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LWN.net Weekly Edition for January 6, 2005The Grumpy Editor's guide to 2005An inevitable part of the new-year ritual is the posting of predictions for the coming twelve months. Your editor, having access to a moderately high soapbox, feels it would be morally wrong to fail to make use of that soapbox to make an absolute fool out of himself. To that end, here are a few ideas for what we might see in the coming year. As always, these predictions are offered in the hope that they will be useful, but they carry NO WARRANTY regarding any correspondence with reality as experienced in your timezone or as to whether they make sense at all.
DevelopmentThis will be the year for free desktop infrastructure. Yes, there will be a long series of high-profile application releases, with OpenOffice.org 2.0 being, arguably, at the top of the list. But 2005 will be the year when projects like HAL and D-BUS stabilize and see wide deployment, and when the reinvigorated X.Org development team starts making some truly big strides. The kernel's support for contemporary video cards will be rationalized and improved. Perhaps there will even be a place for Mono. The convergence of all this new, low-level support code, combined with increased cooperation between desktop projects for low-level support, will build the base for the next generation of amazing free desktop applications.Free databases will see some high-profile deployments. The adoption of free database management systems is still in an early stage. Things will progress in 2005, to the point that some proprietary database vendors will see the need to start competing directly against the free alternatives. Perhaps 2005 is when we'll see some real free database FUD. There will be no 2.7 kernel in 2005, despite the requests for such a release from some quarters. The 2.6 process will continue to merge changes at a staggering rate, and nothing will come along which is so disruptive that it forces the creation of a new development series. The steady series of complaints about the quality of the 2.6 mainline releases will force some changes to the process - we may see more frequent releases or true "release candidates" for wider testing. But the simple fact is that the kernel developers - and the distributors who have the job of delivering stable kernels to their customers - are happy with things as they are, and will not be in a hurry to go back to the older way of doing things.
CommercialRed Hat will find something to do with its cash pile. The company currently has about $1 billion (almost half of its market capitalization) in the bank - much of that cash is the result of a debt sale one year ago. As Red Hat's management tries to push the company's stock price back up, it will have to find something more productive to do with that money. It would not be surprising to see an acquisition or two happen in the near future.The market for not-quite-enterprise distributions will grow. There are no end of companies looking to gain the benefits of switching to Linux, but who do not want to pay the hefty "enterprise Linux" price tag. Many of these companies will realize that high-quality Linux can be had for less, and will look to companies with credible support offerings. Companies like Progeny, Ubuntu, and Specifix may be well placed to thrive in this market. The UserLinux distributed support network model looks an awful lot like the early Red Hat "support partner" program, and risks ending up the same way. Embedded Linux will gain a higher profile, especially as a base for a new round of "personal media player" gadgets. Expect some fireworks as some of these devices - and their built-in DRM schemes - prove to be more hackable than the entertainment industry would like. Very few companies will buy Linux indemnification policies, making life difficult for insurance vendors like OSRM.
DistributionsDebian will get a new stable release out, one way or another. Much of the user base for stable Debian releases will, however, have moved on to offshoot distributions like Ubuntu. There will be a new round of soul-searching within the Debian Project over the value of its stable distribution and what that distribution should be.Community involvement in Fedora will increase, mostly through outside maintenance of some non-core packages. Red Hat will maintain a firm grip on important decisions, however. Don't expect to see an open Fedora developers' conference in 2005.
Legal and politicalThanks to serious activism and the entry of several countries into the EU, software patents will not be enacted in Europe in 2005. One thing your editor has seen many times, however, is that the commercial forces behind this kind of legislation do not ever give up. While their current push looks to be headed for failure, the issue will remain, and the fight will go on. A new round of copyright legislation will hit the U.S. Congress. The entertainment industry will attempt to strengthen its control and find some sort of legislative solution to file sharing over increasingly decentralized networks. Fair use activists will try again for copyright and DMCA reform. Neither side is likely to get far. The entertainment industry may get caught engaging in increasingly dirty denial of service attacks on peer-to-peer networks and their users. This one should be fairly obvious: 2005 will see the end of SCO. The company's remaining cases will fall apart in court, and its cash will run out. In retrospect, it will become clear that the SCO lawsuit has actually been a good thing for free software: it has proved how clean our code is now, made developers more aware of the potential for such lawsuits in the future, and has made many large companies take a clear position in the defense of free software. The next company that tries to extract payments from the free software business world will find a climate which is far less hospitable to that sort of litigation; for this reason, your editor believes there will not be a new major intellectual property suit related to Linux in the coming year.
In conclusion...More people will notice that Linux users don't have spyware and adware problems, which will be getting steadily worse on other platforms. This issue, alone, will cause more people to look at free software. Many will get their feet wet with Firefox and stop there, but others will take the full plunge. As proprietary systems are turned into zombies which spam and spy on their alleged owners, pure exasperation will push a new round of Linux adoption.Your editor expects many things to continue as they have been. An increasing number of developers will work to create ever more powerful applications. More and more people will awaken to the value of free software, and they will look seriously at using it. Some people will even figure out ways to make money from it. And, inevitably, Linux will continue to be fun - even for a grumpy editor.
Looking forward to OpenOffice.org 2.0As the OpenOffice.org development team closes in on the 2.0 release, we thought we'd take a look at the suite and see how the 2.0 version is shaping up. Since OpenOffice.org 2.0 is still in development, it's to be expected that some features do not work or work poorly, and that its stability isn't at a level appropriate for a finished application. The 1.9.65 build of OpenOffice.org certainly lives up to that expectation, and should only be deployed for testing purposes.We installed OpenOffice.org 1.9.65 from the snapshot builds page on a SUSE 9.2 system. Unlike previous versions of OpenOffice.org, version 1.9.x is being distributed in "native" installer format for various systems. The Linux build is available as an RPM rather than the old OpenOffice.org setup application. One of the goals for the 2.0 release of OpenOffice.org is for the application to start faster than previous releases. At this point in development, the startup for OpenOffice 1.9.65 is not noticeably faster than 1.1.3, however. Let's start with the word-processing application, Writer. The sad fact is that OpenOffice.org could be the best word processor ever invented -- but if it fails to import Microsoft Word documents well, it will have a tough time in the general market. This is also true of other OpenOffice.org applications, so we spent a good deal of time testing Office compatibility. To test out the Word and other Microsoft document import features, this reporter searched for Microsoft Office documents on Google using the "filetype" search feature. Writer is still better at importing Microsoft Word documents than AbiWord, and 1.9.65 does a slightly better job of importing Microsoft Office files than 1.1.3. There still seem to be a few glitches. One Word document, for example, looked almost perfect, with the exception of a bulleted list presented outside the page borders.
The interface for Writer has changed very little, so users who are familiar
with Writer already will be able to jump right in to the next
version. There are a number of noteworthy new features in Writer aside from
its Microsoft Word compatibility. This version of Writer allows an author
to count words in a selection, in addition to counting words in the entire
document. Nested table support has also improved in this version, which
will also help with importing complex Microsoft Word documents.
The Impress interface has changed quite a bit, with floating toolbars for formatting and a tabbed interface to switch between views of the document. This reporter likes the new interface a little more, but the transitions between views are a bit jarring. The "slide sorter" view is particularly nice if one needs to re-arrange a presentation quickly. Calc looks and feels the same as its predecessor. It has undergone a few improvements under the hood, however. In particular, Calc's limitation of 32,000 rows has been removed. Calc can now handle sheets with up to 65,536 rows, which is the same as Microsoft Excel. We tested this by importing a CSV document with 59,621 rows. Calc had no problem importing this document or saving it as a native OpenOffice.org file. Calc is a bit better at importing Excel files with odd text formatting than Gnumeric, but Gnumeric does still seem to have the edge in supported functions. Calc fails several tests in Gnumeric's testing files which test for Excel compatibility. One of the big additions to OpenOffice.org 2.0 is a database application like Microsoft Access. The OO.org Base application is, or should be, a nice addition to the OpenOffice.org suite when it's complete. Unfortunately, Base isn't very stable at the moment, and testing usually resulted in a complete crash in a short time. The Table Wizard is very user-friendly, but each time this reporter tried to create a database using the Wizard, OpenOffice.org would crash at the final step. Unfortunately, the entire suite is only as stable as its least-stable component. When Base crashed, it brought down the entire suite in one fell swoop. This is a bit of a design flaw, as a user with Writer, Calc and Base open will have all applications crash simultaneously. This did give us a chance to work with the document recovery wizard. At startup, OpenOffice.org would try to recover all documents open at the time of the crash. OpenOffice.org's recovery feature was fairly dependable, but this reporter is looking forward to using it a little less often. There are also a number of features that can be found throughout the OpenOffice.org suite rather than any specific application. The native file formats have changed to the OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications. OpenOffice.org applications still support the older format, but new files are saved in the new format by default unless the user changes default file format preferences. Users have a great deal of flexibility in this area, including the ability to save in Microsoft Office formats if they prefer. OpenOffice.org 2.0 also has a document conversion wizard that allows the user to convert older OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office documents into the new OpenOffice.org document formats. Rather than forcing the user to convert documents one at a time, the wizard allows a user to convert all documents in a directory at once. This feature isn't quite error-free just yet. We were also interested in OpenOffice.org 2.0's digital signatures feature. Apparently, OpenOffice.org will allow the user to sign or verify macros and documents in the new format. Unfortunately, this feature didn't seem to be working in the 1.9.65 build. From a test of the 1.9.65 build, it's pretty clear that the OpenOffice.org project has a way to go before it's finished. However, this release does provide a pretty good overview of what to expect, and it does look like 2.0 will be a formidable suite when finished. For LWN readers who wish to participate in testing, or just see what else is on the way, a feature guide to 2.0 is available. According to the roadmap, the OpenOffice.org project should be releasing a 2.0 beta some time this month, with a final release tentatively planned for March of this year.
The LWN.net 2004 Linux TimelineMuch happens in the Linux world over the course of a year. 2004 saw ongoing legal and political fights, new distributions, big releases of major applications, a new mode for kernel development, and more. This timeline is our attempt to separate out the most significant developments of the year and present them in a concise and enjoyable format. It continues an annual LWN tradition; it is the seventh in the series.This is version 0.9 of the 2004 timeline. If you find any remaining major omissions, please send them to us at timeline@lwn.net; please do not post errors or omissions as comments until after we have had a chance to address them. The development of the LWN.net Linux Timeline was supported by LWN subscribers; if you like what you see, please consider subscribing to LWN. As usual, the timeline is split up by month. We apologize that a "one big page" version is not available at this time.
