An anonymous reader wrote in to tell us that Debian has scheduled March 2 as the official release date for v2.1 (codename: Slink) of their distribution.

Fudge.Org writes "There is a promo link on CNNFN.COM. It mentions RedHat being born in a garage and/or college dorm, and how it will topple the Bill Gates empire. The article should show up some time today. " Someone yell when this link goes live.

An anonymous reader wrote in to sent us a few links to mainstream articles regarding Trinux, a small security-oriented toolkit type Linux distribution that runs in RAM and boots from floppies. One article can be found in InfoWorld, and the other is in c't (most of us will need to babble fish that bugger).

Gary Franczyk writes "Apparently Linus Torvalds was named one of the top visionaries in Upside's Elite 100 list of most influential people in the computer industry." He's the only "Visionary" that didn't get his picture on that page. So sad.

papertiger was the first one to write-in and tell us about the latest issue of the New York Times magazine. The major tech article just happens to be about an OS we're a bit familar with-in this case, Linux, The Rebel Code, as titled here. The link does not require registration but will only be live for the next week.

An anonymous reader writes "rawhide.redhat.com has finally put the 2.2.1 RPMS on their site. It seems to be Kernel 2.2.1 release 3. "

funkwater wrrote in to tell us that Burlinton Coat Factory has been noted as the first significant retailer to deploy the Linux operating system in all 250 stores. Do the responsible parties over there read Slashdot? Want to write something to help convince other companies to join you? This is a great step forward- many people in similiar situations regularly email me to ask for help making this sort of thing happen in their organization. The geeks know. The suits are catching on.

An anonymous reader said "An employee of Hash, Inc., the makers of the phenomenal Animation:Master 3D modeling and animation software, inquired today on the animation:master mailing list on whether or not users would buy a Linux verion of the software package, if Hash happened to port it to Linux. You can email Steve Sappington at Hash and let him know if you'd be interested in a Linux port. " For those of you who care, I animated Hamster Havoc and Duckpins in an earlier version of this software ages ago. I miss this program more than Diablo. Update: 02/18 09:09 by CT : Steve from Hash emailed me and said that this was completely untrue and to stop emailing him. I'm bummed.

An anonymous reader sent us a link to a Linux Power interview with Wichert Akkerman, the Debian GNU/Linux project leader. Talks about the future of Debian, his role, and more.

Henry Griggs sent us an interesting interview and article with Andrew Tridgell, aka the Samba Master. He talks about working with, and against Microsoft. I found it interesting that some groups would help, and other wouldn't-although now Samba is a recognized threat. How many of you folks use Samba, at work and such?

desertfool writes " A good article is running about Burlington's switch to Linux. " Of course, ComputerWorld does call Linux a "shareware" OS, but hey-at least retailors are beginning to see the value of Linux.

An anonymous reader "Red Hat has a set of update rpms that are apparently intended to make 5.2 fully compatible with the 2.2 kernels. (I've been using 2.2.1 since it was released with no ill effects anyway...) " I'm posting this just so people stop emailing me and asking. Besides, the rpms seem to be worki

Cory Williams writes " Scientific American has a nice little article about Open Source and its superiority to commercial software: "The Best Things in Cyberspace Are Free". Not like we didn't already know this. "

Brad Andrews asks: "I recently finished building a new house, and networked it to provide central control over ambient audio levels and possible distributed video. I'm curious whether anyone has heard of a linux-based solution for central video and audio service, with a focus on MP3 and DVD, that I could combine with TV out ports and AC-3 decoders so I can watch the same movie from anywhere in the home. I'd prefer an x86 architecture, but if there is a complete integrated solution on another platform (StrongARM?) I would be interested in that as well. "

mrlament wishes to know about the following: "I've been a long time Linux user, but I keep finding myself having to switch over to my Windows box in order to view videos. I've tried xanim, and have yet had it properly handle a single video, aside from the real player, I cannot seem to find a single decent player for MOVs, AVIs and MPGs. Does anyone know of any, or are there just not any out there?" I posted this up here because I get a lot of this from people outside of Ask Slashdot, so I figure there are people out there that want this information. Hit the link for more.

An anonymous read was the first one to say that InfoWorl gave Red Hat Linux the 1998 Operating System of the Year award. This is of course the third year in a row. Congratulations to the boys at Red Hat, but more importantly Congrats to every one of you studmonkeys who wrote code that sits in that thing. Pat yourself on the back.

Doug Moreen wrote in to tell us of this Gartner Group Howto: How and When to Adopt Linux in MSEs. While Linux support has been announced by major corporations, Gartner Group does not consider it sincere. Indeed they believe that real commercial Unix support levels for Linux will not be available before 2000 with a 0.8 probability. Furthermore they warn people away from Linux by stating that vendor interest is primarily opportunistic, support via the web/0800 numbers does not work for critical responses, etc. Kragen, are you ready to take them on ? ;-)

Martin Bähr writes "check out the first pictures from the linux-booth at the exponet in vienna. Here is Alan Cox. and tux. (read about the exponet or read about the linux conference." Hey, Linux World is only a few weeks off too. Whole lotta Linux cons coming up.

Jacques Le Marois wrote in to plug Linux Mandrake which has just released v5.3 of their self dubbed "User-Friendly Linux Distribution". Probably best described as "Red Hat, KDE and some other nifty stuff".

Norman Lorrain writes "This month's Computer magazine is running an article by Ted Lewis in which he predicts Open Source software will hit a brick wall. "