LWN.net Weekly Edition for October 31, 2002
Linux and the desktop
Last January, we made a number of predictions about what the year held for the Linux community. One of those read as follows:
Normally we don't say much about our past predictions, in the hope that our readers will forget them as soon as possible. We may not do any worse than those analyst groups that sell their predictions printed on heavy paper, but we still find ourselves embarrassed by the things we say at times. In this case, however, we just might have gotten it right.
The latest development on the Linux desktop front is SuSE's announcement of the "SuSE Linux Office Desktop," a new version of its distribution which is due out in January. This distribution is, of course, aimed at the desktop market; it features (relatively) easy administration, a full set of office productivity tools (based on StarOffice), and CrossOver Office for those proprietary applications that simply cannot be done without.
SuSE, of course, is not alone in its new emphasis on the desktop. Red Hat Linux 8.0 includes a reworked, friendlier desktop. Distributions like Lycoris and Xandros are aimed at desktop users; Mandrake Linux, of course, has always had this emphasis. There is a Debian Desktop Project out there. Linux systems can even be purchased at outlets like Wal-Mart. Not too long ago, even the strongest Linux advocates mostly agreed that Linux was only suited to server-oriented tasks. Now, more and more people think that Linux is ready for desktop tasks, and, perhaps more to the point, that there is money to be made in desktop Linux.
One might well wonder why desktop Linux is coming into its own now. There are several possible reasons:
- The set of free desktop applications is maturing. Tools like
OpenOffice, AbiWord, Gnumeric, Mozilla, Konqueror, etc. have reached a
point where they are good enough for most users. The feature lists
may still fall short of the proprietary competition in some cases, but
most of the truly important features are there.
- The Wine project, in the form of products like CrossOver Office,
has, after many years, reached a point where it can run the
proprietary applications desktop users rely on. The availability of
these applications makes the Linux desktop that much more valuable.
- The difficult economy and Microsoft's licensing schemes have made
companies more interested in ways of saving money.
- People are finally beginning to notice that Linux users don't
have to spend their time fighting the virus of the week.
- Linux has clearly survived the dotcom crash - a fact which still surprises many people. Fears that Linux will vanish like so many other highly-hyped technologies are fading away.
The theory of "disruptive technologies" states that a new technology does not have to be better than the one it replaces - at least, not in every way. It is enough to offer advantages, financial and otherwise, that are sufficiently compelling to get people to make a change. Linux (and free software in general) have a lot to offer in cost savings, security, rapid and open development, freedom from vendor lock-in, etc. Increasingly, Linux also has applications that perform widely useful functions, and which are becoming easier to use. Many of these applications are on their way toward becoming the best available, free or otherwise. We are, it seems, reaching that point where the balance begins to tip. This may truly be the beginning of the era of the free desktop.
We should not lose track of the fact that a great deal remains to be done before free desktops can truly achieve World Domination, however. Linux administration is getting easier, but remains difficult. Linux applications still lack features that many users want. A visit to any computer store will show that there is a whole range of applications that are still absent on Linux: where are the children's games, menu planners, language courses, tax return preparers, home remodel designers, and makeover assistants for Linux? When your Linux system will help you look like the Cosmo Girl, we'll know we have truly arrived. But that day will remain distant until Linux becomes a more friendly platform for proprietary applications.
It is also worth noting that development on the Linux kernel has emphasized performance on very large systems just as it looks like the Linux desktop is going to take off. Performance on smaller systems is supposed to be addressed during the stabilization period. Testing by desktop users will be an important part of that process; as more people test out the development kernel in the coming months, it becomes increasingly likely that the next stable kernel release will meet the needs of desktop users.
The true triumph of the free desktop is still probably some years away. A great deal of hard work remains to be done. But the results of years of effort by thousands of developers determined to improve the Linux desktop experience are beginning to be felt in a serious way. It is going to be fun to watch where things go from here.
