turnerjh writes "Another hardware manufacturer has joined the ranks of Hewlett-Packard, SGI, VA Research, and Compaq. Dell Computers has announced they will begin bundling Linux soon. Is Microsoft finally losing their strangle hold on the hardware industry? This is a step up from Dell just passively installing Linux on demand. It seems they will be actively pursuing our favorite OSS OS." Be careful with this one-Dell hasn't actually said they will be shipping with it-just expetected to announce it. But, this is a step-up (if true), and it sounds like it won't just be on servers, but work-stations as well. Additionally, Tom Jenkins wrote to tell us that Hewlett-Packard has announced they will be selling some of their server line with Linux pre-install/bundle as well. Let's keep making inroads, folks-this Dell thing has been in the air for a while, but a commitment is always a good thing to see.

Panix writes "Good news today from HP and SGI. Both have announced that they plan to offer Linux as one of their "core" operating systems. HP even stated that it would develop a special version of Linux for Merced!" It's crazy- 2 companies once known for their OSs have chosen another.

Linux Magazin has a rather interesting article written by BASF researchers about the use of Linux as a research tool. It's nicely detailed, going into the software and hardware problems they encountered, their choice of compiler, and a performance comparison of 10 PCs with a parallel SGI box. They are happy with Linux and are looking forward to 2.2's 4-way and 8-way CPU support. The only problem with this article is that Babelfish chokes on it quite quickly.

Steve Phillips sent us a link to the SGI Visual Workstation HOWTO. It is what it sounds like. Some notes about what makes the new machine different (and more expensive) than many x86 boxes. It's interesting, but probably more so if you actually have one of those boxes. Wish I did... if only for that screen. Yum yum.

Caballero writes " Not only is 2.2 pre 9 available. The version number in the Makefile is listed as 2.2.0-final! It also includes support for the new SGI visual workstation." We're almost there now kids. Chill the wine (or just get out the shot glasses)

Zebulun writes "the New York Times reported today that Silicon Graphics Corp will sell its majority stake in MIPS Technologies Inc. which produces the RS5k and RS10k processors powering SGIs high-end workstations. This comes not long after SGI announced and began selling intel PII based "VisualStations". " Andrey gave us the link to this Associated Press report about it, commenting "What a sad day it is..."

xopher found a site that actually has some pretty cool looking cases. Some of the models are pretty sweet. If you can't afford one of those new SGI boxes, join the club. But you could consider one of these, although they don't have prices listed.

David S. Miller was the first to write in to say that SGI has updated their web pages to announce the release of their new Visual Workstations. The page proudly proclaims "For Windows NT". The rumors are flying that these things will soon officially support Linux, so Cross your fingers and wait. Wonderful hardware. Seems like a shame to cripple it.

pavewrld sent in a couple of links. The first is over at MacWorld Online and announces the new PowerMac G3's, which look similar to the iMac. The second announces the new iMac's, which now come in a variety of colors. Also in Apple news, NikT wrote in to say that Mac OS X server was announced, and it will include Apache and BSD 4.4. Finally, Ethan Butterfield wrote in to let us know of Steve Jobs' keynote address at MacWorld Expo. Apparently Apple has licensed OpenGL from SGI, and John Carmack demoed Quake 3 Arena on one of the new G3's. You can read more at Macintouch. Phew! With MacWorld Expo going on, the Apple news is nonstop.

