Sun has upped the ante in its fledgling Linux support by directly offering the operating system to customers.

The Redmond, Wash.-based company has been evaluating Linux for months--an ordinary process when a new technology emerges--and is now hiring three more employees for the effort, according to the company's Web site.

The Linux operating system has been at the epicenter of vast paper fortunes made on the stock market during the past several months, so it's no wonder that all eyes are turned to the next crop of Linux-oriented companies that could go public in the near future.

With the Linux operating system gaining momentum as a significant platform for helping companies build their Internet infrastructures, Adobe Systems announced its initial support for Linux. Beginning in the first quarter of 2000 Adobe will offer a Linux version of Adobe Acrobat Distiller software.

inuxcare on Tuesday announced plans to open nine global service centers in an effort to expand its services for customers that use Linux worldwide.

SGI released software tools to help Linux work better on machines with large amounts of disk storage and to aid programmers in debugging Linux installed on business systems, Mountain View, Calif.-based SGI said.

Since Inprise posted JBuilder 3 Foundation Edition last week, there have been more than double the number of downloads of the Linux version than of the Windows version of the product.

The Linux movement is growing coattails that may give the open-source software a new E-commerce identity. A Swedish-born Linux database dubbed MySQL is being used as part of an overall freeware combination that may put E-commerce in reach for small and midsize users.

Developer of the Quake family of games and 3D gaming guru John Carmack has called for the development of an independent OpenGL "conformance nazi".

Silicon Valley Research, Inc. announced that it has successfully completed benchmarks of the latest version of its software running on Red Hat Linux 6.1. The Solaris system was able to complete the benchmark in a little over 8 hours while the Linux system completed in just under 4 hours.