Study: free software in the U.S. Department of Defense
The MITRE corporation has just released the results of a study it performed on the use of free and open source software (which it calls "FOSS") within the U.S. Department of Defense. It is an interesting look at how the DoD uses free software, and what would happen if an anti-free-software policy were to be adopted. The full study is available as a 160-page PDF file; here you'll find a rather shorter summary of what it says.The question that this study was meant to answer seems to be "should the military ban the use of free software?" The conclusion they came to is clear:
Looking at one area in particular, the report continues:
The report looks at free software licenses in considerable detail in a
deliberate attempt to address a number of institutional fears about those
licenses. Worries about licensing, say the authors, have led to a
suboptimal level of free software usage. It is a reasonably
straightforward and accurate study; for added fun, they look at the EULA
for Microsoft's "Mobile Internet Toolkit" and compare its terms with those
of free licenses. "However, unlike the Microsoft MIT EULA, the GPL
places no constraints on software simply running on the same system, and
actually goes out of its way not to intrude on other licenses outside of
that context.
"
The report includes a survey of how free software is used within the DoD now. They break that usage down into four categories:
- Infrastructure, using tools like sendmail and apache.
- Software development, especially with gcc and Perl.
- Security, including intrusion detection systems, security
analysis tools (i.e. SARA and Snort), and secured operating systems
like OpenBSD. "
Yet another important way in which FOSS contributes to security is by making it possible to change and fix security holes quickly in the face of new modes of cyberattack. This ability, which allows rapid response to new or innovative forms of cyberattack, is intrinsic to the FOSS approach and generally impractical in closed source products.
" - Research, which benefits from Linux clusters and the general culture of free software.
The report authors looked at costs, of course:
They note one other important factor regarding free software and costs:
The report concludes with three recommendations that, they say, would help the DoD make optimal use of free software. They are:
- Create a "generally recognized as safe" list of free software. 115
free applications found by the survey would be the starting point for
this list. Suggested "applications" include, however, Linux, OpenBSD,
NetBSD, and FreeBSD, so this list would be pretty general.
- Develop generic infrastructure, development, security, and research
policies. These policies would promote the use of free software in
situations where it is deemed appropriate.
- Encourage use of FOSS to promote product diversity.
"
Acquisition diversity reduces the cost and security risks of being fully dependent no a single software product, while architectural diversity lowers the risk of catastrophic cyber attacks based on automated exploitation of specific features for flaws of very widely deployed products
".
Finally, a set of appendices provides lists of free software applications in use within the DoD, and the full text of a large number of free software licenses.
If the DoD was seriously considering banning free software, one can only hope that this report will put an end to such thoughts. Through a great deal of detailed research, the report's authors have demonstrated that the Department of Defense is already heavily dependent on free software, and would be badly hurt if use such software were forbidden. Increasingly, free software is crucial part of the systems we all use, and that, of course, is a good thing.
LWN meta-news
It's time for our weekly report to our readers. Read on for the latest subscription counts and a few bits of site news.As of this writing, we are getting close to 2200 subscribers. That still leaves us far short of our medium-term goal of 4000. Things are headed in the right direction, however; with continued support from our readers, we hope that we will get to where we need to be before too long.
We are also encouraged by a small increase in the rate of corporate subscriptions. They still fall short of our hopes, but there are signs that the bureaucratic wheels are beginning to turn. If you work for a company that could benefit from a subscription, please consider talking to them about setting one up.
This week we were also able to announce a group subscription for the Debian project, which has been funded by HP. Debian developers are encouraged to read the announcement for information on how to get access to this subscription.
For those of you who have been requesting the ability to pay with American Express: we have finally managed to get that set up. Progress on setting up a Euro-zone bank account has been slower; it looks like that will not be a viable option anytime soon. The best approach for accepting funds from Europeans without credit cards may turn out to be to simply have those people send us checks. We're still working on that one, though.
There has been a small stream of requests for a stable URL for the latest free version of the Weekly Edition. That has now been implemented; the current free weekly can be found at:
- http://lwn.net/free/
- http://lwn.net/free/bigpage (the "one big page" format).
Of course, lwn.net/current continues to refer to the most recent (subscription) Weekly Edition.
We have been having some trouble with sites blocking mail from the LWN server (things like the various LWN mailing lists and subscription notices). That mail originates from our production server, which is donated to us by Rackspace. Some people, evidently, have received a lot of spam from Rackspace-hosted systems, and have simply blocked the entire Rackspace network. Rackspace tells us that they shut down spammers as soon as they know of them, but it's an ongoing battle. Meanwhile, we are looking into other ways of generating and routing mail so that this problem, hopefully, will be behind us soon.