CSD writes "As I was surfing for news bits this morning I noticed that the guys over at Ars Technica have an in-depth review of the new SGI NT box. Apparantly they got hold of a 320 model. I figured this was OK content for this site as well, since people are clammoring to know about Linux support, and from some of the hardware mentioned in this review, it leaves room for doubt about Linux working on it w/o some major tweaks. " If SGI is smart, they've got an army of hackers making sure these 'tweaks' are ready as soon after this bugger is announced. Update: 01/05 11:50 by CT : afniv writes "In an interview with SGI CEO Rick Belluzzo regarding the launch of the new "NT workstation", he discusses the new direction of SGI and the fact that he "can't go on a customer visit without somebody asking about Linux." "

An anonymous reader sent us this link where you can read a compliation of rumors about the awesome looking new SGI workstations (including a picture). You know, the machines with the sweet LCD screens? The coolest part is the buzz that I've now heard from several sources- this thing will run Linux. The question is, will SGI support Linux? How about Linux support for the killer video hardware? Yummy. And will they give me a demo unit? I've decided I want one of every type of machine that runs Linux. I think I need a better paying job. But If nothing less, SGI wins once again for Style- these are sweet looking machines. I'm curious o see how they perform.

When I put out my call for Geek Christmas Gift ideas, I had no idea what I was in for. But after the storm of email that followed was washed away, I was left with a list of toys that any geek would be excited to give or get this year for whatever holiday it is you celebrate this time of year. Hit the link below and read the list if you're curious.

News about SGI's plans have come out. Essentially, beginning in January, SGI will, for the first time, be selling machines based on Wintel architecture. Their newest station, the Visual Workstation 320 will be selling for a little below 4000$ and will feature up to two PII 400s under the hood. This doesn't mean SGI is on the rebound yet-this is a radical shift for them, as this is pretty far away from their traditional playground.

Jeremy Allison - Samba Team writes "Well, this is a bit cheesy, as it's a commercial press release and also it's what I've been working on for the past 6 months :-). But I thought Slashdot readers might like to know that Silicon Graphics is now officially supporting Open Source Samba on the IRIX operating system. By "officially" that means they'll take your money :-). Plus it's got kernel oplock integration (only on IRIX 6.5.2f and above I'm afraid) so that means you can get at the same data via nfs and smb without anything screwing up. Here is the press release and the other cool thing is they finally published the Samba benchmarks I've been working on. Yep - Samba on IRIX is now officially the worlds fastest Windows server. I want to see what it'll do on Linux 2.2 now... - watch this space :-)."

Jason Lango writes "Silicon Graphics, Inc. is now a Sponsoring Corporate Member of Linux International. Go us! An official press release from Linux International can be found here. " Sun, Intel, Adaptec, now SGI. Who's next?

Jon Leech asks "Has anyone successfully used the Sony "Superstation" 6.6/10 GB tape drive? This has only been out about a month, and I've had no response to queries on the linux-ftape mailing list and comp.os.linux.hardware, so maybe it's just too new for anyone to have taken a chance yet? "

John A. Turner writes "Haven't seen anything on /. about how much Linux-related stuff there was at Supercomputing '98 so thought I'd mention it. One of the best things was a panel discussion titled "Clusters, Extreme Linux, and NT". There's a nice summary of the Linux-related events at SC '98 at the Extreme Linux site " Note that reactions to Red Hat's support options announcements included One area in which Linux is far ahead of the pack is clustering . Has any participant written up a summary we could post? Update Rahul Dave has written a report for us.

PDG sent us a link to a zd article where you can read about the new Supercomputer that SGI is announcing. The article is thin on details. Presumably more will be released soon. Update: 11/10 03:45 by CT : SGI has released more information- you can read their little Press Release about BlueMountain- their beast that has taken the top spot on the big list of super computers.

IDG in New Zealand is running a story about how in order to cope with the paperwork associated with Bill Gates' new home, the city of Medina, Washington chose an interesting low cost document management solution: Linux. Thanks to breeze for sending this in.

A few people wrote in to mention this in response to yesterday's $99 LCD screen. Matt Allen sent us a link to a $2300 flat screen from SGI. I just have to drool- If SGI wants ads on Slashdot, I'll trade for one of these monsters! 1600x1024 wide screen, 17", not the lame-o we-say-its-17-but-really-its-15.9 crap. I'd need an SGI to go with it though. I don't this thing has a VGA connector...