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A new study commissioned by CA (and executed by TheInfoPro) has found that large enterprises are increasingly deploying Linux on mainframes to maximize value and minimize costs.

"Linux on the mainframe is clearly a very attractive platform choice for IT organizations that have to continue scaling the services they deliver to the business, even as their infrastructure budgets are constrained by market uncertainty and competing priorities," says CA's Michael Zinda. "This study shows that customers are very much aware of the unique value that Linux offers on the mainframe — and that the mainframe remains an ongoing focus for IT investment."

"Of the 100 IT professionals at global enterprises contacted, 93 percent said they plan to either increase the use of IBM's Linux specialty processing engine on their System z mainframes over the next two years or maintain the current level of investment," writes eWeek's Jeffrey Burt. "Forty-two percent said their use of IBM's IFL (Integrated Facility for Linux) specialty engine will grow between 21 percent and 40 percent, and another 10 percent said that use will grow more than 76 percent."

More here from ComputerWeekly ... more here from TMCnet ... and the press release is here.

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The newest version of the Linux kernel has arrived, and with it a host of new features.

"One of the most noticeable elements in the new release is the kernel inclusion of fastboot, an enhancement designed to speed startup for Linux-based systems," writes LinuxPlanet's Sean Michael Kerner.

"2.6.30 adds a lot to file system support, including the object-based storage device files system NILFS2; a caching layer for local caching of NFS data; the RDS protocol for high-performance, reliable connections between the servers of a cluster; the POHMELFS distributed networking file system; and automatic flushing of files on renames in ext3, ext4 and btrfs," notes Computerworld's Rodney Gedda.

"While 2.6.30 may not be the most exciting Linux kernel release, it does include several very solid and important improvements," writes Computerworld's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols. "Personally, I plan on switching my servers over to 2.6.30-based distributions as soon as they become available. If your concerns are mostly with the Linux desktop though I wouldn't be in that much of a hurry, most of the updates are more important for server administrators than desktop users."

More here from ZDNet.

The Fedora Project this week released Fedora 11, which adds a number of attractive new features to the Linux OS.

"Fedora 11, which was code named Leonidas, includes virtualization console improvements that ease the task of moving between the host operating system and the guest operating system environments," writes Computerworld's John Fontana. "And the operating system has an improved Virtual Machine Creation Wizard, which supports a wider variety of hardware and new workflow processes that makes it easier to deploy virtual machines (VM)."

"Reading through Fedora 11's feature list, the geek in you may get giddy seeing the use of ext4 as the default file system. Not me," writes CNET's Matt Asay. "I don't care about the underpinnings of the operating system. I just want it to work.
This is, in fact, Fedora 11's biggest selling point: it just works. And fast, too: from powering on to logging in takes 20 seconds or less. Beat that, Windows!"

More here from InformationWeek ... more here from Linux Mag ... and more here from Channel Register.

The Linux Foundation this week launched a new individual membership program which provides users with a wide range of benefits for a $99 fee — including, most notably, an @linux.com email address.

Other benefits include the following:

A weekly Linux.com 'Briefing Book' with news, technical tips, and analysis

A Linux Foundation T-shirt

30% off Linux Foundation LinuxCon 2009 standard registration fees

20% Discount on registration fees for Linux Foundation Training

35% off O'Reilly Books and E-Books

20% off O'Reilly's Open Source Convention

35% off No Starch Press Publications

15% off Subscription to Linux Journal

15% off Neuros Technologies NeurosLink

50% off Southern California Linux Expo

$10 off every $40 order on Thinkgeek

"The idea is that membership fees support the development of Linux since the Linux Foundation is the organization that employs Linus Torvalds," writes InternetNews' Sean Michael Kerner. "Membership also gives individuals a voice in the structure of the foundation."

More here from iTWire ... more here from DaniWeb ... more here from CNET News ... and the announcement is here.

Dell this week introduced a new Ubuntu netbook, the Latitude 2100, which is designed specifically for use by schoolchildren.

"Dell has designed the system with school-friendly features, such as bright primary colors and a more rugged, rubberized design to withstand rough handling by children," writes InformationWeek's Antone Gonsalves. "In addition, the netbook, which has a 10.1-inch display, offers a network activity light on the lid to help teachers monitor network use and identify students who may be surfing the Web."

"The base Ubuntu Linux 8.10 equipped unit comes with 512MB of RAM, a 16GB SSD (solid state drive) and a 3-cell battery," writes Computerworld's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols. "This version of the netbook sells for $369. If you wanted to get the same netbook with XP Home SP3, it would cost you $399. It's always nice to see a vendor offer you the Linux cost savings..."

More here from Ubergizmo ... more here from BusinessWeek ... more here from DesktopLinux.com ... more here from The Register ... and the press release is here.

