UPFRONT

1,2: Aberdeen Group3,4: International Data Corp., in Economic Times5,6: eWeek7: SCO8-14: Risk Waters Group15: Bob Frankston16: Jim Stallings, IBM17: Associated Press

Mbrowse: www.kill-9.org/mbrowse/index.html

This is a nice, simple-to-use and easy-to-install management information base (MIB) browser. Those of you who use Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) know how easy it can make life. The Details tab provides information about those MIBs you might not know a whole lot about or use often, so you can interpret the information or make changes using the browser. Requires: libgtk, libgdk, libgmodule, libglib, libdl, libXi, libXext, libX11, libm, libnetsnmp, libwrap, glibc, libcrypto, libnsl.

—David A. Bandel

My Calendar: fuzzymonkey.org/newfuzzy/software

If you need only one calendar—not one for everyone, but one for yourself or for the office or the Web—this program is extremely easy and quick to install. And as long as the protected/ directory is protected, you don't need to worry about someone changing your appointments. This calendar also e-mails you the next three days' appointments if you set up cron to run the e-mail script. Requires: web server, Perl, cal, pscal (optional).

—David A. Bandel

ps-watcher: ps-watcher.sourceforge.net

If you need something to keep an eye on your process table and perform some action based on said table, you need ps-watcher. Every day I used to have to look for errant Netscape processes and kill them. Well, ps-watcher can do this before the system comes to a crawl. You can base actions on percentage of CPU time used and other parameters. Simply define the parameter in the config file and set an action to take. You can log, kill, log and kill, and any of a number of other actions. Requires: Perl, Perl modules Sys::Syslog, File::Basename, Pod::Text, Config::IniFiles, Getopt::Long.

—David A. Bandel

QBrew: www.usermode.org/code.html

A virtual beer is great, but a real one is undeniably better. Well, why not go that one step further and brew your own to your own tastes? This program comes with a tutorial for brewing real, not virtual beer. When you find the best combination of ingredients for a really hearty ale, pass the recipe on. Requires: libSM, libICE, libXext, libX11, libqt-mt, libstdc++, libm, libgcc_s, glibc, libdl, libfontconfig, libaudio, libXt, libpng, libz, libGL, libXmu, libX render, libXft, libfreetype, libpthread, libexpat.

—David A. Bandel

Alas, 2003 will not be the year of the enterprise Linux desktop; however, expect support from the large system vendors such as Dell, HP, IBM and Sun to be on the increase for desktop Linux (from practically nothing in 2002), as they realize that they can sell more Linux servers if there is a viable desktop Linux.

—Aberdeen Group

By 2007, we said one year ago, “No one will be fired for recommending Linux.” Shortening our own timeline by four years, we suggest that an IT buyer might already be fired today for failing to consider Linux. That's a small step but one of Neil Armstrong caliber.

—eWeek

Linux is a large component of our five-year computing strategy. We are investing and deploying it heavily in all areas of our Institutional Securities business. It's currently being used for mission-critical applications in our Equity and Fixed Income Divisions.

—Jeffrey M. Birnbaum, Morgan Stanley's global head of enterprise computing for the Institutional Securities business

We're no longer locked into a development platform. If we were going to port an application [to HP-UX], there would be some problems. Going with Linux, we can run the application on commodity hardware—IBM, HP or Dell—and take advantage of the benefits of the platform.

—Bridget O'Connor, Lehman Brothers

The other thing is continuing to enable all the platforms in the IBM family of products. When you do that, then no matter where the customer interacts with us, Linux is a part of this picture.

—Jim Stallings, IBM's Linux manager

Linux will not be very useful to ordinary people. It will be more useful to companies like ours.

—Scott McNealy, CEO, Sun Microsystems