Welcome to the second instalment of our weekly Linux newsletter, delivered every Wednesday - straight to your Inbox! I suppose the first thing I should tell you, is that the Newbie's Linux Manual has taken on leaps and bounds since last week. We take our feedback seriously here at The Bits, and a lot of you have asked for the manual to be presented in one big easy-navigable, printer-friendly page. So that's just what we've done! The manual has now grown to 17 sections, and is growing every day...
That's all from me for this week, until next week my fine penguin-loving friends.
----[ MICROSOFT: SHOULD WE SCORN THEM OR PITY THEM?
I won't bore you with all the details of this long-winded and detailed escapade, by everyone's favourite company. Instead I'll summarise as best I can:
The company Mindcraft published a Microsoft-funded study this week which is likely to be the beginning of a real counterattack. Novell and Solaris users have already felt the effects of Mindcraft's approach to testing; they would not have been surprised by the summary of this latest report:
"Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 is 2.5 times faster than Linux as a File Server and 3.7 times faster as a Web Server."
Sounds bad for us Linux users - Yes? I mean, it wouldn't be like Microsoft to get NT Gods on the job, and fine-tune the NT servers with every gimmick under the sun and then configure the Linux servers with Sellotape, some Rubber glue and a stick, now would it? Am I taking the mick, sadly no, the story is as I've said, a long a convoluted one, but I'm sure us Linux users can put up with the children whilst they play their silly games.
----[ COREL COME OUT WITH AN INTERESTING THOUGHT
"In the next 10 years, we think Linux can be as successful as Windows has been over the last 10 years," Cowpland said. "It's going to be just like Windows without the tax."
With $300 PCs now available, "Windows is 25 percent of the cost of materials, which is clearly too much," Cowpland said.
Linux needn't cost so much, he said. "We think that's going to be a compelling advantage, and why Linux is almost inevitable at this point."
----[ GNOME 1.0 FINALLY RELEASED FOR RED HAT 5.2!
Yes, that's correct folks, the GUI that everyone's been talking about is finally out. This should be a definite on everyone's 'Want List'. GNOME is not easy to install or configure, but as far as I know, it will ship with the soon to be released Red Hat Linux 6.0. What I've seen of GNOME so far has definitely been impressive.
To find out more go to:
www.labs.redhat.com/gnome-1.0-rpms.shtml
----[ LATEST RELEASES
This newsletter is about keeping you the Linux user informed. So from now on I will include mention of the latest Linux kernel, and following that will be the dates of any soon-to-be-released Linux distributions:
Latest Linux Kernel: 2.2.5
Red Hat 6.0
Release Date: 10th May '99
Caldera OpenLinux 2.2
Release Date: 19th April '99
Debian 2.1
Release Date: Very soon
(In order to bring in the 2.2.5 kernel and fix a list of bugs.)