The LWN.net Linux timelines from the last six years are still available:
Security The Honeynet report on Linux life expectancyNumerous electrons have been expended on the recently-released Honeynet report (PDF) on the life expectancy of systems exposed to the Internet. That report concluded that an unpatched Linux system would last, on the average, for about three months before being compromised, while a Windows system had a life expectancy measured in hours. That is an outcome which is certainly welcome to those who are concerned about the security of Linux systems.If you actually read the report, however, you'll find some interesting things. The test, it would seem, was set up in a way designed to make the Linux systems as easy as possible to compromise. Among other things:
Of the four Linux systems which were compromised, two of them fell to brute-force password guessing. This episode may be a good lesson in why choosing good passwords is still important, but it has nothing to do with Linux security. The report authors note that the expected lifetime of Linux systems has increased - an interesting development, given that the net has not exactly become a friendlier place. The authors guess, as usual, that the relative popularity of Windows makes it a more attractive target. They also note, however, that default Linux installations have become more secure over time. Certainly much effort has gone toward that end; it is nice to see that it is having an effect.
New vulnerabilities debmake: insecure temp directories
htmlheadline: insecure temporary files
kdelibs: unwanted email origination
kernel: 32bit emulation privilege escalation
LinPopUp: buffer overflow in message reply
netkit-telnet-ssl: format string vulnerability
pcal: buffer overflows
PHProjekt: PHP code execution
shoutcast server: buffer overflow
tetex: insecure temp files
xpdf: buffer overflow
Updated vulnerabilities a2ps: input validation error
cdrecord: failure to drop privilege
cups: multiple vulnerabilities
cyrus-sasl: remote buffer overflow
dhcp: format string vulnerability
ethereal: multiple vulnerabilities
Filename disclosure vulnerability in fam
Foomatic: Arbitrary command execution in foomatic-rip
FreeRADIUS: denial of service
gaim: buffer overflow in MSN protocol
Gallery: cross-site scripting vulnerability
gtk2, gdk-pixbuf: buffer overflows
gettext: Insecure temporary file handling
ghostscript: symlink vulnerabilities
glibc: Information leak with LD_DEBUG
glibc: tempfile vulnerability in catchsegv script
gnome-vfs: backend script vulnerabilities
groff: insecure temp file
groff: insecure temporary directory
gtkhtml: malformed messages cause crash
imlib: buffer overflows in image decoding
imlib2: buffer overflows
iptables: missing initialization
kerberos5: execution of arbitrary code by authenticated user
kernel: IGMP and scm_send vulnerabilities
kernel-utils: setuid vulnerability
libgd2: buffer overflows in PNG handling
libpng: multiple vulnerabilities
libtiff: buffer overflow
libxml2 - arbitrary code execution
libxml2: multiple buffer overflows
libxpm4: stack and integer overflows
lvm10: creates insecure temporary directory
Midnight Commander: extfs vfs vulnerability
mikmod: buffer overflow
mozilla products: arbitrary code execution and other vulnerabilities
mpg123: buffer overflow bug
mpg321: format string vulnerability
MPlayer: multiple overflows
mysql: several vulnerabilities
nasm: Buffer overflow vulnerability
netkit-telnet: invalid free pointer
netpbm: insecure temporary files
nfs-utils: denial of service
openssl: der_chop script temp file vulnerability
OpenSSL: denial of service vulnerabilities
perl information leak
php: remotely exploitable memory errors
php: multiple vulnerabilities
ProZilla: Multiple vulnerabilities
qt3: BMP image parser heap overflow
rp-pppoe, pppoe: missing privilege dropping
ruby: infinite loop
samba: integer overflow vulnerability
sharutils: arbitrary code execution
sox: buffer overflow
SpamAssassin: Denial of Service vulnerability
Subversion: Remote heap overflow
sudo: environment variable sanitizing
File overwrite vulnerability in tar and unzip
tiff: buffer overflows
unarj: buffer overflow vulnerability
vim: modeline problems
wv: buffer overflow
XChat 2.0.x SOCKS5 Vulnerability
xine-lib: arbitrary code execution
xine-lib: buffer overflows
xine-ui - insecure temporary file creation
xorg-x11: integer overflows
xpdf: integer overflows
xzgv integer overflows
zip: arbitrary code execution
zlib: denial of service
Resources Secure programmer: Call components safely (IBM developerWorks)David A. Wheeler's latest article in the "Secure Programmer" series looks at how to call components from an application in a secure way, on IBM developerWorks. "Application programs typically make calls to other components, such as the underlying operating system, database systems, reusable libraries, Internet services (like DNS), Web services, and so on. This article explains how to prevent attackers from exploiting those calls to other components by discussing the use of only secure components, passing only valid data, making sure the data will be correctly interpreted, checking return values and exceptions, and protecting data as it flows between applications and components."
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet Kernel development Brief items Kernel release statusThe current 2.6 kernel is 2.6.10, which was released by Linus on December 24. There are CIFS and DVB updates since -rc3, along with the usual pile of fixes. For those of you just tuning in, 2.6.10 as a whole includes a new kernel events notification mechanism, switchable I/O schedulers (and a new CFQ scheduler as well), in-kernel cryptographic key management, DVD+RW and CDRW packet writing support, ext3 block reservation and online resizing support, big updates for many kernel subsystems, and a handful of security fixes. The long-format changelog (1.5MB) has all the details.Linus's BitKeeper repository, as of this writing, contains the four-level page table patch (see below), a VIA PadLock crypto engine driver, a new SKB allocation function (see below), ACPI hotplug support, the full InfiniBand patch set (covered here last November), a big direct rendering manager (DRM) rework, a new and simplified file readahead mechanism, a set of user-mode Linux patches, a big set of input patches, a new set of "sparse" annotations, an NFS update, an iptables update, support for the Fujitsu FR-V architecture, in-inode extended attribute support for ext3, some SELinux scalability improvements, and lots of fixes. The current prepatch from Andrew Morton is 2.6.10-mm1. Recent additions to -mm include some software suspend improvements, a PCMCIA update, a number of NUMA-related cleanups, and a reiser4 update. The current 2.4 prepatch remains 2.4.29-pre3, dating back to December 22.
Kernel development news Quotes of the week
After 2.6.9-ac its clear that the long 2.6.9 process worked very
badly. While 2.6.10 is looking much better its long period meant
the allegedly "official" base kernel was a complete pile of
insecure donkey turd for months. That doesn't hurt most vendor
users but it does hurt those trying to do stuff on the base kernels
very badly.
-- Alan Cox
Not all 2.6.x kernels will be good; but if we do releases every 1
or 2 weeks, some of them *will* be good. The problem with the -rc
releases is that we try to predict in advance which releases in
advance will be stable, and we don't seem to be able to do a good
job of that. If we do a release every week, my guess is that at
least 1 in 3 releases will turn out to be stable enough for most
purposes. But we won't know until after 2 or 3 days which releases
will be the good ones.
-- Ted Ts'o
Four-level page tables mergedAs expected, one of the first things to be merged into Linus's BitKeeper repository after the 2.6.10 release was the four-level page table patch. Two weeks ago, we noted that Nick Piggin had posted an alternative patch which changed the organization initially created by Andi Kleen. It was not clear, then, which version of the patch would go in. In the end, Nick's changes to the four-level patch were accepted.Thus, in 2.6.11, the page table structure will include a new level, called "PUD," placed immediately below the top-level PGD directory. The new page table structure looks like this:
![[Four-level page tables]](/images/ns/kernel/four-level-pt.png)
The PGD remains the top-level directory, accessed via the mm_struct structure associated with each process. The PUD only exists on architectures which are using four-level tables; that is only x86-64, as of this writing, but other 64-bit architectures will probably use the fourth level in the future as well. The PMD and PTE function as they did in previous kernels; the PMD is absent if the architecture only supports two-level tables.
Each level in the page table hierarchy is indexed with a subset of the bits in the virtual address of interest. Those bits are shown in the table to the right (for a few architectures). In the classic i386 architecture, only the PGD and PTE levels are actually used; the combined twenty bits allow up to 1 million pages (4GB) to be addressed. The i386 PAE mode adds the PMD level, but does not increase the virtual address space (it does expand the amount of physical memory which may be addressed, however). On the x86-64 architecture, four levels are used with a total of 35 bits for the page frame number. Before the patch was merged, the x86-64 architecture could not effectively use the fourth level and was limited to a 512GB virtual address space. Now x86-64 users can have a virtual address space covering 128TB of memory, which really should last them for a little while. Those who are curious about how x86-64 uses its expanded address space may want to take a look at this explanation from Andi Kleen. The merging of this patch demonstrates a few things about the current kernel development model. Prior to 2.6, such a fundamental change could never be applied during a "stable" kernel series; anybody needing the four-level feature would have had to wait a couple more years for 2.8. The new way of kernel development, for better or for worse, does bring new features to users far more quickly than the old method did - and without the need for distributor backports. This patch is also a clear product of the peer review process. Andi's initial version worked fine, and could certainly have been merged into the mainline. The uninvited participation of another developer, however, helped to rework the patch into a less intrusive form which brought minimal changes to code outside the VM core. The end result is an improved kernel which can take full advantage of the hardware on which it runs.
alloc_skb_from_cache()The post-2.6.10 mainline kernel contains a set of patches designed to help with the merging of the Xen virtual architecture. One of them is an enhancement to the networking API which could have uses beyond Xen.The "socket buffer" (SKB) is the core kernel data structure used to represent packets as they pass through the system. The SKB API has been described for 2.4 in LDD2; this interface has changed little since then. SKB structures are allocated in various ways by the networking layer; the Xen patches add a new way:
struct sk_buff *alloc_skb_from_cache(kmem_cache_t *cache,
unsigned int size, int gfp_mask);
This function will allocate an SKB of the given size from the slab cache provided. It assumes that the cache will provide a chunk of memory of sufficient size for the buffer - and various bits of overhead imposed by the SKB structure itself. The new allocation function might speed things slightly for network drivers which allocate large numbers of buffers of the same size - though the existing allocation interfaces are already pretty fast. Xen has an interesting use for this capability, however: fast networking between virtual machines. By using the slab cache, Xen can ensure that every packet is allocated a one-page buffer. When that packet is sent to another virtual machine, the associated page can be unmapped from the source system and mapped into the address space of the destination. It is, in other words, a fairly straightforward zero-copy networking scheme. As a side benefit, the Xen monitor benefits from the knowledge that the pages in question have been used for network packets - since the contents of the packet could be read by third parties while it is in transit, there is no real point in worrying about zeroing out the data afterward.
