I finished reading Otherland this morning. It is interesting to compare it with The Mask Carver's Son. I would characterize Otherland as a story where you want to keep turning the pages to see what happens next. But there is no emotional attachment to the story. The Mask Carver's Son had the opposite effect. I wanted to keep turning thepages with it as well, but there were many places where the emotional effect of relating to the character and his situation was very powerful.

The Linux progress is likely to be slow (almost non-existent) for a while until I find a way to obtain a faster machine to test it on. I have made a request for such an upgrade - now to see what happens.

The OpenLinux book is turning out to be very interesting. Here are a few points from the early pages:

• Linux is a powerful platform for a server (web, mail, ftp, etc). This is one of the ideas I want to explore: the use of a Linuz-based Apache web server.
• Linux is also a strong desktop system. I have seen the KDE desktop interface and it looks pretty straight forward. However I am also interested in the question of portability of files from a Microsoft windows environment. I shall see.
• Linux is available for many hardware platforms, including Intel and Mac. I wasn't aware that you could run Linux on a Mac.
• "the fact that you are reading this says that you are at least open-minded enough to give Linux a try. ... Note, however, that there is a learning curve with anything new" (p. 5). Or in skiing parlance, "No pain, no gain". Fair enough.
• the term "distributions" refers to the different commercial ventures that are marketing Linux packages. Since the Linux software is free, the efforts revolve around different approaches to the installation. Linux used to be very difficult for novices to install, but this is rapidly changing. I have the Caldera distribution, and am generally pleased with it.
• Linux Standard Base Project (LSB) is an effort to establish a solid standard base product that applications developers can write for. This is important for future support.
• Linux real strength is with networking (particularly TCP/IP)
• KDE (K Desktop Environment) Apparently this is a pun on CDE Common Desktop Environment, but this is a UNIX pun. It is nice to know where many of these acronyms come from, even if I don't always fully appreciate it.
• a distinction is made between window systems (e.g. X) and window managers (e.g. KDE). KDE provides a number of additional features to that of just a window manager. KDE is written in X. The KDE system provide a huge number of additional application and utility programs.
• KDE and GNOME represent tow different approaches to providing a desktop environment.

This represent a few points from the first 42 pages of the book. Almost all of the above is very new to me. I enjoy learning something new!