For those of you making your holiday shopping lists: LWN gift certificates will be available shortly. The work is mostly done, but won't be completed at this point until after the weekly publication cycle. Stay tuned for the announcement.
That is the LWN news for this week. Thanks, as always, for your support.
No letters to the editor
For the second week in a row, we have no "letters to the editor" page, since nobody sent us any letters. The reduction in readership caused by the subscription gate probably has a lot to do with that. Still, we would like to hear from you; if you have comments you would like to see published, please feel free to send them to letters@lwn.net.
Security
Brief items
Protecting the domain name system
Worth a read: this article by ICANN board member Karl Auerbach on how to protect the domain name system against denial of service attacks. Mr, Auerbach's fundamental point is simple: the DNS is a uniquely vulnerable component of the Internet because it is centralized. The net as a whole has no center, but the DNS depends heavily on its root servers. Most of the suggestions for improving the security of DNS thus involve spreading things out, and making them diverse and redundant.The suggestions are:
- Make copies of the root DNS zone files available, and disperse them
everywhere.
- Create multiple roots for the DNS system.
- Create an early warning system which raises the alarm when it detects
the beginning of a denial of service attack.
- Create a set of canned router filters which can be quickly applied to
protect the root DNS servers in case of an attack.
- Have a plan for moving a root server elsewhere on the Internet should
that server come under attack.
- Create alternative DNS server software, so that not everybody is running bind.
All of these suggestions make sense, of course, in many contexts other than the domain name system. It is important to replicate crucial data, spread your vital resources out, have fallback plans, and to have a diverse software base. We will see whether these ideas are actually heard by the DNS Powers That Be, however.
New vulnerabilities
inn: format string and insecure open vulnerabilities
| Package(s): | inn | CVE #(s): | |||||
| Created: | October 31, 2002 | Updated: | October 31, 2002 | ||||
| Description: | There are several format string coding bugs as well as unsecure open() calls in the inn program. | ||||||
| Alerts: |
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krb5: Buffer Overflow in Kerberos Administration Daemon
| Package(s): | krb5, heimdal | CVE #(s): | CAN-2002-1235 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Created: | October 29, 2002 | Updated: | January 14, 2003 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Description: | CERT Advisory CA-2002-29 Buffer Overflow in Kerberos Administration Daemon
Systems Affected
Overview Multiple Kerberos distributions contain a remotely exploitable buffer overflow in the Kerberos administration daemon. A remote attacker could exploit this vulnerability to gain root privileges on a vulnerable system. The CERT/CC has received reports that indicate that this vulnerability is being exploited. In addition, MIT advisory MITKRB5-SA-2002-002 notes that an exploit is circulating. We strongly encourage sites that use vulnerable Kerberos distributions to verify the integrity of their systems and apply patches or upgrade as appropriate. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Alerts: |
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zope: Insecure XML-RPC exception handling
| Package(s): | zope | CVE #(s): | |||||
| Created: | October 31, 2002 | Updated: | October 31, 2002 | ||||
| Description: | Zope will reveal the complete physical
location where the server and its components are installed if it receives
"incorrect" XML-RPC requests. In some cases it will also reveal information about the serves in the protected LAN (10.x.x.x for example). More information is available at: http://collector.zope.org/Zope/359 | ||||||
| Alerts: |
| ||||||
Resources
Securing the cloud (Economist)
The Economist has run a lengthy survey on digital security. "A final, minor, misperception is that computer security is terribly boring. In fact, it turns out to be one of the more interesting aspects of the technology industry. The war stories told by security consultants and computer-crime specialists are far more riveting than discussion of the pros and cons of customer-relationship management systems. So there really is no excuse for avoiding the subject."
Linux Security Week and Advisory Watch
The October 28 Linux Security Week and October 25 Linux Advisory Watch from LinuxSecurity.com are available.