Faster page faulting through prezeroingIn early December, this page covered Christoph Lameter's efforts to speed up the page fault mechanism by reducing lock contention. That work speeds things significantly on multiprocessor systems, but is of little help to uniprocessor users. That is not true of Christoph's other page fault work, which can benefit users on all systems.Christoph notes that, once the locking issues are taken care of, the most expensive part of the page fault handler is the code which zeroes anonymous pages before handing them to the faulting process. He has concluded that, in some situations, performance can be significantly improved by clearing those pages ahead of time and having them ready when the page fault happens. Just zeroing pages ahead of time is not particularly helpful - it is mostly an exercise in moving work around to different places in the system. But, if (1) the zeroing of pages can be made more efficient, and (2) the workload is of the right type, things can be made quite a bit faster. What is the right kind of workload? For the purposes of this patch set, the best workload is one which allocates whole pages, but then only touches parts of them. If those pages are already cleared, there is no need to load an entire page into the processor cache when it is faulted in. The improved cache behavior, along with the speedup in fault handling itself, can yield big improvements. Some figures posted by Christoph show an almost 4x improvement in the page fault rate in the right conditions. As it turns out, many applications fit this profile, so "the right conditions" should not be all that rare. There are four parts to the prezeroing patch set. The first patch extends the page allocation mechanism to make it explicitly handle requests for zeroed memory. There is a new __GFP_ZERO allocation flag which tells alloc_pages() (and thus functions like __get_free_page() and kmalloc()) to return zeroed memory. Many places in the kernel which clear their own pages have been fixed to request zeroed memory instead. With only this patch applied, the kernel's code is cleaned up a bit, but no performance improvements result - the __GFP_ZERO flag just causes a call to clear_page() in the page allocator. The second patch changes the prototype of the clear_page() function to:
void clear_page(void *page, int order);
With the new interface, clear_page() can zero higher-order pages. This change is an important part of the patch set: pages are most efficiently zeroed if they can be done in larger groups. Often, the setup cost is a big part of the total; the value of prezeroing pages is much reduced if it can only be done one page at a time. The kscrubd patch is where things start to get interesting. This patch expands the zone structure so that it can keep track of pages which are known to be clear. Requests for zeroed pages are satisfied from this list when possible. A new kernel thread (actually, a set of per-node threads) wakes up occasionally and clears pages for future allocation. This thread does not normally scrub zero-order (single) pages, but can be configured to do so (via /proc) if desired. The kscrubd patch also implements a linked list of "zero drivers," being functions which can be called upon to zero pages efficiently. There are no such drivers in this patch, so all pages are zeroed with a call to clear_page(), which, as a comment in the code notes, can be hard on the processor's cache. It would be nicer if pages could be zeroed without the cache impacts. The fourth patch shows how this can be done - at least, on Altix systems. It adds a driver for the Altix block transfer engine which can zero memory directly without the processor's involvement - at least, when relatively large chunks of memory are involved. Drivers for other hardware have not yet been posted, but it would not be surprising to see them begin to appear after the prezeroing code has been merged. And that could happen soon: Linus, having been convinced by Christoph's results, has requested that this set of patches be merged soon. So prezeroing could even find its way into the kernel prior to the 2.6.11 release. (Update: the __GFP_ZERO patch was merged just as LWN was being published).
Patches and updates Kernel trees
Core kernel code
Development tools
Device drivers
Filesystems and block I/O
Memory management
Networking
Architecture-specific
Security-related
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet Distributions News and Editorials Mandrakelinux 10.1 on AMD64Continuing with our review series of distributions for AMD64 processors, the next product we tested was the 64-bit edition of Mandrakelinux 10.1. Unlike the previous three distributions (see Debian on AMD64, Fedora Core 3 on AMD64 and Gentoo Linux on AMD64), Mandrakelinux 10.1 for X86-64 is not readily available for download, and even the Silver-level members of Mandrakeclub were only given access to the ISO images some 6 weeks after the official release on November 10th, 2004. That said, we noticed that, just before Christmas, the x86_64 directory on Mandrakelinux mirrors was populated with RPM packages together with a small installation ISO image, so rather than asking Mandrakesoft for a review copy, we opted for a network install instead. As always, the boxed edition of Mandrakelinux 10.1 for X86-64 is available from Mandrakestore ( €119.00).First, the system specifications: AMD64 3500+ processor (2.2GHz), K8N Neo2 (Socket939) mainboard from Micro-Star International, 2 GB of DDR SDRAM, 2 x 120 GB Maxtor hard disks, Plextor PX-712A DVD/CD rewritable drive, and NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600 graphics card. The monitor was a standard 19 inch LCD from Mozo International. We downloaded the 4.5 MB install.iso image from a mirror site. Although the ISO was in the /official/10.1/x86_64/ directory, it turned out to be just a generic installation image with no built-in specifications that would indicate its architectural affinity. After detecting and loading the correct network card module and confirming that DHCP should indeed be activated (other options included static IP and ADSL), the installer asked to specify the installation method (FTP, HTTP, NFS or hard disk). It continued with a request to type in a preferred FTP/HTTP server and a correct path to the install directory. Since the installer itself does not include a list of available mirrors, you need to look up the information before starting the installation. After the usual partitioning and package selection screens, the installer was ready to begin downloading and installing the new operating system. From this point on, the installation proceeded without much human interaction. As with previous three distributions, we chose a complete workstation with GNOME and KDE, as well as a handful of server applications. The local mirror delivered the packages at the maximum available connection speed which meant that the installation completed in less than two hours. After a few more screens helping to configure the boot loader, X server, security settings, adding users and specifying the root password, we were presented with an option to update the system with security and bug fix updates. And this is were we spotted the first bugs, or more precisely, some amusing geographical anomalies. This time, the installer did supply a list of available update servers, neatly arranged by countries in which the servers were located. However, only a dozen or so countries were on the list, while the remaining update servers, be they in Brazil, Hungary or Japan, were all listed under "United States"! The next geographical mishap happened on the survey page, where we decided to let Mandrakesoft have our hardware data. But when we got to the drop-down list from which to select our country of residence, we noticed that a number of big populous countries, such as China or Japan, were not listed at all, while Antarctica or Pitcairn (a tiny Pacific Ocean island of less than 50 inhabitants) did appear on the list. Since our country of residence wasn't listed, we pretended to be descendants of those famous mutineers on HMS Bounty and registered Pitcairn as our country of residence. Of course, these are no showstopper bugs, just something for the Mandrakelinux developers to polish before 10.2. However, worse was to come. The first surprise came after logging into KDE, which greeted us with a desktop background that proudly proclaimed "Mandrakelinux 10.1 Community". Community!? But we had pointed the installation sources at the "Official" directory, so how come we ended up with the Community edition? We rushed to check the "mandrakelinux-release" RPM file, which confirmed that what we installed was indeed the "Community" edition, despite it having been placed in the "Official" directory (the same RPM package in the official/i586 directory correctly indicated the "Official" status of the i586 branch). A quick question on the expert mailing list brought dead silence - a marked difference from our earlier experiences with the Debian mailing lists and Gentoo forums, where questions were answered and problems solved with much more enthusiasm. After coming to grips with the fact that nobody really knew what edition of Mandrakelinux we had installed, the next logical step was getting product updates. Based on experiences with Fedora, SUSE and other distributions, we expected to find a "Update" icon somewhere in the KDE system tray and we weren't disappointed; there it was - the "Mandrakelinux Updates Applet". A double-click brought up a dialog, which... well, before turning this experience into a long story, let's just say that, after having made the effort to configure the applet and register for an update account, we still weren't able to get any updates - that's because this is a paid service, only available to Silver-level members of Mandrakeclub. It would have been nice if the applet had informed us about this fact beforehand, but it wasn't the case. Surely, there is another way to get updates - through the good old Update module of the Mandrakelinux Control Center. Unfortunately, this turned out to be another frustrating experience - no matter how many times we tried to configure the update sources, the application kept displaying an error message claiming that it could not find any available mirrors, most likely, it said, because our installed architecture was not supported by Mandrakelinux updates. But upon examining several mirrors, the update directory for x86_64 was available and populated with RPM packages, so why the misleading message? And this is what we thought was possibly the biggest problem with today's Mandrakelinux - because of the distribution's increasingly commercial nature, we were often unable to determine whether a particular feature was disabled in order to make the user join a premium service, or whether it was deliberately crippled so that the user doesn't easily find a way around the club membership net. Either way, the experience was not pleasant. Of course, there is always a possibility that these were just bugs. But if that were the case, there were already too many of them, even before starting to use the distribution proper. Eventually we found a way to configure the application to get updates - by resorting to the command line and using the "urpmi.addmedia" command. Unfortunately, by that time we started having serious doubts about the quality of this distribution, where lack of attention to detail and various "joined the club" tricks seemed to be the order of the day. In a way, Mandrakelinux 10.1 started to resemble LindowsOS 4, which installed a bunch of flashing and rotating icons of various other Lindows products into the system tray, all screaming "buy, buy, buy". Not quite as bad, but close enough for discomfort. In all fairness, once we got through these early troubles, the distribution turned out to be a pleasant product. The hardware autodetection was flawless, the applications we tested behaved as expected, and Mandrakelinux Control Center is a friendly utility for most general configuration tasks. Like in Fedora Core, many 32-bit applications and libraries were installed on the system alongside the 64-bit ones - the 32-bit libraries (referred to as lib*) are in /lib, while the 64-bit libraries (referred to as lib64*) are in /lib64. On the download server, the two branches are stored in two separate directories - main and main32; the main directory lists a total of 3,875 packages, while the main32 directory lists 573 packages, including OpenOffice.org and MPlayer. Interestingly, the popular PLF site hosting third-party Mandrakelinux packages now has an x86_64 directory with over 100 RPM packages, including many multimedia applications and codecs which cannot be legally shipped with Mandrakelinux. Is Mandrakelinux 10.1 (X86-64) worth €119? As we did not test the commercial edition of the product, we cannot really answer the question, but the FTP edition has given us enough warning signs to put any recommendations on hold. Frankly, it is hard to see how Mandrakelinux will compete with other 64-bit distributions on the market, especially with the likes of Fedora, but also Debian or Gentoo, which are free of cost and available for download immediately after release (or continuously updated). Additionally, all three of them have more up-to-date packages (Mandrakelinux 10.1 ships with GNOME 2.6 and KDE 3.2.3), fewer bugs (especially when compared to Fedora Core 3), and more responsive mailing lists and user forums, actively monitored by the distributions' developers. Mandrakelinux 10.1 X86-64 is not a bad product, but it is marred by lack of polish and some unnecessary commercial tricks.