Earlier this month, The Taipei Times' Elizabeth Tchii reported that Linpus Technologies general manager Stephen Lim "expects Linux-based netbooks to reach 50 percent market share by next year, on a par with Microsoft Inc.'s Windows platform."

"As competition in the netbook space heats up, vendors are looking for ways to slash the cost of making netbooks even further, and Linux offers gleaming promise in this regard... While it's difficult to imagine Linux adding 40 points to its current netbook market share of 10 percent within a year, Lim's prediction shows that Linux providers have only just begun to fight," writes ChannelWeb's Kevin McLaughlin.

More here from O'Reilly.

In a recent interview with TECH.BLORGE's John Pospisil, Lenovo's Matt Kohut suggested that Linux is unlikely to dominate Windows in the netbook market.

"You know, there were a lot of netbooks loaded with Linux, which saves $50 or $100 or whatever it happens to be, based on Microsoft's pricing and, again, from an industry standpoint, there were a lot of returns because people didn't know what to do with it," Kohut said. "Linux, even if you've got a great distribution, and you can argue which one is better or not, still requires a lot more hands-on than somebody who is using Windows. So we've seen overwhelmingly people wanting to stay with Windows, because it just makes more sense: you just take it out of the box and it's ready to go."

"That's exactly what I've been saying for a while," writes Computerworld's Preston Gralla. "Although Linux is generally easy to use these days, upgrading and installing software on it is no easy task. Linux's only future on netbooks is as a niche, and what Lenovo says is one more piece of evidence."

More here from Fudzilla.

The Open Invention Network (OIN) this week announced an effort to find prior art for Microsoft's FAT patents as used in its lawsuit against TomTom.

"The OIN's new FAT-busting project is a response to a lawsuit that Microsoft settled earlier this year with navigation device maker TomTom," explains Ars Technica's Ryan Paul. "The lawsuit claimed that TomTom's Linux-based products infringe on a number of Microsoft's patents, including several that describe technical attributes of Microsoft's FAT filesystem. TomTom initially fought back by filing a countersuit of its own and by joining the OIN, but eventually agreed to pay a licensing fee and remove the features from its implementation."

"OIN this week posted details on the three patents — U.S. patents 5579517, 5758352 and 6256642 — to a section of its Linux Defenders website in an attempt to get community members searching for prior art that could prevent Microsoft from wielding them in future lawsuits," writes ChannelWeb's Kevin McLaughlin.

More here from iTWire ... more here from ZDNet ... more here from CNET ... more here from The Register ... and the press release is here.

On LinuxInsider yesterday, Katherine Noyes took a look at Linux users' recollections of their "first time," a topic discussed at this month's Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit and later on Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols' blog at Computerworld as well as on TuxRadar. Here's just a couple of the hundreds of responses:

"I started with a copy of redhat that came with the linux bible; initially I was interested in learning to program in C, and linux had a nice compiler without the huge price tags that accompanied the ones I knew of for windows 98 at the time," recalls starcannon at Computerworld. "I oscillated in and out of linux, trying a multitude of distributions over the years, then several years ago I tried Ubuntu, it worked so great that I switched my entire family over to it, and have not looked back."

"My first real Linux install was Mandrake around the turn of the century (2000-ish)," recalls sfdrew at TuxRadar. "Don't ask me which version. I had tried to install a different distro, which I can't remember the name of and probably doesn't exist anymore with no luck. The book Mandrake came with helped a lot — it was a commercial version I bought for 50 bucks. It took over 8 hours to install start to finish because I had to keep taking my computer apart to find information about the hardware. You think it would make me appreciate the modern install process, but I guess like everything else, we learn to take things for granted..."

More here from Digg ... and more here from OSnews.

The final pre-production code for Ubuntu 9.04, codenamed Jaunty Jackalope, was released this week.

"The Ubuntu team behind it has reported that the release candidate is 'complete, stable, and suitable for testing by any user,' but that it does provide the caveat that there are still a few known bugs," writes The Register's Rik Myslewski. "They have promised to squash the bugs before the final release, scheduled for a week from now — April 23."

"For this release, the project has focused on bringing faster boot speeds to users and a new desktop notification system," writes ZDNet's Renai LeMay. "The server version of Ubuntu 9.04 has focused on integration with cloud computing (for example, integration with Amazon services) and a more integrated mail server stack based on the postfix and packages.
The 9.04 release of Ubuntu also integrates the Netbook Remix software, which makes Ubuntu easier to use on the popular low-powered laptops that have come to be known as netbooks."

"I've been running Ubuntu 9.04 prereleases on my main desktop computer since the beginning of March," writes Ars Technica's Ryan Paul. "It's a major improvement over its predecessors and it delivers a level of robustness (on my hardware, at least) that was lacking in the Hardy and Intrepid releases."

More here from Computerworld ... more here from Softpedia ... and more here from Tectonic.