Stories by: Joe Barr

I discovered a third kind of free software recently. We've all heard of "free as in beer" software. It doesn't cost any money, and it may or may not be free according to the Free Software Foundation's definition. The FSF definition is for the "free as in speech" variety, which may or may not cost you money. The new kind of free software is "free as in crack." It doesn't cost any money, but it's deadly addicting. The first example of this new kind of free software that I've found in the wild is Enemy Territory (ET), developed by Splash Damage, published by Activision Inc., and produced by Id Software Inc.

I missed Ximian Desktop. I gave it up last year when I installed Red Hat 8.0. It's not that I didn't like Bluecurve, the new desktop treatment for GNOME and KDE that Red Hat included with 8.0, but it just wasn't Ximian. The months went by and I began to wonder if Ximian would ever release a new version of its desktop. The real problem, of course, was not Red Hat's Bluecurve, but getting Ximian completely ported to GNOME 2.

It's a bad itch. I've had it for years. For a short period, back in 1988 and 1989, I had a fix for it. But that didn't last. Now, thanks to an unlikely pair (Nick Petreley and Whil Hentzen), it's back. Let me explain.

Microsoft funded and released a new set of benchmarks to follow the debut of its often-renamed Windows 2003 Server. The boys in Redmond are proud as punch of their new baby, whatever its name. They would have the world believe that Windows 2003 Server is twice as fast as Linux, at least when it's used for file serving.

I decided to put my Red Hat Network subscription to greater use. I normally use RHN to run up2date at least weekly so I can keep up with the latest security fixes and updates. This week, I decided to download the iso images of 'shrike' (Red Hat's code-word for its new release) and upgrade my desktop from Red Hat 8 to Red Hat 9.

I was surprised at the amount of "friendly fire" I took as a result of my last Linux-gaming article, which was about BioWare's betas of Neverwinter Nights for Linux. Some of the core group at Icculus.org -- maybe most of them -- were furious at me for one reason or another.

My desktop machine has been cramped for space for at least a year. I've had to shuffle games, data, applications and digital images on and off the system as I needed them. There just wasn't enough available space on the two existing drives, and it was past time to do something about it. That's what I'm writing about this week: adding a new hard drive to your existing Linux system.

As soon as I saw the news that BioWare Corp. released a beta of a Linux client for its popular and successful Neverwinter Nights title, I downloaded the beta (registration required) and went shopping for the prerequisite retail Windows version of the game. Before I proceed, let me offer this brief warning: Neverwinter Nights is the mother of all timesinks. Do not follow my path unless you have nothing important you want to get done for the next week or so.

I recently downloaded the first beta of Opera 7.0 for Linux and gave it a whirl. I'm going to briefly recount my installation and usage experience with the beta, but this is in no way a review of the Opera browser, beta or otherwise. I'm simply using the beta as an icebreaker, an excuse to voice my opinions on recent happenings in the latest episodes of the Browser Wars. In blunt language, I'll launch into a rant against the latest machinations of the malignant monopoly.

The shockwaves emanating from the lawsuit SCO Group filed against IBM last week continue to ripple back and forth across the entire IT community. That includes the free-software and open-source segments. How the suit will affect the future development and usage of Linux remains to be seen.

Linux is everywhere you look, from mainframes to handhelds to servers to desktops. One place where its growth has been something less-than-spectacular is in SOHO (small office/home office) use. Now that full-featured office suites are available for Linux, more SOHOs than ever are beginning to migrate from Windows to Linux. However, SOHO users often require more than just an office suite; they need accounting software for the books and payroll, they need fax capabilities and sometimes they need something a bit more exotic. Like OCR (Optical Character Recognition), for example.