Distribution News Mandrakesoft to liven up the corporate Linux worldMandrakesoft has announced the availability of both Corporate Server and Corporate Desktop. These two Linux systems have received specific development efforts to make them "enterprise-ready". The two products feature longer development cycles and a 5-year maintenance span.
Debian GNU/Linux 3.0r4 releasedThe fourth maintenance update for Debian 3.0 ("woody") is out. This update consists almost exclusively of security fixes; click below for the full list of changes.
Debian GNU/LinuxWichert Akkerman reports that the arch and subversion repositories have been moved to the host. A few notable changes are listed in the announcement.Another Bug Squashing Party has been announced for January 7 - 9, 2005. "As there are currently a lot RC bugs with low complexity again there is clearly enough to do, even for people that are not experienced in that kind of work. And of course there should be always some people around in the IRC channel that are able to help, sponsor upload, etc."
Gentoo Apache packages refreshGentoo has announced that the Gentoo Apache Herd will release a refresh of all packages for the Apache httpd daemon and related modules on Saturday January 8, 2005. Click below for more information.
Ubuntu: Recent Community Council MeetingsSummaries and logs of both the December 7 and December 21 Community Council Meetings are available (click below). "The second meeting covered the creation of new country/region teams. People interested in starting or working within an official Ubuntu Country team should contact Matthias Urlichs [and optionally Mako]. You should especially consider doing this if you've been active in doing country or language specific work for Ubuntu and are interested into finding ways to integrate this work in the larger Ubuntu community."
PC Magazine Names Astaro Security Linux wins PC Magazine awardsAstaro Corporation has announced that Astaro Security Linux was named PC Magazine's Best Business Security Solution and Editors' Choice in the publication's year-end edition.
Linux Netwosix Bugzilla - Bugtracking SystemVincenzo Ciaglia provides some helpful suggestions for using the Linux Netwosix Bugzilla. Click below for additional information.
MandrakelinuxThree new urpmi sites for Mandrakelinux users are now available: www.urpmi-addmedia.org, www.linuxfordummies.org/addmedia and www.ianmacgregor.net/addmedia.A problem in udev existed where a user would not be able to use a firewire camera because the required device was never created. This update forces udev to pre-create the device allowing the use of firewire cameras. New packages are available for Mandrakelinux 10.1 and Mandrakelinux 10.1/X86_64.
Fedora Core updatesFedora Core 2 updates: rpm (fixes an issue with building packages containing dangling symlinks, introduced by a glibc glob() change), pcmcia-cs (fixes bug #135508, silencing a warning message on cardmgr startup).Fedora Core 3 updates: selinux-policy-targeted (fix for postgres startup scripts), pcmcia-cs (fixes bug #135508, silencing a warning message on cardmgr startup), mysql (work around SELinux restriction and other bug fixes).
Slackware LinuxA few packages have been updated this week in Slackware current. Upgraded packages include cvs, python, perl, libxml, and several others. See the slackware-current change log for complete details.
New Distributions HikarunixHikarunix is a Live Linux CD dedicated to Go. It's designed for Go players of all levels and it fits on a pocket-sized miniCD so it can go almost anywhere. Installation to a harddrive is also supported.
Whoppix 2.6 released - Now available for downloadWhiteHat Knoppix (WHoppix) is a knoppix 3.6 remaster designed to be a standalone penetration testing toolkit. Heavily modded by muts, WHoppix includes a full set of penetration testing tools and a huge repository of exploits (Framework 2.2, Packetstorm and Securityfocus exploit archives).
Distribution Newsletters Debian Weekly NewsThe December 28 Debian Weekly News is out; this week's topics include documenting transitional packages, the upcoming stable update, rewriting GFDL-licensed documentation, and more.
Debian Weekly News /2005/01/The Debian Weekly News for January 4, 2005 covers an announcement by Martin Michlmayr that Jörg Jaspert has been appointed as an additional Debian account manager, the stable point release, the new arch and subversion server, Mozilla trademark restrictions, the Debian Eyecatcher Project, the origin of the Debian swirl, and several other topics.
Gentoo Weekly NewsletterThe December 29 edition of the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter celebrates the second anniversary of the GWN. There is also a look at the major Gentoo Linux events of 2004.
Gentoo Weekly NewsletterThe Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for the week of January 3, 2005 is out. This edition looks at the last 1000 days on Gentoo forums, the website redesign mailing list, with an update on the Gentoo Documentation Project and more.
Ubuntu Traffic #14 -- 2004/11/27The Ubuntu Traffic #14 covers IRC and mailing list activity through November 27, 2004. Threads covered include Live CDs for PPC (And More!), Downgrading From Hoary, Ubuntu Merchandise, Documentation Team Update, More On Language Packs, Dropping Support For the Mozilla Suite, Encrypted Home Directories, Apt Authentication, Concerns With Sudo, Archive Layout, and Ubuntu Security Notifications.
Ubuntu Traffic #15The fifteenth issue of Ubuntu Traffic is out. This issue, still catching up with early December, looks at UTF-8 support, cooperation with the Debian Project, and several other topics.
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 81The DistroWatch Weekly for January 3, 2005 is out. "Happy New Year! You are reading the first issue of DistroWatch Weekly in 2005, in which we'll go back in history and reveal how DistroWatch started, then provide a few figures about visitors' interest over the past year, and introduce a handful of new distributions. Happy reading!"
Minor distribution updates cAoscAos has announced a pre-release of cAos Linux Core 2.0 for the IA-32 platform. "This release identifies the stabilization of the ABI in, and a feature freeze of, the core OS. Members of the community are invited to install and test this new distribution core."
FlashLinux 0.3.3 released (GnomeDesktop)GnomeDesktop reports the release of Flash Linux 0.3.3. There is a list of new features here.
Linux Business Alliance Releases LBA-Linux R2LBA-Linux R2 has been released. "The new version, LBA-Linux R2, offers many completely new features, including integrated office software and encrypted directories for each user. The R2 release also incorporates all security updates released since the first LBA-Linux distribution was published in May 2004."
Newsletters and articles of interest Interview: Debian Project Leader Martin Michlmayr (NewsForge)NewsForge talks with Martin Michlmayr. "In this interview, Martin Michlmayr, the Debian project leader, talks about Sarge, the next release of Debian GNU/Linux. One of the most significant improvements in Sarge over Woody, the last stable Debian release, is in the new user-friendly installer. Others include the addition of Apache 2.0.52, GNOME 2.8, KDE 3.2, and XFree86 4.3. Debian supports 11 hardware architectures. According to Michlmayr the system is very stable, and only some infrastructure issues need to be addressed before the release."
Knowing KnoppixIf you have been giving away Knoppix CDs to your friends you might want to also point them to this site. Knowing Knoppix, The first guide to Knoppix for the complete beginner. "Knoppix is an astoundingly clever product. It runs Linux completely from CD. There is no need to install. It bypasses all the software already installed on your PC or laptop. It automatically detects the hardware in your computer, such as video card, sound card, networking, the lot (subject to suitable hardware). When you've finished using Knoppix, simply restart. Your computer will return to your regular system, and it will behave as if nothing has happened. Knoppix is Free Software and open source under the terms of the GNU General Public Licence (GPL)."
Building a distro (NewsForge)Farrell J. McGovern writes about building a custom Linux distribution in this NewsForge article. "Most derivative distros are based upon Red Hat, Debian, or Slackware. Of them, Slackware is the oldest. I started using Slackware in 1993, and therefore I was very familiar with it. Slackware is easy to modify. The package system is simple to work with and build packages for. It has an unencumbered init script structure, and you can install software from source without worrying about breaking dependency databases. Plus, Slackware author Patrick Volkerding does a good job of keeping the even older versions of the software up-to-date with security revisions."
My workstation OS: My own (NewsForge)Here's another look at creating your own Linux distribution. "There are many advantages to compiling and configuring every piece of your system. First of all, you can enable specific optimizations and configurations for your platform and processor architecture. Secondly, you can unselect default features you don't want and select features you need that are not enabled by default. You can go one step further and search the Net for unofficial patches that add, modify, or correct some features. You can even make your own modifications to the source code of the applications. One joke some of my friends and I have is to hard code our names in place of the original name of an application, thus having a "MyName Web server" instead of an "Apache Web server," for example."
Distribution reviews SimplyMepis 2004.06 or: Gnome Guy Goes KDE (OS News)OSNews reviews SimplyMepis 2004.06 with KDE 3.2.3. "This review is kind of split: it is a review of SimplyMepis 2004.06, but it is also a look at a tested and proven implementation of KDE from a Gnome-user perspective. I am fully aware that SimplyMepis 2004.06 has KDE 3.2.3, an already outdated version of the KDE desktop. I still chose this distribution, mainly because I was interested in the small hype around Mepis Linux."
Xandros Desktop OS 3 Deluxe Edition (NewsForge)Joe Barr reviews Xandros Desktop OS 3 Deluxe Edition, on NewsForge. "The one word that pops up in my mind most often when I think of my experience with Xandros 3.0 Deluxe is elegance. Power and polish in harmony. It won't be the "just right" distro for some, but for a whole lot of others it just might be the one that leads them from the Land of Oppressive Proprietary Software to the Land of Linux and Freedom."
My workstation OS: Lycoris Desktop/LX (NewsForge)Nauman Munir Afzal explains why he likes Lycoris Desktop/LX, on NewsForge. "I have been trying out different Linux distros for quite some time now, in search of the perfect one. The biggest problem I found was the user-unfriendliness of Linux, not to mention the unfamiliarity, as I'm migrating from Windows. Lycoris's biggest plus is the user-friendliness and ease that it offers, and its similarity to Windows XP is another big advantage. Using Desktop/LX has been a great experience."
