I made it to the summit, but not the peak. The good news -- I wrote on Linux, saw the Sacred Kernel, browsed the terminal logs, did some hacking, even played Asteroids. But I have been (temporarily, I hope) undone by a PPP Daemon that quit and ran. I think I'm hooked.

Joseph Pranevich has written up an excellent piece on Linux 2.2 where he practically sums up the major features of the new kernel. This will be quite useful to any of you who are curious, but haven't been reading LinuxHQ every patch for the last year. Related, 2.2.0ac1 is now out.

gman has started a new site, linuxhardware.net in an effort to create help newbies learn and share information about Linux and Hardware. nickm an insane link designed to bring arts and culture to the Unix community. Apparently Dogman has created a hilarious page entitled "Installing a network PostScript printer on a Sun workstation running SunOS As illustrated through interpretive dance. Whoever said learning can't be fun never saw this. Or maybe they did and just created a mental block so they didn't have to think about that guy dancing. Jerome ALET sent us a link to the Linux Slogans Database Matthew Astley wrote in to where you can buy 25x25mm self-adhesive domed plastic badges featuring Tux to attach to your computer case in that little logo spot. The Phly sent in links to a new Bible for Linux page is up. jgalun wrote in to send us a link to a Washington Post that comapres Sys Admin Salaries average system admin salaries, in which they note that Mac sys admins seem to make very little. Hmm, wonder why...Also noted is that Linux sys admins had the greatest pay raises last year. More to come, hopefully! darius sent us a link to the new apple ad campaign which features the one, the only, HAL 9000. BigZaphod wriote in to announce a new games site:Legions. And rounding in to the more tasteless part of the quickies, kweiheri sent us an great parody of realdoll.com- except this one is (ahem) realhamster.com. What is this world coming to? GraZZ wrote in to send us an amusing parody of Star Wars and the Starr Thing.

David Weekly wrote in with a somewhat lengthier more detailed hands on review of the recently released Diamond Rio. Check it out if you're interested in a bit more practical information on the little device.

Kasia Brown, who is having some strange printing problems and asks: "Are there any frequently arising printer problems when having recently installed the OS 8.5 on a G3. I'm finding that the Mac will not allow more than 5 MB of memory to be printed on a fiery si 5750. Frequent replies are "General printer error", "End of File" or "Error 1" when attempting to print documents from Adobe Pagemaker with Graphics." I know there are some Mac folks out there... care to lend a hand?

I'm face with a terrible dilema: I acquired a new scanner, PCMCIA SCSI controller, configured SANE, and wrote code to handle automated image uploading and attaching to Slash stories. All of these need testing. And I have this stack of pictures that we took of our old house before we moved last July. So click the link below to view a truckload of jpegs, plus my descriptions, of the place affectionately known as GH1.0. Really, this won't be of any interest whatsoever except to the handful of you who visited the place, but some of you may want to come along for the ride.

Jesse Shrieve (the way cool guy at UPN that keeps our server from melting) wrote in to say "Well, it was predicted places would be giving away PCs soon to get money through other methods. It's started. ZapMe is giving away 15 P2 PCs, 1 high server, 1 high end laser printer and a satellite dish with internet access to any kindergarden to high school level school. The catch is ads will constantly be display in a box on the screen. As the press release says, join the ZapMe generation. Ugh. Over 8,000 schools have applied so far."

JPelorat writes "Ya know those stupid motivational posters you see in waiting rooms and other depressing places? I swear, if I see one more platitude about 'Happiness', I'm gonna hit someone. And then I saw these 12 replacements. Much better than the real ones. Hang one of these on your cube and enlighten your co-workers... " Those are quite amusing. I need a really expensive color printer now so I can make some posters. Course I don't have a cubicle, but my sofa will look nice.

Andy Tai writes "Printer makers are working together to define a single universal printer driver. Called the Universal Printer Driver Format, it will replace the 3000 printer drivers in existence. UPDF will allow the characteristic of each printer to be described in a text file, residing in the printer itself." S: This effort is 2 years old (not related to Intel's initiative) if you look on their website. It looks pretty open from their IPP pages, including specs and apparently joining is free. Looks to me like an area where Linux participation may be beneficial for Linux and the PWG by providing early widespread testing (if printer manufacturers release descriptions for existing printers in file format before actually including them in their newer printers).

BeanDip asks "Does anyone know of any resources for adding better support for newer printers under linux? I own an HP Deskjet 672c and under linux, with the support for the hp up to the 600 I get bad quality color prints 300x300 dpi when under M$ with the HP specific drivers I get good quality prints." I get a lot of questions like these about getting Y printer to work under Linux, so what can you do to get a new printer...any new printer to work with it?

ian ehrenwald needs some assistance with this problem: "Can someone help me out with getting a Canon BJC620 to work in Linux and with ghostscript correctly? I have RTFM over and over and compiled this in and that in and with this option and with that option. Nada. I use Staroffice 4.0 and when I try to print stuff just to the normal lpr I get the postscript codes. I am guessing this is because my printer isnt PS friendly. So can anyone reccomend a way to get this BJC620 working with ghostscript so I can print from Staroffice or Netscape or any program that uses PS?"

Mighty Sorcerer Tim asks: I might be in the market for a new printer, and I am interested in personal laser printers. I was wondering if anyone in the /. world has a suggestion for good, inexpensive ($300 or less) laser printers which work well with Linux. Click below for more.

Matt posted a Quicktime Clip of the Fry's Linux commercial that we mentioned on these pages yesterday. It's a back to school ad, featuring a printer, a mac CD-ROM drive, and RH5.1 Linux. Update Sorry Matt! The Slashdot Effect caused him to smash his ISPs bandwidth limit. The link has been updated to a new location that should be safe.

Arjen Laarhoven has graciously provided the Slashdot community with a review of Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment. Basically, if your goal is guru-dom, then this book is for you, covering the a full range of systems programming. Check out the review below.

Derrick Bradbury sent us an article about super cool new LCD screens being developed at the Parc. The scariest part is that they're aiming for 400dpi displays (laser printer quality easy) that are several feet each direction. I'll take a wall with one of those if anyone at the Parc is reading!

The NetBSD Project claims to be "first to support USB". They have a keyboard driver, a mouse driver, a printer driver, and more all done! Congrats, guys! USB sounds like something really cool - perhaps the NetWinder folks at CCC should take note! Now, let's get hacking on those Linux drivers!

Joshy has written an excellent piece after going to visit the Xerox PARC. Joshy also talks about what we could learn from the Star, and gives some ideas on how Linux could benefit as well.

Nintendo will soon be releasing a digital camera for the Game Boy. The camera will take black and white photos only, with a MSRP of $49.95. Included software will allow manipulation of photos on the Game Boy. A printer will also be available soon.

Lantimes has an interesting article about the problem with Unix: it has many technical advantages which please the engineers (people who do things), but confuse the suits (people who make poor decisions). While NT probably is easier to set up and involves cheaper sys-admins, it's your base T-model. Interestingly that's what it's being used for: a replacement for NetWare, printer and email servers, but not web servers. In essence, Unixes need to stress simplicity by providing a very simple cross-OS consistent intuitive GUI interface for inexperienced sys-admins and address the suits' level of understanding.