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Silicon Graphics is claiming the title of world's fastest supercomputer with a Linux system it built for NASA.

Reflecting the growing popularity of Linux clusters for high-performance technical computing, two specialists have garnered new investments.

Linux has always been about choice: the freedom to change code if you wish to modify its behavior, the freedom to see what one is running on one's hardware. This concept of choice has been extended to Linux distributions as well. A staggering array of Linux distributions cater to the whims of the minutest factions, each directed at its own specific ends and goals. There appears to be one for everybody; in fact, from a brief glance at Distrowatch, it almost appears that there is one by everybody. Nothing's wrong with that, but the profusion of available choices may be hurting adoption of Linux by users who are used to Windows as a standard in operating systems.

Mark Rais offers DesktopLinux.com readers a tutorial on setting up broadband connectivity using DSL on Linux-based systems. Rais, author of the just-released Linux For the Rest of Us, gives KDE and Gnome users tips to get their systems up-and-running step by step.

Zupera Technology has used a 2.6-series embedded Linux kernel to build a handheld audio/visual player set for volume production in January. The 30GB "Zupera" will be available with a 5.7- or 7-inch LCD touchscreen display, along with software for playback of a variety of multimedia files.

In Hands-Off Fedora Installs with Kickstart, I provided an overview of the Kickstart process. This article is a collection of techniques that may interest people who want to do more with Kickstart.

Ziff Davis - Novell's Vice Chairman Chris Stone, responsible for engineering, product management and alliances, leaves the company to"pursue other interests."

With the introduction of Oracle Database 10g, Oracle now provides Automatic Storage Management (ASM) that is optimized for Oracle files. You may decide to migrate to ASM with a piecemeal approach by allocating new Oracle data files into ASM as the database grows, however to receive the full benefits of ASM such as the ability to add or remove storage from the database configuration with automated balancing of the distribution of the data files without downtime, the entire database should be migrated to ASM.

The question was recently raised on the lkml why such a wide range of GCC versions were being actively supported by the Linux kernel. One reason offered was, "because the new compilers are a lot slower", an argument that left some perplexed. "Why is this an issue when compiling a kernel? How often do you compile your kernel?"

Mark Shuttleworth, the man who sold a software business he had built on the back of the open source software (OSS) movement for billions, has taken the wraps off his own Linux distribution. Ubuntu (“be humane”) is based on the Debian distribution. Like Debian, it is freely downloadable and customisable. Canonical, Shuttleworth's OSS development outfit, undertook to distribute the software to early adopters via 340 000 CDs, free of charge, at a personal cost of $10 million. Ubuntu can also be downloaded via global mirror sites.

Alternative shines with a clean interface, sophisticated functions, and many options

Countering the latest salvo of Microsoft's Get the Facts campaign against open-source software, Novell this week launched a Web site devoted to "unbending the truth" about Linux in the enterprise.

Microsoft has criticised the IP indemnification offered by Novell, Red Hat, HP and IBM -- the main vendors of the Linux operating system. It claims that Microsoft offers better indemnification than any Linux vendor and has highlighted specific problems with the indemnification policy of each vendor, although it has not yet divulged the specific details of its own policy.

An IT consulting company has published a case study about installing a Linux-based VoIP (voice-over-IP) system at a bank with two satellite offices. The setup saves $2,600 of recurring monthly charges over a system based on leased lines, the company says.

Do trademarks require a special license for software to be free? That is the question that Debian developers are currently debating. The specific concern is whether AbiWord's recent assertion of trademarks conflict with the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG), the set of principles under which the Debian distribution operates. However, the implications could affect not only Debian's use of other trademarked packages, such as Mozilla, Evolution, and OpenOffice.org, but other GNU/Linux distributions' use of them as well.

A Wiki is a web site that can be edited directly by people browsing it. That way, they can add new content, correct errors or inaccuracies, and add their own comments, among other things. Since the debut of the original Wiki Wiki Web, many publicly available, usually open source, Wiki implementations have appeared, enabling webmasters to set up their own Wikis on their sites. These Wiki implementations vary in their features, ease of installation, syntax, and semantics.

A progress report on how one California county government systematically is turning to Linux and open source.

When it comes to video processing, many free software users don't look beyond the well-known mainstream utilities, like transcode and MPlayer. When these utilities don't produce the desired output, the MJPEG Tools suite might be able to help. Mature, feature-rich, and of extremely high quality, the MJPEG Tools provide video manipulation facilities that you can use either as a complete end-to-end solution or as a toolbox from which you can select the exact tool you need for a given job. Whether you need assistance with capturing, improving, or encoding video, the MJPEG Tools can help.

The Linux Gazette is a reader-supported monthly e-zine dedicated to two simple ideas: making Linux a little more fun, and sharing ideas and discoveries. Issue 108 of Linux Gazette is ready for viewing and downloading at http://linuxgazette.net/

Maintaining a Linux system involves paying close attention to running services and network traffic. With netstat, you've got a powerful surveillance and troubleshooting tool.