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol Development Gambas - a BASIC Development EnvironmentThe Gambas project (Gambas Almost Means BASic), is a BASIC language interpreter and development environment that was written by Benoît Minisini. The project was started in February of 2002, according to the change log. The code has been released under version 2 of the GNU General Public License.
I want to clear up any misunderstanding immediately. Gambas does not try to be compatible with Visual Basic, and will never be. I'm convinced that its syntax and internals are far better than the one's of its proprietary cousin ;-)
I took from Visual Basic what I found useful : the Basic language, the development environment, and the easiness to quickly make programs with user interfaces.
The Differences From VB document has a lot of information that is useful for VB developers who are interested in using Gambas. There is a Gambas visual introduction document which provides a nice tour of the project. The features section of the introduction explains the architecture of Gambas in more detail, and the FAQ document answers common questions and has some installation information. Version 1.0 of Gambas was released this week, quickly followed by version 1.0.1, which has fixes for a few newly discovered bugs. One piece at a time, open-source developers are building Linux equivalents of the various Windows desktop components, Gambas is well positioned to fill the Visual Basic slot. It should be useful for luring a few Windows users who like the 'cartoon programming' method of software development over to Linux.
System Applications Audio Projects Planet CCRMA ChangesThe latest changes from the Planet CCRMA audio utility packaging project include a bunch of new packages for Fedora Core 3, a small list of failed builds for Fedora Core 3 with a request for assistance, and more.
Database Software Firebird 1.5.2 is ReleasedVersion 1.5.2 of the Firebird database is out. See the release notes for change information.
PostgreSQL 8.0.0 Release Candidate 3 announcedRelease Candidate 3 of PostgreSQL 8.0.0 is available. "Baring *any* coding changes (documentation != code) over the next week or so, we *hope* that this will the final Release Candidate before Full Release, with that being aimed for the 15th (or earlier)."
PostgreSQL Weekly NewsThe December 28, 2004 edition of the PostgreSQL Weekly News is online with the latest PostgreSQL database information.
PostgreSQL Weekly NewsThe January 4, 2005 edition of the PostgreSQL Weekly News is available with the latest PostgreSQL database resources and events.
Libraries FreeImage 3.5.3 released (SourceForge)Version 3.5.3 of FreeImage, a library for supporting the PNG, BMP, JPEG, TIFF and other image formats, is available. "Release 3.5.3 is a maintenance release that is worth the try : the library has been updated with the new zlib (1.2.2), libpng (1.2.8) and libtiff (3.7.1) libraries. This means better performance and less bugs !"
liblrdf-0.4.0 releaseVersion 0.4.0 of liblrdf, lightweight RDF library with special support for LADSPA (audio effect) plugins, is out. Changes include SWIG support and better generic id creation.
Mail Software Bogofilter 0.93.3 releasedVersion 0.93.3 of Bogofilter, a spam filter, is out. "The 0.93.3 release of bogofilter brings with it two significant changes. First bogoutil now supports multiple options for working with the Berkeley DB database environment. "bogoutil --help" lists the following options:..."
Networking Tools Click 1.4.2 Modular Router is outVersion 1.4.2 of Click, a modular router, is available. "A Click router is an interconnected collection of modules called elements; elements control every aspect of the routers behavior, from communicating with devices to packet modification to queueing, dropping policies and packet scheduling. Individual elements can have surprisingly powerful behavior, and its easy to write new ones in C++. You write a router configuration by gluing elements together with a simple language."
Peer to Peer XBT Client 0.4.0 released (SourceForge)Version 0.4.0 of the XBT client is out with numerous changes and bug fixes. "This client is an implementation of the BitTorrent peer to peer file sharing protocol in C++. It's designed for low CPU- and RAM usage, an easy-to-use interface and high download speeds. Both Linux (source only) and Windows versions are available."
Printing Common UNIX Printing System 1.1.23Version 1.1.23 of CUPS has been announced. "CUPS 1.1.23 is a bug fix release which fixes two security vulnerabilities reported by Daniel J. Bernstein. The new release also contains other minor bug and documentation fixes that are not security related."
Web Site Development IRM 1.5.0 now available! (SourceForge)Version 1.5.0 of IRM has been announced. "IRM is a Web-based asset and problem tracking system built for IT departments and helpdesks. It keeps detailed information, both hardware and software, about each computer, as well as a complete history of all work requests ever placed. The IRM development team is proud to announce the release of IRM 1.5.0, the first release of a new line of development for IRM, both in terms of the code produced, the development process, and the frequency of releases."
MidCOM 2.0.0 releasedVersion 2.0.0 of MidCOM, the Midgard Components Framework, is out. "The Midgard Project has released the final stable version of the Midgard Components Framework 2.0, now based on the filesystem, not on the Database. Significant performance improvements come out of this."
mnoGoSearch 3.2.29 is availableVersion 3.2.29 of the mnoGoSearch web site search engine has been released. It features bug fixes and performance improvements. See the Change History document for details.
A Move Towards Unified Blogging (GnomeDesktop)GnomeDesktop mentions the release of Drivel 1.3.0, a LiveJournal blog posting tool. "This marks the first release with support for posting to Blogger and Movable Type journals, giving GNOME users an integrated tool for accessing both of these systems while maintaing the smooth interface, syntax highlighting, and spell-checking that LiveJournal users have enjoyed for months. As this is a development release, testing and bug reports would be very much appreciated."
Desktop Applications Audio Applications Ardour 0.9beta22 releasedVersion 0.9beta22 of Ardour, a multi-track audio recorder, is available. "With over a hundred notable new items, and only a handful of bug fixes between this and 0.99, this is a significant release of Ardour."
Ceres V0.41 and Snd-ls V0.9.1.5 are availableNew versions of Ceres and Snd-ls are out. Ceres is a sonogram display and sound effects application, Snd-ls is a sound editor.
Business Applications OpenPSA 1.10 releasedStable version 1.10 of OpenPSA has been announced, it features major improvements to all of the component modules. "OpenPSA is a free web-based package for managing consultancies and software companies. It includes project management, hour reporting, help desk, group calendar, document management and customer relationship management."
Data Visualization Grace-5.1.18 releasedVersion 5.1.18 of Grace, a WYSIWYG 2D plotting tool for the X Window System and M*tif, has been announced. The parser now supports concatenation of quoted strings and numerical expressions, and some bugs have been fixed.
Desktop Environments Dropline Gnome 2.8.2 Released! (GnomeDesktop)Dropline Gnome 2.8.2 has been announced. "After a long delay, an RC and a lot of bug squashing we are finally ready to put our names on this first official release of Dropline GNOME as a community project."
GNOME Software AnnouncementsThe following new GNOME software has been announced in the last two weeks:
KDE CVS-Digest (KDE.News)The December 24, 2004 edition of the KDE CVS-Digest is out with the following content summary: "Kexi has a new Reports module. KPDF adds a presentation mode. KJSEmbed adds KScript which allows applications to use Javascript as scripting language. Umbrello adds entity relationship diagrams."
KDE CVS-Digest (KDE.News)The December 31, 2004 edition of the KDE CVS-Digest is online, here's the content summary: "Krita implements pasting, layers and autogradient. media kioslave now handles cameras. KGeography adds more maps. Special year end retrospective of the KDE development effort."
KDE Software AnnouncementsThe following new KDE software has been announced in the last two weeks:
Xfce 4.2 Release Candidate 3 releasedRelease Candidate 3 of the Xfce lightweight desktop environment is out. "The third Release Candidate, which provides several bugfixes over the second Release Candidate, is a lightweight desktop environment with several features not found in the Xfce 4.0 series, including a brand new session manager, keyboard shortcut and desktop menu graphical editors, multihead support, "kiosk mode" support, a desktop menu plugin for the panel, CUPS and BSD-LPR printing support, and a new icon theme."
Electronics gEDA NewsThe latest releases from the gEDA project include new versions of gaf, Gerber Viewer, and some hardware projects that were built with the gEDA tools including The GNU Software Radio.
Open Collector ReleasesThe latest new electronics applications on Open Collector include FreePCB 0.943, I2C2P 20041227, Electric 8.01, and more.
Financial Applications SQL-Ledger 2.4.7 releasedVersion 2.4.7 of SQL-Ledger, a web-based accounting system, has been released. Changes include string formatting for transaction printing, bug fixes, and more.
Fonts and Images Open Clip Art Library 0.09 releasedVersion 0.99 of the Open Clip Art Library is available. "This version contains 3104 unique clip art submissions with an emphasis on the past holiday season."
Graphics Gnofract4D 2.5 releasedVersion 2.5 of Gnofract4D, a Python-based fractal image generator, is out. This version adds support for hypercomplex numbers.
Interoperability Wine TrafficIssues number 254 and number 255 of Wine Traffic are online with the latest Wine project happenings.
Music Applications BEAST/BSE v0.6.4 announcedVersion 0.6.4 of BEAST/BSE, the BEdevilled Audio SysTem and the Bedevilled Sound Engine music composition system, is out. "This new development series of BEAST comes with a lot of the internals redone, many new GUI features and a sound generation back-end separated from all GUI activities."
MusE 0.7.1pre2 has been releasedVersion 0.7.1pre2 of Muse, a MIDI and audio sequencer application, has been released. Changes include the inclusion of the new SimpleDrums 0.2 softsynth, bug fixes, and more.
Sfront 0.88 releasedVersion 0.88 of Sfront, a translator for converting MP4-SA files into C programs that generate audio, is out. "this release keeps sfront networking in sync with the IETF Internet-Drafts that define RTP MIDI (the RTP payload format for MIDI)."
Web Browsers Epiphany celebrates its second birthday! (GnomeDesktop)GnomeDesktop.org celebrates the second birthday of Epiphany. "We have set ambitious goals for the next stable release, Epiphany 1.6, that will coincide with GNOME 2.10. To whet your appetite a little: if all goes according to plan, the Bookmarks menu in 1.6 will be able to dynamically show topic submenus and subdivisions, based on the topics the bookmarks belong to. We are soliciting the help of interested coders, designers, documentation writers, bug triagers and translators from the community to help us get there. The 1.6 roadmap shows the plans and indicates their progress."
