__past__ writes "The decision of the bavarian capital city Munich to switch their desktop systems to Linux has caused a lot of discussion, and has been widely regarded as an important step for Linux on the desktop. And even if Microsoft tried hard to make their offerings more attractive since, including a special license contract that could save the public sector 'a lot of money' according to interior minister Otto Schily, it looks as if Munich was only the beginning."

RobotWisdom writes "Ibiblio's historic archive for Linux, linked recently, offers lots of old distros, but the dates aren't obvious. I went through and dug out what dates I could for my timeline, but couldn't find any date for several." Robot Wisdom managed to collect an impressive list; read on below for the result.

KingDaveRa writes "The Register is reporting that motor giant Ford is switching to Linux for its sales systems, human resources, customer relations and infrastructure, referencing a report in yesterday's Scotland on Sunday. According to The Register, the biggest battle was over which Linux vendor to use - RedHat or SuSE." Update: 09/16 01:51 GMT by T : An anonymous reader points to this NewsForge report, according to which Ford is not moving to Linux.

Eric_Z writes "Ace's Hardware has got a article called "The Mad Hatter meets the MSCE" by Paul Murphy, about the TCO benefits of using UNIX(Lintel) instead of Wintel. According to the piece: 'The subject of this article looks at alternatives to the Windows desktop, which is a hot topic these days with IBM/SuSe scoring a highly public win in Munich with desktop Linux, and Sun aiming to build on StarOffice being the leading alternative to Microsoft Office with a software stack code-named Mad Hatter which Sun also plans to use extensively in-house. But companies depending on Microsoft Certified Engineers to adapt to Linux will carry over a number of problems, significantly increasing the chance of project failure. Paul considers the alternatives, the migration problems, and in seeking a more reliable alternative takes the opportunity to look at the business desktop from an entirely different angle, and propose a more radical solution.'"

jemagid writes "Ibiblio (nee metalab, nee sunsite) has rummaged through all the old CDs and old FTP archives we could find, to put together a beautiful picture of the early days of the Linux community: Historic Linux. The files include snapshots of the early Linux archives including sunsite.unc.edu and tsx-11.mit.edu, and early distributions such as MCC (Manchester Computing Center) and SLS (Softlanding Linux Systems), which were some of the first attempts to make Linux easy to install and use. The early RedHat releases are also included, as is early Suse, Debian, Slackware, and Blade. The early distributions ran on machines as small as 386's with 2-4 MB of RAM, so these could be fun ways to resurrect ancient hardware."

Today's installment is a lengthy (but hopefully informative) piece on mirroring controllers. Ever had weird problems with a FastTrack TX2000? Are you curious how well HighPoints RocketRAID boards are really supported? Ever wondered which controller gives you the best performance for every dollar spent? In true Slashdot tradition, we're taking the issue and throwing it out to you, the readers. Futurepower(R) is willing to start us off with a wealth of information on his experiences, and I'm hoping a few of you are willing to do the same.

magellan writes "Sun has released screenshots of its upcoming Mad Hatter Linux desktop. Mad Hatter includes GNOME, StarOffice, Evolution, and Mozilla. Sun has made minor modifications to Gnome to make it more familiar to Windows users. Sun's Mad Hatter, along with SuSE's new push on the desktop, could make Linux on the corporate desktop and laptop a bigger reality."

FrankoBoy writes "CRN has an interview with SuSE CEO Richard Seibt in which he claims such things as 'Linux means two companies: Red Hat and SuSE, and nobody else.' Another example of this kind of corporatespeak can be found in another interview he did with ZDNet last week. DistroWatch has an article about all this in its current weekly newsletter."

A user writes "Siemens Business Systems, after conducting an extensive survey on non technical workers ("secretaries and managers, not IT people") is predicting that the Linux desktop will capture 20% of the market for desktop computers in large enterprises within the next 5 years. Senior program manager Duncan McNutt, who has overseen Siemens's testing of Linux desktops with users and administrators in enterprise settings, believes that the Ximian desktop and application suite, running on either SuSE or Red Hat, requires two days of training, which is the same as what most enterprises budget for a Windows/MS Office version upgrade. Interestingly, they used Ximian Desktop, instead of KDE, because Gnome, particularly Ximian's version, was "different enough" to set user expectations that the experience would be less like Windows. "

Adam Ernst asks: "I'm trying to build a low-end tablet PC type device for giving tests to students in a classroom. The touch screen TFT wasn't hard to get and the WiFi shouldn't be too hard either, but the most difficult part has been finding a motherboard! I tried Via's Mini-ITX, but it was too tall at about 1.5 inches. The motherboard needs to be just three quarters of an inch tall; the length and width can't exceed 8 inches each, but the smaller the better. No fans allowed--this has to be silent. The -only- requirements feature-wise are that it is able to connect to a TFT-LCD, has either USB, CompactFlash, or PCMCIA for WiFi, and has enough power to run Red Hat or SuSE (the only Linuxes my IDE supports). No ports, no ethernet, not even sound. Preferably it would take straight power (just one wire in and one out, at some set voltage) so I don't have to mess with power circuits. Of course, the most important factor of all is cost, since it's for schools (preferably less than $100 in small quantities ~90 units)."

