By Rachel Chalmers
With hardware company VA Linux Systems Inc and software vendor Red Hat Software Inc each boasting laboratories of their own, support start-up Linuxcare Inc wasn’t about to be left behind. Linuxcare Labs has been launched to certify hardware and software for use with the open source operating system. Linuxcare CTO Dave Sifry says the labs will adhere to a testing methodology designed to contribute to the Linux community’s open standards efforts – a veiled dig at the ill-starred Mindcraft benchmarks, perhaps?
The first hardware products to be Linuxcare Labs certified are from Dell Computer Corp, Compaq Computer Corp and Panasonic- Fujitsu-Uchiba. As well as certifying hardware against the Linux kernel, the labs intend to test device-level compatibility with drivers from independent open source developers. When certified components lack driver support in distributions, Linuxcare hopes to provide pre-tested device drivers through its web site.
While the hardware testing operations are up and running now, don’t look for software certification or benchmarking until the third quarter of 1999. As if there were any lingering doubt of the enormous demand for information such as this, the folks behind VA’s revamped Linux.com web site are crowing that they scored 3 million hits in their first 12 hours online.