Miscellaneous Annoucing Pooter 3.1Version 3.1 of Pooter, a Personal Information Manager (PIM) is out. "As well as a continuation of the development of a cross platform version, the 3.1 release has additional versions for Gnu/Linux only. One uses the Simple Look and Feel Program (Slaf) to provide a choice that includes KDE and Gnome, the other uses the Charva windowing toolkit for a version that runs in a terminal emulator or even without XWindows."
Languages and Tools Caml Caml Weekly NewsThe December 28, 2004 edition of the Caml Weekly News is online with a new round of Caml language articles.
Caml Weekly NewsThe Caml Weekly News for December 28, 2004 through January 4, 2005 is online with a new summary of Caml language development activity.
Java ONJava 2004 in Review: Popular Articles (O'ReillyNet)O'Reilly has compiled a collection of popular articles from the ONJava site in 2004.
Towards Bug-Free Code (O'ReillyNet)Ashwin Jayaprakash discusses code debugging in Java 1.5. "Test-driven development sometimes sounds better than it turns out to be. Early decisions to tightly couple functional parts of your system can make it a lot less amenable to testing than it ought to be. As Ashwin Jayaprakash shows, J2SE 5.0's generics make working with abstract classes and interfaces easier than it used to be, which encourages loose coupling and facilitates testing."
The Hidden Gems of Jakarta Commons, Part 1 (O'ReillyNet)Timothy M. O'Brien explores Jakarta Commons in an O'Reilly article. "The Jakarta Commons has a wide-ranging collection of handy classes that can save you the trouble of reinventing the wheel yet again. In this new series, Tim O'Brien looks at some of the more overlooked parts of the Commons and what you can do with them."
Jini: Out of the Bottle and Into the Box (O'Reilly)Daniel H. Steinberg looks at Jini on O'Reilly. "This is not just another article championing a niche technology; it is a tempered rant on why Jini could be seen as central to the future health of Java. We can draw many lessons from the success of web services and from Apple's (soon to be renamed) Rendezvous technology, and we can find many opportunities on the desktop, in the enterprise, and on devices. Everywhere you see a JVM, picture a Jini-enabled device."
Lisp 2004 Lisp TimelineA 2004 Lisp Timeline has been assembled, take a look to see what progress was made in the Lisp arena over the past year.
SBCL 0.8.18 releasedVersion 0.8.18 of Steel Bank Common Lisp has been released. "This version features improvements to shared objects and FFI, support for Solaris 10, and several bug fixes."
CL-PPCRE 1.0.0 releasedVersion 1.0.0 of CL-PPCRE is available. "This version doesn't add new features, but recognizes that the system is stable enough for general usage. CL-PPCRE is a Perl-compatible, fast, portable regular expression library written in Common Lisp. The library also supports a sexp-based syntax for specifying regular expressions."
Perl This Fortnight in Perl 6 (O'Reilly)The December 7-20, 2004 edition of This Fortnight in Perl 6 is online with the latest Perl 6 news.
Building a 3D Engine in Perl, Part 2 (O'Reilly)Geoff Broadwell continues his series on building a 3D engine in Perl with part two. "This time, I'll discuss rotating and animating the view, SDL event and keyboard handling, and compensating for frame rate variations. As a bonus, I'll demonstrate some real-world refactoring, including a conversion from procedural to (weakly) object-oriented code."
PHP A Note on Security in PHPThe PHP site has a new note on PHP security that PHP users should read. "A recent Web Worm known as NeverEverSanity exposed a mistake in the input validation in the popular phpBB message board application. Their highlighting code didn't account for double-urlencoded input correctly. Without proper input validation of untrusted user data combined with any of the PHP calls that can execute code or write to the filesystem you create a potential security problem."
Python Kamaelia's Axon 1.0.1 releasedVersion 1.0.1 of Axon is out with new documentation. "Axon is a collection of pure python modules from the Kamaelia project which allow you to build concurrent systems in a compositional manner using communicating python generators. Components are python generators are augmented by inbox and outbox queues (lists) for communication in a CSP like fashion."
Dr. Dobb's Python-URL!The December 25, 2004 edition of Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! is online.
Dr. Dobb's Python-URL!The December 30, 2004 edition of Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! is out with the week's Python language news.
python-dev SummaryThe November 11-15, 2004 edition of the python-dev Summary is out with the summary of the python-dev mailing list traffic for that period.
Urwid 0.8.6 announcedVersion 0.8.6 of Urwid, the curses-based UI library for Python, is out. "This version of Urwid changes the default foreground and background for areas of the screen with no attributes. You may need to AttrWrap(..) some of your widgets for your program to look the same." See below for the full list of changes.
Scheme Better programming through effective list handling (IBM developerWorks)Jonathan Bartlett works with linked lists under Scheme in an IBM developerWorks article. "Singly linked lists are a powerful abstraction that allow programmers to represent numerous types of data; extending those lists to handle arbitrary data types can offer effective tools for processing data. In this article, we look at these processes and examine the Lisp variation Scheme, an easy-to-use list-oriented language that delivers list-manipulation capabilities without the complexities of C."
XML Amara XML Toolkit 0.9.1Version 0.9.1 of the Python-based Amara XML Toolkit is out with bug fixes and other improvements.
Mapping and Markup, Part 2 (O'Reilly)John E. Simpson continues his series on XML and GIS with part two. "In Part 1 of this "XML Tourist" feature, I discussed some basic ingredients of a Geographic Information System (GIS) and introduced you to an XML-based, web-delivered application for representing GIS data: the Geography Markup Language, or GML. This month, we'll delve deeper into GML itself--starting with a brief further look into what distinguishes a true GIS from other tools for rendering two- or three-dimensional spaces on a computer monitor."
XML Security: Manage identities more effectively with SPML (IBM developerWorks)Manish Verma explains SPML on IBM developerWorks. "Gain a basic understanding of what Service Provisioning Markup Language (SPML) is and how it works. After an explanation of SPML's role in the management of the identity lifecycle, this article guides you through an actual working SPML scenario, using OpenSPML. Along the way, the author explains the architecture and design of SPML. Ultimately, you learn to appreciate the usefulness of this technology, and are equipped to participate in the implementation of the standard."
Cross Assemblers gputils 0.13.0 ReleasedVersion 0.13.0 of gputils, a collection of tools for Microchip PIC microcontrollers, has been released. Here are the change notes: "Added many new processors. Added support for extended 18xx mode. Fixed many bugs."
Emulators Write emulator-friendly Linux code (IBM developerWorks)Peter Seebach writes code with emulation in mind. "Computers have been emulating other computers for a long time, often to access a legacy application or to use applications written for a popular OS on a system with a more stable, responsive OS. As Linux grows in popularity, developers need to examine their options when planning binaries that will run on non-Linux systems. This article examines what emulators do and looks at hardware and software emulation issues in detail."
IDEs KDevelop TechNotes Issue #4 (KDE.News)KDE.News has announced the availability of Issue #4 of the KDevelop TechNotes. "This issue describes code navigation in the KDevelop IDE. Read on to learn about the most effective ways to navigate your code with keyboard shortcuts, context menus and "Quick Open..." wizards. The article also gives some useful information about toolview management with keyboard and also describes code navigation features available only to C++ developers."
Graphical Scripting with Kommander (KDE.News)KDE.News mentions a tutorial on the Kommander IDE. ""Graphical Scripting with Kommander" takes us through the creation of a graphical interface for Konstruct, a tool for downloading, configuring and installing KDE from source packages. The article also lists some of the exciting developments coming to Kommander in the near future."There is also a new A Kommander crash course available online.
Page editor: Forrest Cook Linux in the news Recommended Reading Where Is Real-Time Linux? (TechNewsWorld)TechNewsWorld compares real time implementations in Linux. "Hard real-time Linux has been around for ages, or it may never appear. It all depends on who you talk to. It also depends on your requirements. A two-second interrupt latency may be acceptable for some applications, and even many Linux implementations can easily handle interrupts within tens of milliseconds."
Linux lasting longer against Net attacks (News.com)News.com looks at a report from the Honeynet Project that shows improvements in the ability of stock Linux distributions to resist attacks. "The data, from a dozen networks, showed that the average Linux system lasts three months before being compromised, a significant increase from the 72 hours life span of a Linux system in 2001. Unpatched Windows systems continue to be compromised more quickly, sometimes within minutes, the Honeynet Project report stated."
Linux and Open Source: The 2005 Generation (eWeek)Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols predicts good things for free software in 2005 in eWeek. "I even see Microsoft Office, perhaps the most bloated software suite ever, finally losing ground. That's because Sun's open-source OpenOffice.org 2.0 is looking very, very good. Not only does it have excellent Office file format compatibility, it's finally become a fast application. I've used OpenOffice for ages, but I've never warmed up to it. It's always been too darn slow. With this last pre-beta, though... woo! Look out Microsoft Office, OpenOffice means business."
The SCO Problem SCO Must Pay DC's Costs and Attys Fees If It Refiles (Groklaw)Groklaw discovered some details on the SCO/Daimler Chrysler case that were not mentioned in the recent SCO teleconference. "..the Order says that if ever SCO refiles against DaimlerChrysler for breach of contract regarding an alleged failure to timely certify, it has to pay DC's costs and attorneys' fees going back to August 9th, the date of the judge's order denying in part and granting in part DC's Motion for Summary Disposition."
Code sleuths (Boston.com)Boston.com has posted an article on the dangers of open source code. "Similar scenes are playing out at software firms and other businesses across the country, as engineers frantically search their files for something they hope not to find: open-source components. Their improper use, in the worst case scenario, could subject companies to costly litigation from parties like the SCO Group of Lindon, Utah." It's a low-clue article, but, alas, it may well scare some people.
Companies HP unveils plans for digital home invasion (News.com)News.com reports on HP's Linux-based "home media hub." "In addition to unveiling new hardware, HP is beginning to lay the groundwork for strategic participation in developing DRM technology through its alliance with Philips. Creating digital locks that pass muster with major music labels and Hollywood studios is widely considered a crucial step in the evolution of digital media to ensure artists and publishers get paid, barring more radical experiments such as compulsory licensing or hardware taxes."