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet
Kernel development
Brief items
Kernel release status
The current development kernel is 2.5.45, announced by Linus on October 30, just in time to make your editor go back and rewrite this section. Linus has been busy, having merged over 500 patches since returning from his Caribbean cruise. The most significant changes include another set of block layer fixes, an ia-64 update, many fixes from the -ac series, the device mapper (LVM2) code, the new cryptographic API (see below), the beginnings of an IPSec implementation, an ISDN update, Roman Zippel's new kernel configuration system, the sys_epoll patch (see below), much device model work, and many other fixes and updates. The long-format changelog is longer than usual, and has all the details.There are many open issues, still, that need to be resolved before the feature freeze. For varying perspectives on what remains to be merged, see Guillaume Boissiere's 2.5 status summary for October 30, Rob Landley's merge candidate list, or Rusty Russell's Remarkably Unreliable 2.6 list.
For a view of what's in the kernel now, see Dave Jones's post-Halloween document which serves as a sort of preliminary release notes for people interested in testing the new kernel.
The current stable kernel is still 2.4.19, but the next stable release got a little closer with the announcement of the first 2.4.20 release candidate on October 29..
Kernel development news
The 2.5 kernel gets crypto
One of the first things Linus merged once he got back home was the brand new cryptographic API written by James Morris, David S. Miller, and Jean-François Dive, with ideas and code taken from many other places. This patch is interesting for a couple of reasons: it is a brand-new, previously unseen kernel crypto implementation, and it is the first time that serious cryptographic code has been included in the mainline kernel tree. With luck, worldwide crypto regulations will remain sane enough that this code can stay there.This API's purpose is to provide fast, general-purpose cryptographic operations for the rest of the kernel. The driving need in the short term is IPSec (which has also been partially merged), but other applications, such as cryptographic filesystems, can also make use of this facility. Needless to say, use in the networking and filesystem layers places some strong performance demands on the cryptographic layer.
The new crypto API is based on the scatterlist structure, which is used in many other parts of the I/O subsystem. Scatterlists give direct access to the page structures describing the memory to be operated on, below the level of the virtual memory system. Among other things, this architecture means that data can be encrypted or decrypted "in place" in the buffers that are used for I/O operations. It should, in other words, be fast (if the crypto algorithms themselves are fast).
Three basic types of "transforms" are supported by this API: ciphers, digests, and compressors. The kernel currently has implementations for DES (including triple DES), MD4, MD5, and SHA. See Documentation/crypto/api-intro.txt for a quick overview of how this API works.
(As a postscript: a few people have asked if this API would be made available to user space. It would not be hard to write a system call or pseudo-device which would export this functionality, but it is hard to imagine why that would be useful. It would be better just to run the crypto algorithms in user space directly).
Reiser4 - the mammoth arrives
One of the remaining issues to be resolved before the Halloween feature freeze is whether the Reiser4 filesystem will be included in the 2.5 kernel. This has been a hard question to answer, however, given that almost nobody had actually seen the Reiser4 source. That situation, at least, has come to an end with the announcement of the first public Reiser4 snapshot.Reiser4 is the latest incarnation of the ReiserFS filesystem. It is not simply an upgrade; Reiser4 has been redesigned and reimplemented from the beginning. It is a completely different filesystem than the ReiserFS (also known as "Reiser3") found in the 2.4 kernel; should it be included, the next stable kernel will contain both Reiser3 and Reiser4, as separate options.
There is a fair amount of online information available on Reiser4, though some of it makes for a bit of a challenging read. This lengthy document provides discussion in depth of many of the Reiser4 features (not all of which are implemented yet), along with an explanation of Hans Reiser's long-term vision for filesystems, a polemic on free software, and some of the weirdest imagery to be found in software documentation anywhere. The document entitled The Infrastructure for Security Attributes in Reiser4 is actually a relatively straightforward discussion of many of the technical details behind the Reiser4 design, and might be a better starting point.
For those wanting a shorter summary, here's a few of the features to be found in Reiser4:
- The filesystem maintains many of the basic features of Reiser3 -
it is based on (mostly) balanced trees, with file data incorporated in
the tree along with names. Reiser4 thus remains well suited to the
handling of large numbers of very small files.
- It is smarter about block allocation and data placement. Block
allocation is delayed until file data is actually written to disk,
leading to more efficient layouts. On-disk layout is done with
extents. The result of these optimizations is that the filesystem's
read performance is greatly improved over Reiser3.
- "Wandering logfiles" take some techniques from log-structured
filesystems to provide journaling without (always) writing data to the
disk twice. In many cases, Reiser4 can write "journal" data to a disk
block, then atomically swap the journal block into the file itself.
