees can cost firms millions, but most government agencies and businesses are still hesitant to make the transition to open source software.

Known as Lindows in the past, Linspire wouldn’t have many problems if it was based in Brazil. For those who remember, Microsoft sued Lindows over its name alleging something like "it could puzzle users". In Brazil we have Freedows, a Linux-based operating system just like former Lindows. There are two interesting highlights, tough. It's almost completely identical to Windows XP (Lindows wasn't that similar) and it has sort of the government hand on it.

Open-source, GPL, and other forms of freeware sometimes run afoul of myopic company licensing standards. But any organization that's cutting itself off from GPL and other legitimate forms of licensed freeware is seriously hurting its own business, Fred Langa says.

If developing code in open source languages and spending time with luminaries in the local developer community sounds like a good way to spend a few days off work, you should probably consider spending early December in Melbourne at the inaugural Open Source Developers Conference. (OSDC)

Whether Linux is suitable for the desktop yet is a point debated by analysts, journalists, hobbyists, and pundits worldwide. It's easy to find stories about enterprise adoption of Linux for servers, and corporate CIOs are ever so willing to extol the virtues of open source software -- as long as it is kept in the back. No one ever goes all the way and puts Linux on the secretaries' computers (OK, maybe it happened once). Perhaps the way to see Linux adopted globally in the enterprise is to start developing desktop users at a tender age. That's what Scott Belford and the other members of the Hawaii Open Source Education Foundation (HOSEF) are counting on.