If you need a poster child for the volatility of the market this year, you might choose VA Linux Systems Inc. (LNUX), the Sunnyvale company that produces workstations and servers embedded with the open-source code first developed by Linus Torvalds.

Linux is ugly. There is no consistency in the command line, configuration files, or the graphical interfaces. Sure, GNU is not UNIX, but Linux looks and feels like its misbegotten child. The kernel is monolithic and outdated in Computer Science. The Windows NT and GNU Hurd micro-kernels are designed with the benefits of more modern theory. So why has Linux taken off?

Linux is all about choice, and when it comes to picking the right distribution, choice is exactly what you get...and how. But never fear, we've put the top Linux distributions head to head to let you know which one is right for you.

Linux is always a little bigger than you think. Every day, people are working on porting Linux to new platforms to achieve more with what they have. In the case of LinuxPPC and Terra Soft Solutions, they're working with community spirit and the PowerPC architecture to create insanely grat solutions with a touch of Tux.

The ability to establish a "secure" remote connection to a computer system is something very useful and important. Secure remote connections is one area that the Unix world has excelled at for years now. This ability to establish an encrypted connection to a remote computersystem is also available for Linux.

With a decent Linux box and the Corel WordPerfect Office 2000 suite you can do a good part of what you can do with Windows and Microsoft Office, and do it without a byte of Microsoft code in your system. I would guess that for at least half the PC's in the country this is more than good enough for all the work they'll ever be asked to do.

Since I stated that we were moving into what I called the post-FUD era, not much has happened to surprise me. The kind of competition Linux is getting from Microsoft, conventional Unix vendors, and even other free operating systems is par for the course and can be addressed by the community.

Now that Microsoft has been declared a monopoly, some observers say Linux will waltz onto desktops as a Windows replacement. I'm not so sure. I have a hunch that Linux's opportunity lies somewhere underneath the desktop. By that I don't mean down in the dusty corners of programmers cubicles, where the cockroaches are rooting for pizza crumbs.

A red-faced IDC has admitted that VA Linux Systems is indeed one of the top five Linux server vendors, and that it's recent report to the contrary was... well... wrong. IDC released its report on the state of the Linux server market during Q4 1999 last week. It put Compaq in the lead, followed by IBM, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Fujitsu Siemens. VA was consigned, along with a number of hardware companies more associated with the open source OS than the top five, into its catch-all 'Others' category.

Corel goes graphic, SuSE adds Windows and TurboLinux seeks an Oracle. It's all in a weeks work here at Linsider, as we take a look at the week that was for Linux Distributions.