Jed1Mnd asks: "I have recently set out to find some decent audio manipulation software for Linux, with out that much luck. I have a friend who is currently using CoolEdit on Windows 98SE is running into issue with performance. We are looking at Linux because of the better IO, memory management and support for file systems like xfs. However like I said I am having trouble find a decent replacement for CoolEdit. I was hoping that the Slashdot crowd would know of a product (commercial or non-commercial) that would fit this situation."

slick_rick asks: "I'm looking for info on encrypted file systems under Linux to help my employers company move away from Microsoft centric solutions. However the latest HOWTO is two years old, the latest kernel patch dates back to April (and 2.4.3) and even the Sourceforge project has nearly zero documentation and appears to be very dead. Are slashdotters using encrypted file systems? If so, what are your experiences?" We last talked about this topic, just over a year ago, in this article.

juan.fernandez asks: "A couple of years ago I found a dust-covered CANON A-200TP/16 'portable' personal computer (9 kg weight, 40MB HD, 4MB RAM, 386SX/16, 2.1 bogomips) which dated from 1988. It was running DOS 4.0, being a completely useless computer. I managed to install Slackware 4.0 and a custom 2.2.13 minimum kernel I compiled on my girlfriend's computer (AMD K6II 300MHZ, kernel 2.2.13, distro Suse 6.4). I just went through the usual steps (make config, make dep, make clean, make zImage) and the kernel compiled and booted fine. The other day i tried to 'upgrade' to the 2.2.20 kernel since i'm interested in running the latest stable Linux kernel on this machine, but despite the fact that the resulting 2.2.20 zImage is even much smaller than the current, well-working, 2.2.13 zImage, I get 'out of memory' when the computer tries to decompress the kernel image right after lilo has finished loading it." Sounds like he doesn't have much memory to play with and the 2.2.13 image, although larger, fit in the available memory footprint available and the 2.2.20 one just didn't. The simple suggestion would be to move a few things into modules, but could this possibly be a memory bug in 2.2.20 that appears only on certain 386 machines?

Simon Crosby writes " Network Computing is running an special report on Linux in the enterprise. It evaluates strengths and weaknesses of Linux useage in the enterprise. It also discusses perceptions, roadblocks, security, clustering and other Linux enterprise issues."

RyuMaou asks: "I'm a relative newbie to Linux and as such, I want to start reading up on it, in all its various flavors. I've got a couple of books, but they're almost out of date as soon as they're printed these days. So, I decided to try a Linux-centric magazine. Any recommendations on which Linux magazine is the best? And, why?"

gnudot writes: "Red Hat announced this morning that they have entered into an agreement with IBM to provide support services for the entire eServer product line. This includes zSeries, iSeries pSeries in addition to the xSeries (What no qSeries? or 7Series?) which is already supported. Here is the story on Yahoo."

tekniklr writes: "They just released Kernel 2.4.16. Download it here, and you can read the changelog here. This hopefully fixes the error that 2.4.15 had of corrupting filesystems on unmount." Update: 11/26 14:14 GMT by T : p.s. Don't forget to look in the mirrors.

Dan Gillmor, who's currently on the road in China, has sent a report about the role of Linux in China. We've talked about this before. Dan hits on some of the high points for *why* the Chinese are interested, which makes for interesting reading.

pinqkandi writes: "SuSE Linux 7.3 PowerPC Edition has now gone into distribution. New for this version are more USB drivers, and improved memory management, among other things. It is now based on Kernel 2.4.12 and glibc 2.2.4. For $79.95 you get it and 2000+ apps on 8 CDs, 550 pages of documentation, and 60 days of tech support." Read on for another nice turn for PPC users with an itch for Free software.

John Ineson writes: "There is a bug in the latest kernel releases, that causes fs corruption on umount. A lot of people have already been hit by this, so for now I suggest you hold fire on booting those new kernels. More dead-duck than greased-turkey. Two possible fixes are being discussed on linux-kernel." Colin Bayer adds links to a story at the Register and Al Viro's fix. Update: 11/25 00:39 GMT by T : Tarkie writes "Linux 2.4.16-pre1 is out, as detailed at NewsForge. If you've been having the filesystem corruptions, might be worth a try so that 2.4.16 can be out ASAP!"