Nice2Cats writes "Remember all of the jokes about operating systems as airlines? Well, Heise is reporting that Linux is just going to take over the computer systems of Germany's airline Lufthansa instead. SuSE and Lufthansa Systems have a joint press release (in German, it should appear here when it comes out in English) out where Karlheinz Natt from Lufthansa Systems gushes (my translation): 'We are registering a steadily increasing demand for Linux-based solutions from our customers.' "

Karl Cocknozzle writes "CNET News is reporting that Novell may discontinue NetWare following the purchase of Linux software company Ximian - for details on the purchase, see the recent Slashdot article. Novell plans to run its NetWare services - such as eDirectory and Secure Identity Management - on the Red Hat and SuSE Linux distributions."

uninet writes "The SCO Group, Inc. today released a statement concerning the lawsuit filed against it yesterday by Red Hat, Inc. The release quotes Darl McBride, SCO's President and CEO, as being 'disappointed' with Red Hat CEO Matthew Szulik for not being 'forthcoming' about Red Hat's intentions in a previous discussion." Reader psykocrime adds "According to this SuSE press release, SuSE has publically announced their support for RedHat's actions against SCO. Quoting from the press release: 'SCO has already been halted in Germany and we applaud Red Hat's actions to help end their activities in the US -- and beyond. We applaud their efforts to restrict the rhetoric of the SCO group -- and the FUD they are trying to instill -- and will determine quickly what actions SuSE can take to support Red Hat in their efforts.'" Read on for a few more links.

ChilyWily writes "Reuters is reporting that Sun Microsystems Inc. has agreed to resell and support closely held German software firm SuSE's version of the Linux operating system, the leading variant in Europe, the companies said on Friday. This agreement follows a similar one in May between Sun and Red Hat Inc. While I'm happy to see Sun's finally beginning to warm up to Linux (aka if you can't beat 'em, join 'em strategy) I wonder if this is too late for Sun?"

PDAJames writes "Maybe Linux isn't quite ready for the desktop after all. After an earlier, very positive evaluation of SuSE Linux Desktop, ZDNet UK has carried out a more in-depth review, running the system in a production environment for two weeks, and found it wanting. A key problem area was interacting with the corporate Windows network. When will this stuff finally be ironed out?"

Besides the recent action in Australia, lots of others are choosing to make affirmative statements denying SCO's claims to own the name and code of all things *nix. Read below for a wrap-up of some recent public reactions to the SCO claims from a wide range of potential litigants (if the SCO case gets that far): Japanese conglomerates, American department stores, Bruce Perens, kernel developer Richard Gooch via Mozillaquest, and Joe ("Citizen") Barr.

suso asks: "I've been working on a set of programs called num-utils that I would eventually like to be considered for inclusion in some of the many free Un*x distributions (on the install CDs, etc). So my question is, how does one put their applications on the track to be included in the main distribution of Red Hat, Debian, SuSE, *BSD, and so on? Is this just something that is up to the maintainers or are there submission forms of some kind?"

An anonymous reader writes "USA Today is running a piece about the lengths which Microsoft went to in order not to lose the government of Munich's account to a Linux-based proposal from SuSE. Interesting to see how these types of contracts are structured, and just what Microsoft is willing to give up to prevent losing to Linux."

Carl Farrington asks: "Do you think you could try to raise public awareness of the importance for an open source replacement for Microsoft Exchange (Outlook/MAPI compatible for shared/public folders). Current offerings are SuSE Linux Groupware Server, Communigate Pro (Stalker Software), Samsung Contact (ex. HP OpenMail) all of which are not open source / free. Kroupware is in development, but there will be no Outlook Connector for it. otlkcon is in slow development as a possible connector for Kroupware. There is also OSER (Open Source Exchange Replacement) which again looks like it needs more help. Is there any chance of getting some people to back this stuff? It's so important and is probably the major problem facing Linux as viable replacements for Win2000 servers." While this seems to be a question that keeps popping up in one form or another, it's always worthwhile to come back and point out alternatives, in development, that might need your help to get off the ground and running. So, if you're looking for an alternative to Exchange, would you be willing to contribute some time to one of the projects listed above? If you've been using Unix as an Exchange replacement, what did you do and how well has it been working?

pdajames writes "ZDNet UK has a look at the new SuSE Linux Desktop, running Microsoft Office. They seem to think Linux is just about there when it comes to desktop users, although their words about StarOffice are not so kind. It seems like some of the reality of desktop Linux is starting to match the hype." Not being an Office power user myself, I felt that way a long time ago, but it's cool to see projects like Evolution get some more street cred.