I was sent word that AbsoluteValue and Intersil have announced more development of wireless support for Linux. The announcement is actually for Intersil PRISM-based WLAN cards, but what it does mean is more support for IEEE 802.11 wireless cards, access points, etc. Here at Slashdot, we've been using the ZoomAir cards, but are starting to play with the Lucent cards - what does everyone else think about Linux and wireless cards?

Now it's official. According to this story on C|Net, Dell is starting to sell notebooks with Linux preinstalled. The laptop models are the Inspiron 7500 and Latitude CPX models. The Latitude models will be available Feb. 4. Prices are the same as with Windows 9x preinstalled. Those models are certified by Linuxcare.

Carnage4Life writes "ZDNet has an article on the viability of Linux as the future belle of embedded OSes. It quotes Linus as mentioning the fact that since license fees are free and developer support is relatively abundant, Linux is a prime candidate for startups creating Web appliances and the like. It lists Sony's, tiVo, Lineo, Transmeta, Intel and national Semiconductor as major industry players who are embracing embedded Linux. "

"The localisation of Linux to Indian languages can spark off a revolution that reaches down to the grassroots levels of the country," writes Prof. Venkatesh Hariharan. Read the rest of his informative essay Below .

raphinou asks: "I am really worried because Microsoft is making serious progress on streaming media fields. Realplayer is available to Linux users. Windows Media isn't. How do you want Linux to succeed on the desktop if there aren't any streaming players for it? If Microsoft can convince broacasters to use Windows Media, they'll again control the desktop. It really makes me think about the Netscape thing. And I'm afraid we'll have the same end: RealNetworks dead. This is really the same thing: Microsoft is giving away for free what RealNetworks has to sell." What do you think? Have the BrowserWars become the StreamingMedia wars?

So Fred VanKampen (who has to hold the record for most money made by reselling two domain names) e-mailed us to say that the Domain Name for 'Linux.Net' has been sold. He won't say to whom, but it supposedly will be announced at LinuxWorld next week. Of course we have no idea what he got for the entry, but the rumors were that he made several million when he sold Linux.com to VA Linux. Hopefully he'll take me for a ride in his yacht. ;)

sdriver writes "For those of us who enjoy *panic*, *oops*, and suddenly seeing their video BIOS... the newest version is out! Be the first on your block to submit a new patch! ;) " If you don't know where to get it, you probably should stick to your warm and cuddly 2.2.x kernel *grin*. Now outta my way, I wanna crash my laptop!

jd142 asks: "I'm considering getting a satellite dish, DirectPC, for high speed Internet access. Has anyone had experience setting one of these up with Linux, and if so, does one distribution do a markedly better job out of the box? I'm not interested in the DirectPC push content; I already pay for a decent news feed, so all I want is highspeed download from the Web, ftp, and news. This will go in a PC I haven't bought yet, probably a CyberMax AMD 700 or 800 Athalon dual booting some flavor of Linux and some flavor of Windows. Thanks!" Satellite Internet service? Now this is interesting. Where can one find more information on this?

December writes "CA has announced that they will port ARCserveIT, InnoculateIT, MasterIT and NetworkIT to Linux. The full press release is available online. " Computer Associates and Red Hat are teaming up, according to the press release. They'll be making a package aimed at "mid-market" customers.

Snarfvs Maximvs wrote to us with the news Lineo's Embedix Linux 1.0 for embedded x86 devices is out, with a distribution ready for download. One of the areas of interest is the WinCE compatibility layer that's currently in development - anyone know anything more about that? And what's going to happen now that Transmeta's "Mobile Linux" is out and about as well as Lineo?

JTMatrix writes "RedHat takes last place [in an IDG Network Operating Systems showdown]." The information on how they benchmarked everything is readily available on the site. Go check it out. Update: 01/26 01:07 by H :Check out this link for more technical information.

Derek Simkowiak writes "After I informed a potential IPO underwriter about LinuxOne, Inc., they threatened to sue me. What happened after that was even more disappointing". This is an interesting exchange of opinions, facts, threats, and retractions. I highly recommend anyone interested in the future of Linux and Business read this article.

Sujes asks: "Despite all the hype about how Linux is more stable or better than Windows, it seems ironic that nobody talks about any kind of disk/file repairing tools on Linux. In fact, I can't even restore a file that is accidentally or otherwise lost by a simple rm command. Does anyone know where should I look for these valuable recovery tools, if such things even exist on Linux?"

TMOS writes "Well, more and more companies are using Linux, as if we all didn't know that. This is one that utilizes Linux to operate and maintain small to large telephone systems used by organizations such as the FAA and 911. It is nice to know that an underdog OS can be used to save lives."

Sensei^ from LinuxNewbie sent us their Review of LinuxOne. Basically, the distribution is "A Badly Repackaged Mandrake". Read this review: the list of problems is amusing, and it will cause your disgust of the corporate entity known as LinuxOne to climb to a new level.

Eric the Cat wrote to us with one of the most amusing articles for the day. A Russian Security Consultancy has claimed that a plague of virii for Linux will be coming, thanks to Chinese hackers. Wait - it gets better. According to the security expert, *because* Linux is open source, the viruses will be even worse than in other systems. Thankfully, Jason Clifford, a Linux person, is also quoted in the article setting the story a bit straighter.

"X Company now supports Linux" announcements are coming in thick and fast these days. Examples: yesterday J Ellerbroek sent this link for Aureal's Linux drivers and Drakar wrote, "I e-mailed Sigma Designs asking them about Linux support for the RealMagic Hollywood Plus DVD Decoder, and they say they're working on supporting Linux for a future product." And Nicholas Tang turned us on to this announcement about an upcoming open sourced RPG with a Linux client. Very nice! But we're getting so many of these announcements that we can't possibly run them all. If you've spotted any others recently, please post them below. (Click for more.)

Anonymous Coward writes "I have a couple of Web servers (running RedHat 5.0) which I'm using to offer free Web hosting on, and I've been giving the users standard accounts, the only exception being that their HOME directory is also set to their HTML directory. This means that telnet is active, as well as ftp, which I didn't consider a problem (that's how I learned, after all), but I was wrong. One of these boxes was hacked, by someone telnetting in and installing a sniffer. We've had to take the box down and scrub it clean, and before I bring it back online, I'd like to know the best way to give users relatively unfettered access to their own files via ftp, while disabling their ability to do anything else, on a box running any brand of Linux." I know we've touched on this aspect of security before in several Slashdot forums, but this question has been asked (and will be asked again) many times. I figure it may as well have its own forum for discussion.

Speare asks a question which may be on the tongue of many Linux newbies: "Is there anyone working on a GNOME or X gui front-end that can help organize all of the known device configurators into one comprehensive front-end? Let me point-n-click at /dev/cua2 and see if it's got a modem on it, for example." He also has some valid comments about ways Linux Distributions can improve their configurators. I too feel that a single configurator is better than multiple configuration tools. Linuxconf is a move in the right direction, but it still has room to improve. (More)

Roy Sigurd Karlsbakk writes "Linux kernel 2.3.40 has just been released. You can find a description on what's new in it on kernelnotes.org. It's available on one of the ftp.kernel.org and on most mirrors." Remember, this is a development kernel.