snotty6969 writes: "Freeze Update. Anthony Towns sent in an updated report about the Woody freeze process. We're almost into the last week for uploads of base packages. If there are outstanding bugs you'd like to see fixed, provide patches or upload now. We are also getting into the last days for ensuring that standard and task packages get included in the Woody release. At the moment it looks like a lot of packages will be removed from Woody. Among these are a whole bunch of commonly used programs like gpm, Mutt, CVS, Procmail, Apache and Mozilla. People who can fix bugs in these packages and care about them are encouraged to send in patches or upload fixed packages using Anthony's unofficial NMU guidelines."

jbondjr writes: "It appears 2.4.15 is released. It's not quite updated on kernel.org's main page, but it is there if you dig through the tree. You can find 2.4.15 on one of your friendly Kernel.org Mirrors (note the 2.4.15 Changelog) From the 2.5 readme: "Linux-2.5.0 is exactly the same as 2.4.15, except for a version number change." So, enjoy the The 2.5 Tree

cwsulliv writes "Red Hat, Inc. has proposed an alternative settlement to the Microsoft class-action lawsuit in Maryland. Microsoft originally proposed supplying a limited number of poorer school districts in the US with PC hardware and limited-license Microsoft software. The alternative proposal submitted by Red Hat would have Microsoft supply NO software but dramatically increase the number of school districts receiving hardware. Red Hat in turn would supply ALL the software (Open Source) and unlimited support via their Red hat Network. "

technodummy writes: "Wired is reporting how CERN is driving the Linux-based, EU funded, DataGRID project. And no, they say, it's nothing like Seti@Home. The description on the site of the project is: ' The objective is to enable next generation scientific exploration which requires intensive computation and analysis of shared large-scale databases, from hundreds of TeraBytes to PetaBytes, across widely distributed scientific communities.'" If you're interested in this, check out the Fermi Lab work with LinuxNetworkX data as well as the all-powerful Google search on the Fermi Collider Linux project. As jamie points out, "Colliders produce *amazing* amounts of data in *amazingly* short time periods... on the order of "here's a gigabyte, you have 10 milliseconds to pull whatever's valuable out of it before the next gigabyte arrives".

pwagland submitted a rant by Mosfet on file system standards. I think he's sort of over simplified the whole issue, and definitely wrongly assigned blame, but it definitely warrants discussion. Why does my /usr/bin need 1500 files in it? Is it the fault of lazy distribution package management? Or is it irrelevant?

Eugenia writes: "Last month Progeny Linux Systems ceased development on their own distribution in order to focus on selling professional services. In their announcement, the company cited the prohibitive cost of developing and publishing a distro. This move marked another firm in the wave of tech companies, Linux and otherwise, making significant changes to adjust to the market slump. Progeny's distribution was based on Debian GNU/Linux, and many in the Linux community were closely watching the company because it was founded by Debian creator Ian Murdock. OSNews spoke to the President of Progeny Linux Systems, Michael Schafer, once the dust had settled on his company's announcement."

dknight asks: "I've recently moved my Sony Vaio SuperSlim R505TE Laptop to Slackware Linux. Let me tell you, it was quite an adventure. I'm still having one major problem though. The docking station connects to the laptop via a firewire connection, so it doesnt recognize the CD Rom. I've installed Firewire support in the kernel, but I'm still having a hard time getting this going. Has anyone else attempted this feat?"

the_code_poet asks: "I'm a lead developer for a software development company, and one of my responsibilities has been writing an installer for our product (of which Linux is one of the platforms). In keeping with UNIX tradition, the installer is written in shell (thats /bin/sh), but as many of you know there is no Bourne shell for Linux - only bash. This has caused inconsistencies (mostly bugs in bash) when writing a generic UNIX sh script that works fine on commerical *NIX's." For a semi-complete list of differences between bash and sh, you will want to check out section C1 of the Bourne Again Shell FAQ. To be honest, I have yet to run into much trouble with a script starting with #!/bin/sh with /bin/bash, and I've been using the latter for years. If any of you have had problems related to this, please tell us what the problem was and how you solved it. Also: would anyone out there be interested in writing a real Bourne Shell for Linux?

sheckard writes: "The next installment of the wonderful Advanced filesystem implementor's guide, part 7, details the ext3 filesystem in all of its glory. This is another great voyage into the world of journaling filesystems, and ext3 has been rock-solid in my experience."

abeowitz asks: "It seems like most of our calendar clients support iCalendar, like Evolution, but I can't find a working iCalendar server anywhere. OpenFlock appears to be in the conceptual stage and Star Office Scheduling Server has gone away with 6.0. Will Ximian or Samsung make iCalendar servers? What's available now?"