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Tired of the over-designed, over-engineered and over-hyped Linux distributions currently available? Why not build your own version of Linux that runs off a CD (or installs to your hard disk in just a few minutes)? And when your PC dies on you next time, you have your own customised Linux Desktop on a CD for quick re-install. This how-to outlines a simplified process to quickly build your own version of Morphix.

What's new in the latest beta (1.92, Test 3) of Fedora Core 2? Plenty, and I'm not talking about new versions of this or that package (they're there), a slicker installer (it is), or a prettier desktop (it isn't). Nosireebob, the changes in Fedora Core represent what might amount to the biggest set of changes in the Linux distribution world since Caldera (yeah, I know, hiss, boo) introduced a graphical installer back in the dark ages of 1998.

This is Part 3 in a four-part series of articles that is roughly a response to "The Magic Cauldron," the seminal work on open source economics written by Eric Raymond. This installment discusses Raymond's "five reasons" for choosing to create or use open source products.

Freescale will unveil the first ColdFire core ever to include a memory management unit (MMU), and therefore able to run full-scale Linux, this week at the Embedded Processor Forum in San Jose, Calif. Simultaneously, Freescale tools subsidiary Metrowerks announced that it plans to offer Linux development tools for the core, and will continue to offer -- and enhance -- its uClinux tools for MMU-less ColdFire cores.

They have no doubt that in the end, Linux will live on and the intellectual property issues around it will be resolved when the SCO Group lawsuits have finally settled. But corporate IP attorneys are reluctant to tell anyone not to worry about the Utah company's infringement claims and the highlighted risks of using open source.

The Washington think tank responsible for 'Linux aids terrorism' claims two years ago is at it again. The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution is now casting doubt on Linus Torvalds' authorship of Linux, and implying that it's a knock-off of Unix.

Apparantly the mirrors are already being populated with Fedora Core 2's final release, and the May 18th release date looks solid.

Astronomical maintenance costs have forced the Australian Fisheries Management Authority to migrate off its proprietary Unix systems to commodity Intel servers running Linux. The outcome was a saving of an estimated $45,000 a year with further changes on the agenda.

The Linux Box has launched Phase I of a multiphase contest to create a Linux white box PC kit, complete with maketing material.

Dazzle your clients, boss or friends with this freely available tool you probably installed with your latest Linux distribution.

Today, I learned that Wide Open Magazine has changed its subscription model. I was pleasantly surprised today to surf the Red Hat and Omeda joint venture website when I noticed that they have announced a change in the previously for-pay subscription model for the new media venture.

The People Behind KDE is going on summer recess. We end the current series of interviews with a subject I am passionate about, and think it's one of the most important and underrated projects within KDE, accessibility. We'll meet the person behind the name with the Dt, one of the driving forces behind KDE's Accessibility Project, the man who loves Penguins and classical music, Gunnar Schmi Dt!

Mainframe customers are taking a fresh look at the Big Iron that celebrated its 40th birthday last month. IBM is spurring things along with new pricing schemes; more powerful processors; support for non-proprietary technologies such as TCP/IP, Linux and Java; and on-demand offerings that put the mainframe in the reach of even the smallest customers.

This issue of The Voice comes to us courtesy of Dr. John Watson, of whom most of you know as the chronicler of the cases of Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Watson has written for the Voice before in The Adventure of the Maladaptive Avis; but this time, he offers us a Little Diversion. And as a special treat, if you are able to solve the puzzle below, as Holmes did, you may be the winner of a copy of an O'Reilly Publishing book of your choice. Check the contest rules below to see how to enter and have a chance to win. So get out your pencils, put on your thinking cap, and try to match wits with Holmes.

After all the recent announcements concerning cooperation and integration between the Mozilla Foundation and the GNOME Foundation, I decided to compare GNOME's Ephiphany Web browser to Mozilla's Firefox. I installed Epiphany 1.0.6 and Firefox 0.8 on a Debian "Sarge" GNU/Linux system. After about a week, I came away feeling that Firefox is unquestionably the better browser.

It looks like Fedora Core 2, a project sponsored by Red Hat, is getting ready to roll. Over this weekend Core 2 is being pushed onto mirror sites and an official announcement may come as soon as this coming week.

Mandrakesoft may be enjoying financial freedom by exiting bankruptcy protection, but at least a few of its loyal users have not been so fortunate this weekend. An apparent glitch in order processing has resulted in some customers being overcharged by thousands of dollars. Early reports indicate that only North American customers that made purchases through Visa in early May are affected.

OSDir.com is taking a closer look at Mozilla's future flagship products Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird in a two part special. In this part they're looking at Firefox and asking whether less really is more. As OSDir.com says, "There are two wildly successful open source projects right now that are sweeping across Windows, Mac & Linux desktops. Firefox and Thunderbird. Both applications have two distinct characteristics. They are stripped down versions of their predecessor - the Mozilla bundle, and both are based on a plugin structure allowing users to include only features they want or need permitting them to remain simple to use. In this first of two installments we take a look at Mozilla's Firefox web browser."

Recently, the Debian Project has lost two members of its community. Manuel Estrada Sainz (ranty) and Andrés García (ErConde) were killed in a tragic car accident while returning from the Free Software conference held at Valencia, Spain.

In 1776, the British economist Adam Smith theorized in the "The Wealth of Nations" that "invisible hand" market forces are the primary influences in a free market economy. Does the economic model of the world, as predicted by Smith over 228 years ago, apply to the modern concept of free and open source software?