Novell Joins SuSE Linux, Netware in Public Beta (eWeek)eWeek covers the first beta release of Novell's Open Enterprise Server. "Novell Inc. gave its NetWare and Linux users a Christmas present by releasing the first public beta of Novell Open Enterprise Server over the holiday weekend. OES is Novell's dual operating system, NetWare services platform. It can run on top of either SLES (SuSE Linux Enterprise Server) 9.2 or the NetWare 7.0 kernel or both. "We're not dropping NetWare; we are adding Linux," explained Jack Messman, Novell's chairman and CEO."
Red Hat pulls out a profit (News.com)News.com covers the latest financial report from Red Hat. "Linux seller Red Hat reported on Wednesday that its third-quarter net income jumped 155 percent year-over-year to $10.8 million as its software business matured. That income meant the company earned 6 cents per share for the fiscal third quarter ended Nov. 30, matching the average expectations of analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call. Red Hat also announced quarterly revenue of $50.9 million, an increase of 55 percent over the same period last year, but less than the $51.8 million analysts expected."
Business Open Source Wall StreetThe Decatur Jones Open Source Wall Street newsletter for January 3 is out; it's available in PDF format. "As Linux continues to gain market share, we expect to see Novell (NOVL: Outperform) and Red Hat (RHAT: Outperform) to stand out, Citrix (CTXS: Outperform) to grow steadily, and SCO Group (SCOX: Market perform) and Sun Microsystems (SUNW: Market perform) to stagnate or falter."
Linux Adoption Before the storm (O'ReillyNet)Jono Bacon begins a series of articles on open source advocacy, on O'ReillyNet. "In recent years, Open Source has become a relevant and strangely addictive force in IT. As the Internet age has dominated businesses and consumers with the same well oiled, yet clunky machine, Open Source has crept out of the dimly lit bedrooms occupied by toiling hackers and into the network rooms and 'enterprise centric strategies' of todays businesses. Open Source has not just become more acceptable, it has become more relevant."
Venezuela opts for Linux (ZDNet)ZDNet reports that the Venezuelan government will switch to Linux. "Over the next three months the Ministry of Science and Technology will prepare a plan of how all ministries will migrate to open source software, according to a report by online news service Venezuelanalysis.com. It reported that these plans will then be implemented over the following 24 months."
Legal Sprucing up open source's GPL foundation (ZDNet)ZDNet has posted a lengthy article speculating on future changes to the GPL. "The patent problems boil down to two issues. First, should the license explicitly require those who distribute GPL software to grant others unhindered use of whatever patented technology is involved in that software? And second, should there be some form of punishment for those who file lawsuits alleging that GPL software infringes their patents?"
Dutch govt ends exclusive MS upgrade talks (Register)The register covers a policy flip-flop by the Dutch government concerning software upgrades on its 260,000 Microsoft-based computers. "Despite a unanimous vote by the Dutch parliament in 2002 to adopt open standards and open source software, Microsoft recently opened exclusive negotiations with the Dutch government regarding a major software upgrade. After Dutch IT weekly newspaper Automatisering Gids leaked details about the 157m ($210m) deal, Dutch MPs demanded an explanation as to why there hadn't been a mandatory public bid."
Plugging the Knowledge Gaps on FOSS Licenses (Groklaw)Groklaw answers some recent attacks on free software licenses. "The bottom line is always the same: If you steal someone's code, there will be consequences. That's true for the GPL (if you distribute the code -- you are free always to use any GPL code in-house without any consequences at all), but it's not unique to it. If you steal Microsoft's code, there are consequences also. You do have to respect other people's intellectual property rights, as lawyers call them. That's true for all licensed code, including the GPL."
Interviews Freedom, Innovation, and Convenience: The RMS Interview (O'ReillyNet)O'ReillyNet has published a lengthy interview with Richard Stallman. "Porting free applications to nonfree operating systems is often useful. This allows users of those operating systems to try out using a few free programs and see that they can be good to use, that free software won't bite them. This can help people overcome worries about trying a free operating system such as GNU/Linux. Many users really do follow this path."
Interview with Richard Thieme (Linux Journal)Linux Journal interviews Richard Thieme. "In the field of information security, there are many useful occupations: firewall engineer, policy analyst, auditor and security architect all are popular choices. But what about information technology philosopher? There's plenty of value in describing the intersections between technology and the human experience, but I know of only one person who makes a living doing so--Richard Thieme."
Interview with PlaySMS project owner Anton Raharja (NewsForge)NewsForge looks at the PlaySMS Mobile Portal System project. "The PlaySMS Mobile Portal System project aims to have a major role in the mobile applications area. Anton Raharja, the Indonesian project owner of PlaySMS MPS, has linked up with open source developers in the Philippines, the "mobile messaging/SMS capital of the world." Over 10% of the total SMS messages processed in the world, averaging 200 million messages on any given day, come from the island nation. Many mobile applications are already in use in the Philippines before other countries start experimenting with them."
Understanding NetBSD 2.0's new technology (NewsForge)NewsForge talks with the NetBSD hackers about new features in the 2.0 release. "Scheduler activations are a mechanism invented by Thomas Anderson in a 1992 paper, which provides an interface between an operating system kernel and an application for maintaining a desired level of concurrency. In this system, the application informs the kernel how much concurrency it has, e.g. how many simultaneously computing threads it will use, and the kernel maintains a certain number of 'activations,' or scheduleable entities, on which the library layers application computation."
Resources An Invitation to SETL (Linux Journal)Linux Journal looks at SETL, a programming language modeled on set theory. "The aim of this article is not to offer a thorough discussion of SETL internals or a comparisons with other languages. Rather it intends to show the strong points of SETL by using elementary examples to convince you of how useful it can be in the right setting. For example, SETL appears to be one of the most suitable environments in which to make Set Theory calculations on a PC. As most problems may be formulated using the sets formalism, SETL is a good choice for all those times when compactness and elegance are more relevant than speed or memory consumption."
Clever Tricks with MythTV (O'ReillyNet)Here's an O'ReillyNet article on building a video recorder with MythTV. "The general advice is not to buy a TV card with its own remote. Apparently, this almost guarantees that you'll have difficulty making it work. The best way is to use an IRda keyboard and a programmable remote control that operates on a variety of frequencies. You train the remote from the keyboard, which will be useful also for web browsing or other activities you might consider later."
Cooking with Linux, Part 2 (O'ReillyNet)O'Reilly has published part two of the Cooking with Linux series. "In the second part of this two-part series, Carla Schroder, author of Linux Cookbook, offers two more recipes, including tips on running different window managers simultaneously with Xnest and hosting multiple domains with Apache."
Ten Tips for Building Your First High-Performance Cluster (O'ReillyNet)O'ReillyNet offers some advice to anybody considering building a Linux cluster. "Using the same hardware for each machine in the cluster will simplify installing and configuring your clusters, since you'll be able to use identical system images on each machine. It will simplify maintaining your cluster since, all of the systems have the same basic configuration. You'll need to stock fewer spare parts and will be able to swap systems in and out of your cluster as needed. But the really big savings will come when you program your cluster; you won't have to code for differences in performance among machines."
Migrating from x86 to PowerPC (developerWorks)developerWorks introduces a new series on embedded Linux systems on the PowerPC architecture. "In the process, I'll also provide sample implementations showing some general techniques of interest in networked embedded appliances. The end result will be that you'll turn a bare-bones networked storage appliance into something that could be the core of a simple autonomous vehicle controller, with basic actuator controls, sensors, and rudimentary machine vision capabilities. Because most people probably don't need to build robot submarines (as much as most of us would like to), this article also explains how to design and implement web-based administration interfaces and other topics of wider applicability."
Reviews FIC unveils Linux-based portable media player (LinuxDevices)LinuxDevices takes a look at a Linux-based portable media player from Taiwanese motherboard maker FIC. "The Vassili includes a built-in 20GB hard drive and large, 3.6-inch color LCD display. It also includes TV- and audio-out ports, a built-in speaker, a USB 2.0 device interface, a USB host interface, and a 10/100 Ethernet LAN port. An included docking station supports s-video."
Securing your workstation with Firestarter (NewsForge)Here's a NewsForge review of Firestarter. "Firestarter is a GPL-licensed graphical firewall configuration program for iptables, the powerful firewall included in Linux kernels 2.4 and 2.6. Firestarter supports network address translation for sharing an Internet connection among multiple computers, and port forwarding for redirecting traffic to an internal workstation. Firestarter's clean and easy to use graphical user interface takes the time out of setting up a custom firewall."
Useful Things You Can Do with FVWM (Linux Journal)Linux Journal examines some features of FVWM. "FVWM is a window manager used with the X Window System, which is the standard GUI for UNIX. This article explains a few useful things you can do with FVWM, including how to take screenshots conveniently, how to easily change a window's title and how to reconfigure easily a running FVWM instance."
Introduction to Inkscape 0.4 (NewsForge)NewsForge reviews Inkscape 0.4. "Inkscape 0.4 is considerably faster than its predecessors, and it seems to be a bit less memory-intensive. So far, this version has been more stable than the previous version. In all the time I have spent with this Inkscape 0.4, it has crashed only once, and that was while creating a new layer. It is certainly stable enough for regular use in a production environment, but users should save often just in case."
Using the Gyration Media Center Remote with Linux (Technocrat.net)Bruce Perens tries out the Gyration Media Center Remote with Linux, on Technocrat.net. "The Gyration Media Center Remote is a radio keyboard and mouse with 100-foot range. The mouse uses an accelerometer rather than a mouse wheel, and thus has the unique feature that you can make mouse gestures in the air. The mouse should be perfect for a public speaker who wants to move around during a speech, without giving up control of his laptop. It would also make a nifty remote for a Linux PVR user, since it has VCR controls and channel and volume buttons. But does it work with Linux?"
Miscellaneous Mozilla's Lightning to strike Outlook? (News.com)Microsoft Outlook may face some new competition from the Mozilla Lightning project, according to this article on News.com. "The new project, code-named Lightning, aims to integrate Mozilla's calendar application, Sunbird, with its recently released Thunderbird e-mail application. That integration is aimed right at the heart of Microsoft's widely used Outlook software."
The Linux Year (PCPro)PCPro takes a look at Linux in 2004 with a few predictions for 2005. " The year of the penguin, some people hailed 2004 at the turn of the year. And in many ways it was. Was it because the march on the server space continued at a relentless pace? Because there were big announcements around desktop installments? Because there was finally some realistic perspective about the threat from SCO, or the threat to Microsoft? However you look at it, the penguin's tux has never looked more pristine or ready for business. So here we'll take a stroll though the last 12 months that sharpened the creases and quickened the pace of the Linux-based platforms."
