Linus Torvalds has kept his promise and released Kernel 2.6.28 right at the Holidays. The little present shows some doings since Release Candidate 9, especially in the DVB-T area and for PCI hotplug devices.

The foundation behind the free Linux OS has appointed kernel developer and IBM collaborator Theodore Ts'o as its Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

Chipmaker Intel is currently working on Linux support for its next generation of USB, version 3.0. The new bus specification promises a 5 Gbit per second transfer speed, ten times faster than USB 2.0.

The Linux kernel mailing list comprises the core of Linux development activities. Traffic volumes are immense, often reaching ten thousand messages in a given week, and keeping up to date with the entire scope of development is a virtually impossible task for one person. One of the few brave souls to take on this task is Zack Brown. Our regular monthly column keeps you abreast of the latest discussions and decisions, selected and summarized by Zack. Zack has been publishing a weekly online digest, the Kernel Traffic news letter for over five years now. Even reading Kernel Traffic alone can be a time consuming task. Linux Magazine now provides you with the quintessence of Linux Kernel activities, straight from the horse’s mouth.

The cloop module lets you manage compression at the block device level. Read on to learn how Knoppix and other Live CDs fit all that software on a single disc.