whosebob asks: "I've recently been hired to build a high-end video server system for use in an educational environment. In order to calm management's fears over compatability and support, the server (quad 500MHz/512K cache PIII Xeons) will be running NT 4.0 (I can hear the catcalls already). Given the educational setting and thus the constant search for cost-cutting measures, it would be fantastic to abandon Microsoft for Linux. But as a comparative novice in the Linux OS world, I need to know if it can make full use of my hardware (64-bit PCI bus, TBs of storage) and whether or not anyone has developed the necessary drivers for the fibre-channel interface. Any pertinent information, suggestions, advice, corrections, etc. will be greatly appreciated." There's more. Hit the link.

d^2b writes "There is an article using dual Celerons under Linux on cpureview.com. This is even more attractive now that you can buy an Abit BP6 for $130 and plug two socket 370 Celerons into it directly. The good news is that that author gets 183% speedup over a single processor compiling the kernel. "

[Zander] asks: "Graphics cards seem to be racing for better and better 3D performance. But, what about 2D? What is considdered to be the ultimate card for 2D Graphics professionals? People still use Gimp / Photoshop you know!"

An anonymous reader wrote in to send us an article that talks about new machines with integrated LCDs (sorta like that NEC box we mentioned a few weeks ago). Apparently vendors like GW2k are also following the trend to create slimmer iMac type non-upgradable but super-simple boxes. Personally I'm just obsessed with flat screens.

Torey asks: "I recently acquired a Fujitsu 985TX laptop which I was informed was very Linux compatible. Well, so far it appears to be only 90% compatible. The built in modem appears to be a PCI modem (lspci reports it is a Lucent Microelectronics modem), which I have experienced to be highly unsupported in the kernel. Has anyone been successful in getting one of these to work? The PnP tools didn't notice it either. Any help would be greatly appreciated." What other PCI modems are problematic with Linux? Which ones do you all recommend?

The uClinux guys have announced that they are finished testing the uCsimm and are now taking pre-orders. For US$175, you get a SIMM-sized unit with a 16MHz Dragonball processor (the very one used in the Palm Pilots), 2MB of Flash, 8MB of RAM, and integrated 10baseT. Since it can apparently drive a QVGA LCD, I guess it might be good for my fridge? :) uClinux is Linux without an MMU and more info can be found at the uClinux.org site.

dittrich writes "Found this at CNN this morning. It's an interesting point of view, the meat of whicht is that Palm Pilots don't really make us more productive, they are just cool toys that people want, not need. " That's been one of the those ongoing arguements about computers in general-do they really increase our productivity? I say yes, but every year or so, someone produces a study saying that they don't.

Veck was the first to send us the word that Via Technology (lately of partnership with Intel, as well as being sued by them) has purchased the Cyrix x86 line from National Semiconductor. Despite the huge parity in size, Via Tech seems eager to take on Intel. Update: 06/30 04:10 by S : To clarify: Via Tech will be purchasing the Texas division of Cyrix which makes standalone PC processors fitting into standard sockets (7, 370, and the like). The Colorado division which makes integrated processors (MediaGX) will be absorbed into National Semiconductor to address the Information Appliance market. Interestingly it appears that Via will also offer integrated products, therefore possibly competing with National.

Griffone writes "The Gadgeteer has four quick photos of a dismantled Palm VII. Question though - you can see its rechargeable battery, but what are the OTHER two holders for? Batteries? "

rafa writes "Electronic paper is finally moving from concept to manufacturing. Xerox has made a deal with 3M to eventually manufacture it. " They're expecting about a year of figuring out the best process and such, but look for it in on the market early next year. Excellent.

CrtxReavr writes "American Computer Company: "Described as a "Poker Chip Sized" solid state disk drive, the new semiconductor could be seen in service by the end of 1999 or early in the year 2000. The device can store over 90 billion characters of information..." This sounds like it's too good to be true and the article excludes a lot of important information that would be necessary for verification purposes, for what they claim is security reasons. It prolly is worth scrutinizing though. "

MidKnight asks: : "With CPU speeds venturing into the GHz, typical DRAM access times falling towards 6ns, and network speeds trying out the 100Mb waters, the major computing bottleneck continues to be the hard drive. While other hardware speeds grow in orders of magnitude, hard drives aren't much faster than they were in the 70's. So, the question is, when will mass storage speeds start catching up, and what will the cause the revolution?"

fiji asks: "I am contemplating a wireless LAN for my house and was wondering if anyone had found a cheap, reliable, Linux solution. I have been looking at the Linux WLAN page and the ZoomAir cards but was a little put off because the price is $250 for the ISA and $230 for PCMCIA (at buy.com). Also the support matrix at the WLAN driver page shows the ISA as untested under Linux." Has anyone tested the ISA ZoomAir cards yet? What other driver options exist for Wireless LAN?

Edward Schlunder asks: "After setting up Software RAID on a SCSI system at work, I want to do the same at home for fun. Call me crazy, but I'm just completely geeked up about this after seeing it working. The Software RAID documentation says that each hard disk should be on a separate IDE cable and that RAID5 requires at least 3 hard drives. I want to use my two existing IDE hard drives and get the large, fast, and cheap IBM IDE ATA/66 Deskstar 22GXP hard drive to make up the third..." There's one small problem though. Hit the link for more.

Reeses wrote in to send us linkage to a monitor that makes my SGI Screen look a little less sparkly. Mass Engineered Design Inc has screens that can be configured with 16 flat panels in on desktop. The Horizontal Triple has an aggregate resolution of 3072 x 768 and costs a mere (cough) $6500. They say solutions are available for various UNIXs but that don't specify. And then again, with all the multi-head stuff coming in XF86, it might not matter as much.

RelliK writes "news.com has a story about 1GHz Alphas demonstrated at PC Expo. They'll be available by mid-2000. In the mean time, they'll start shipping 750 MHz Alphas 21264 in July. " MMMmmm... alphariffic.

quonsar writes "According to ZDNet, Phoenix today announced plans to embed bootup ads in BIOS by 4Q 1999. Take a look at the story: Phoenix to sell Windows launch ads. Phoenix has formed a subsidiary, ebetween,to sell the ads. "

Anonymous Coward writes "Matrox just released the hardware specs for the highly rated G400 here (must register). According to the guys working on the G200 driver (including John Carmack) from a driver perspective it is very similiar to the G200, so XFree86 and 3D support should be coming very soon. 1999 is going to be good year for Linux and high performance graphics. " With XFree86 4.0 out by the end of the year (hopefully), the Precision Insight news, and mandrake's work on xinerama, I'm inclined to agree. Now, if only I could get my hands on one of those babies...

Unit3 writes "Finally a real competitor to the iMac from a Wintel manufacturer: NEC's Z1 appears to not only outpower the iMac, but includes some very nice design and expandbility ideas that most of the iMac ripoffs these days are missing. " At $2500 I'm not quite sure that its an iMac competitor, but it has several other features that are quite tasty. Course it has to run Linux... I still think I'd prefer a VAIO.

akey writes "CPlant98, a Linux cluster composed of 400 Digital Personal Workstation 500as, achieved 125.2 GFLOPS, which would place it at #53 on the Top 500 list. And this was only a 350-node run... " I'm hearing rumors of 1000+ Linux Clusters. I'm itchin' for it to come out of the closet so we can see some real benchmarks.