Looking back at 2004 (ars technica)The ars technica year-end edition looks back at a year of Linux, and offers various awards. "So much has been said about Ubuntu that it should be apparently that it's something special. By attempting to create a single distribution with a tweaked desktop, Project Utopia, and a multicultural approach, Ubuntu has come close to being the Holy Grail of Linux for many of us." LWN is their "online publication of the year." (Thanks to "TomS").
2005 outlook: Desktops to see Linux, search war and more spyware (Search Networking)SearchNetworking.com has a few predictions for 2005. "Two years ago, I said that Linux on the desktop was a nonstarter, but a lot has happened since then. The popular Firefox browser started the ball rolling in 2004. Now, in 2005, several vendors release desktop environments that mimic the Windows interface, establishing Linux as a low-cost alternative to Windows. The trend builds slowly, but the adoption of Linux as the desktop standard by a major U.S. government agency juices the trend. By year's end, Linux approaches 10% market share of new desktop operating system sales. Microsoft isn't exactly under siege, but the lights start burning late in Redmond."
Asian Linux distro is ahead of schedule (ZDNet UK)ZDNet UK reports that Asian software vendors are on track to release Asianux 2.0 by next July (originally not scheduled before September). "According to The Korea Herald, HaanSoft has said that by this summer it will have produced a distribution that is comparable to those of SuSE and Red Hat Linux. The newspaper also reported that the date of release was put forward because the Korean government is due to adopt a large high-school population database in the second half of 2005. This could be a "huge opportunity" to introduce open source, according to HaanSoft."
Page editor: Forrest Cook Announcements Non-Commercial announcements A New Linux Business ModelBenjamin Rossen calls for a discussion on a new Linux business model. "Advantages to this business model:(1) At present people contributing to the Open Source Movement and Free Software Foundation do their work for the love of it, or for intangibles such as kudos from the community of open source colleagues, but they cannot live from their efforts. This initiative should make if possible for people who write code to live from their work. In principle, it should be possible to divide the source of Bill Gates' billions among the people who are actually doing the creative work. By commoditizing the process, as we shall be doing (and as shall happen regardless of what we do), the billions may become mere hundreds of millions; but that that should be enough for us to live from."
The PSF has awarded three grantsThe Python Software Foundation has announced the award of three grants. Projects include Moving Jython Forward, Implementation of SNMPv3, and Software Engineering with Python for Scientists and Engineers.
FSFE Letter to the WHO Director GeneralThe Free Sofware Foundation, Europe has sent an open letter to Mr. Lee Jong-wook, Director General of the World Health Organization concerning software patents. "In fact: lawyers are generally in a better position to obtain software patents than the majority of programmers are. Each program consists of thousands of ideas -- each of them potentially subject to patent claims. Even though the European Patent Convention explicitly excludes software from being patented, so far 30,000 software patents have in fact already been granted in recent years."
Commercial announcements LPI announces IT Certification program for the Developing WorldThe Linux Professional Institute is collaborating with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and LinuxIT to provide Linux education and certification programs in the developing world. "The UNDP, together with LinuxIT, are supporting the creation of high-quality Linux courseware to be distributed freely under an open source license. Complementing this initiative, LPI is working with the UNDP to provide world-standard Linux skills certification at reduced cost in developing countries in South Asia."
NTT invests $3m in Linux company (ZDNet)ZDNet covers the investment of $3 Million by NTT DoCoMo in MontaVista Software. "Japanese mobile provider NTT DoCoMo has invested a $3m equity stake in Linux developer MontaVista Software. In a press statement, DoCoMo said it hoped the investment would allow it to improve its Linux products."
Sub300.com Pledges to Red Cross to Help Rebuild From Tsunami DamageSub300.com has announced that for the next ninety days half of all proceeds from the Linux Challenge Bundle (a two CD set with Linspire 4.5, OpenOffice.org and Firefox) will go to the Red Cross with the money earmarked for aid and relief of the victims of the tsunami.
Video of the November 24 SCO/DaimlerChrysler hearingSCOfacts.org has posted audio and video from the November 24 hearing in the SCO v. DaimlerChrysler case - the one where SCO was denied a stay in the case. It's available on the DaimlerChrysler update page. Al Petrofsky, proprieter of scofacts.org, tells us: "If nothing else, it's of interest to people who would like to see what a SCO lawyer losing an argument looks like."
New Books "Home Hacking Projects for Geeks" Released by O'ReillyO'Reilly has published the book Home Hacking Projects for Geeks by Eric Faulkner and Tony Northrup.
"Learning GNU Emacs, Third Edition" Released by O'ReillyO'Reilly has published the book Learning GNU Emacs, Third Edition by Debra Cameron, James Elliott, Marc Loy, Eric Raymond, and Bill Rosenblatt.
Prentice Hall publishes "Java Application Development on Linux"Prentice Hall PTR has published the book Java Application Development on Linux by Carl Albing and Michael Schwarz.
"Hacking a Terror Network: The Silent Threat of Covert Channels" Released by SyngressSyngress Publishing has published the book Hacking a Terror Network: The Silent Threat of Covert Channels by Matthew Devost.
Resources Linux Client Migration Cookbook (IBM)IBM has published a new Linux Client Migration Cookbook (in PDF format). "The goal of this IBM Redbook is to provide a technical planning reference for IT organizations large or small that are now considering a migration to Linux-based personal computers. For Linux, there is a tremendous amount of how to information available online that addresses specific and very technical operating system configuration issues, platform-specific installation methods, user interface customizations, etc. This book includes some technical how to as well, but the overall focus of the content in this book is to walk the reader through some of the important considerations and planning issues you could encounter during a migration project. Within the context of a pre-existing Microsoft Windows-based environment, we attempt to present a more holistic, end-to-end view of the technical challenges and methods necessary to complete a successful migration to Linux-based clients." Thanks to Steve Head.
The LDP Weekly NewsThe December 29, 2004 edition of the Linux Documentation Project Weekly News is available, take a look for the latest documentation updates.
The LDP Weekly NewsThe January 5, 2005 edition of the Linux Documentation Project Weekly News is out with the latest new documentation.
Linux Gazette #110The January 2005 edition of the Linux Gazette is out. Articles in this edition include; Free as in Freedom: Part One: GNU/Linux, by Adam Engel, ParallelKnoppix, by hameed, A Knight's Tour on OCaml (when a Python fails to digest it), by Kapil Hari Paranjape, Preparing For My Interviews Part 2: MySQL and Python, by Mark Nielsen, Flickr and Perl, by Jimmy O'Regan, Bash Shell and Beyond, by William Park, and more.
Contests and Awards Voting Opened for the 2004 LinuxQuestions.org Members Choice AwardsVoting is open for the 2004 LinuxQuestions.org Members Choice Awards. "Awards will be given out in 24 categories, including Distribution of the Year, Browser of the Year, Multimedia App of the Year, Office Suite of the Year and Security App of the Year. The polls will close on February 3rd and winners will be able to pick up their awards in Boston at the LinuxQuestions.org LinuxWorld Expo booth."
Upcoming Events The OSDL Enterprise Linux SummitOpen Source Development Labs (OSDL) has announced the companies that will be exhibiting at the OSDL Enterprise Linux Summit. "The Open Source Development Labs, a global consortium dedicated to accelerating the adoption of Linux in the enterprise, today announced the addition of AMD, CA and Red Hat, Inc., among others, to the lineup of exhibits at OSDL's Enterprise Linux Summit. Aduva, Barracuda Networks, Black Duck Software, DigitalGuru Computer Bookshops, Eclipse Foundation, Gelato, Levanta, Open Country, OverNite Software and RLX Technologies are also exhibiting. OSDL's Enterprise Linux Summit will take place January 31 - February 2, 2005 in Burlingame, CA."
Registrations open for linux.conf.au 2005Registrations for Linux.conf.au (Canberra, April 18 to 23) are now open. The list of speakers has also been posted; it looks like another great event.
linux.conf.au Audio Miniconf CFPA Linux Audio Miniconf will be held at the 2005 linux.conf.au in Canberra, Australia during April, 2005. Papers should be submitted by February 20.
LCA 2005 OpenOffice.org Miniconf - Call For ParticipationA call for participation has gone out for the first OpenOffice.org Miniconf, the event will be part of the LCA 2005 conference in Canberra, Australia on April 19-20, 2005. "Presentations will be given over the two days and will take on two major themes for the conference User and Community, and Development. Any topic is allowed based around OpenOffice.org, the cross-platform office productivity suite."
CFP: samba eXPerience 2005A call for papers has gone out for the fourth international SAMBA conference. The event will be held in Göttingen, Germany on May 2-4, 2005, papers should be in by March 14.
UK Python Conference 2005 CFPThe final call for papers has gone out for the 2005 UK Python Conference. The event will take place in Oxford, England on April 20-23, 2005. Papers are due by January 6.
PyCon 2005: Third Annual Python Developers ConferencePyCon 2005, the third annual Python developers' conference, will be held at George Washington University's Cafritz Conference Center in Washington DC on March 23-25, 2005. The keynote speaker will be Jim Hugunin, author of IronPython. IronPython is a new implementation of the Python programming language for the Microsoft .NET and open-source Mono platforms.
ICMC 2005 UpdateAn information update is available for the 2005 International Computer Music conference. The event will take place on September 5-9, 2005 in Barcelona, Spain.
YAPC::EU::2005 Call for Papers (use Perl)Use Perl has a Call for Papers for the YAPC::EU::2005 conference. The event will take place in Braga, Portugal from 31 August to 2 September, 2005.
Events: January 6 - March 3, 2005
Web sites New Sound and MIDI Software For Linux musingsDave Philips has updated his Linux audio musings column for November/December 2004. Read about the latest new Linux audio software releases, upcoming conferences, and more.
Page editor: Forrest Cook Letters to the editor Blessing and cursing
Good morning (well, it's morning here), Mr Weisman;
My open letter to Wlodzimierz Marcinski
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet
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![[OOo Impress screenshot]](/images/ns/impress-sm.jpg)
![[Gambas]](/images/ns/gambas.jpg)
The project aims to resemble, and improve upon, the capabilities of Microsoft's Visual Basic.
The Gambas