"After reading a story about how Microsoft is now openly admitting that Linux is the number one threat to Windows, I realized that I am one of very few people whose entire home/office computer network is 100% Microsoft-free. And I manage to get along just fine, thank you."

Linux 2.4 hit the streets last week in a positive tidal wave of understatement. Now with a similar degree of underhype Oracle has announced that its products will support the new operating systems with immediate effect. The speed of the support announcement clearly indicates that Linux is serious news, but is it yet a serious business contender?

Linux has gone “one up” on Windows by offering two alternatives in the desktop GUI game, KDE and GNOME. Can either threaten the hegemony of Windows? Isn’t two LINUX GUIs one too many? Are both growing in harmony or is there a war in play?

Now that the Linux 2.4 kernel is finally actually here, the biggest question among commercial distributors is what effect this will have on their business. This may become another case where the rules of the Linux market are different than the traditional software marketplace. If so, many commercial vendors may not think much of those rules.

There are some significant features introduced in 2.4. But these facilities have been around for weeks, even months, in the 2.3 development kernels. Nobody who really follows Linux is being taken by surprise, which is another reason why you don't see much rejoicing among real developers and users.

"No, there's nothing inherently difficult about Linux. There's nothing particularly difficult about driving a car, either -- but a lifetime of riding the bus does not give one the skills necessary to drive the thing. The desktop developers have made Linux far easier than it used to be."

"The unfortunate reality of being a Systems Administrator is that sometime during your career, you will most likely run into a user (or lus3r if you prefer) whom has an IQ of a diced carrot and demands that you drop everything to fix their system/email/whatever. This article focuses on how to deal with these kinds of issues."

"And that's the price for Open Source and Free Software -- isn't there one in every human endeavor? In this culture, it's payment due in reputation enhancement. "I sweated to bring this to the world," we say. "If you use it, please say thanks publicly." It's the polite thing to do."

"We now use computers for things vastly different from what the original desktop designers envisioned, such as for entertainment, audio and video ... and cruising the Internet. Individual users commonly now have thousands of files on their computers and access to billions more on the Internet. Their "view," however, is still typically the single document or file on the screen, a metaphor appropriate to a printed page but not to the myriad ways we use the global universe of networked, multimedia information now readily at hand."

Consumers who attend Macworld Expo Web will have multiple course options to choose from. But the first course offered to "Mac Managers" is called "Linux for the PPC." That sums up the situation for the venerable Macintosh as the alternate operating system in corporations these days. No longer is it considered the long-shot underdog among the fire-breathing opposition to anything from Microsoft. Linux now plays that role.