The journaling code can overwrite or replace blocks, depending on
which technique would provide better layout on the disk.
- Most filesystem semantics are implemented with plugins. The normal
Unix directory behavior, for example, is implemented with the "Unix
directory plugin." Plugins can be used to implement security features
(access control lists and such), encryption, maintenance of audit
trails, and no end of strange, non-POSIX
semantics. Hans Reiser remains determined to implement a lot of
interesting features in his filesystem, and plugins are the mechanism
by which those features will be included.
- Reiser4 is heavily transaction-oriented, and is able to provide
guarantees that operations will be performed atomically. Future plans
call for the ability to perform multi-file operations in an atomic
manner.
- The Reiser4 design includes a reiser4() system call
"
to support applications that don't have to be fooled into thinking that they are using POSIX.
" This system call will accept (and parse) command strings that can describe complex operations. The reiser4() system call is not implemented in the current snapshot.
As an example of the sort of uses that the Reiser4 developers eventually would like to see, consider the classic Unix password file. Each line in the file describes one account, and contains several colon-separated fields with information like the account name, user and group IDs, the user's home directory and shell, etc. In Reiser4, each field in the password file would become a file in its own right; one could obtain the home directory of a given user via a path like:
/etc/passwd/user/home
A special-purpose plugin would aggregate the various files, so that a process reading /etc/passwd would see the same information as always. But each field file could be protected differently; a user could have write access to the file describing his or full name, but not to the one containing the user ID value.
In the Reiser4 vision, file attributes would also be stored as files. For a given file, something like file/owner would contain the UID of the user who owns that file.
Needless to say, in the long-term Reiser vision, Linux systems will behave rather differently than they do now. In the shorter term, Reiser4 promises a high-performance journaling filesystem with highly efficient handling of small files and a plugin architecture which encourages experiments with interesting new semantics.
Will it be merged? The Reiser4 team plans to submit a patch for merging at the last second, sometime before midnight on Halloween. Some developers have argued that it is too late to propose a major new feature that nobody has had a chance to look at. Hans feels this is inappropriate:
Linus has not offered any public opinions on the matter. The Reiser4 patch is apparently unintrusive, however, so there is probably no real reason not to include it.
sys_epoll - making poll fast
The classic Unix way to wait for I/O events on multiple file descriptors is with the select() and poll() system calls. When a process invokes one of those calls, the kernel goes through the list of interesting file descriptors, checks to see if non-blocking I/O is available on any of them, and adds the calling process to a wait queue for each file descriptor that would block. This implementation works reasonably well when the number of file descriptors is small. But if a process is managing thousands of file descriptors, the select() and poll() calls must check every single one of them, and add the calling process to thousands of wait queues. For every single call. Needless to say, this approach does not scale very well.Davide Libenzi and others have been working for some time on a new approach to polling that would work for thousands of files. It was originally implemented as a special device (/dev/epoll), but, on request from Linus, the new scheme was turned into a new set of epoll() system calls. These calls work in a very different way. Every call to select() or poll() is a separate event; the data structures must be set up and torn down every time. epoll, instead, requires the application to build a persistent (across calls) data structure in kernel space first. The application starts by creating a special epoll file descriptor:
epfd = epoll_create(int maxfds);
The maxfds parameter is the maximum number of file descriptors that the process expects to manage. The return value is a file descriptor to be used with the other epoll calls; it should be shut down with close() when it is no longer needed.
Each file descriptor to be managed must be added to the special epoll descriptor with:
int epoll_ctl(int epfd, int op, int fd, unsigned int events);
The op parameter specifies the operation to be performed (add, change, or remove the given file descriptor fd), and events is a mask of events of interest to the process.
Once everything has been set up, the process can sit back and wait until there is something for it to do:
int epoll_wait(int epfd, struct pollfd const **events, int timeout);
The return value is the number of events (i.e. readable or writeable file descriptors) that epoll_wait() has found.
These system calls have been shown, through heavy benchmarking, to scale in constant time up to unbelievable numbers of file descriptors (some graphs can be found on this page). The persistent data structure built around the epoll file descriptor is one of the reasons for this scalability: there is no need to set it up and tear it down for every epoll_wait() call. The other half of the story is in how epoll_wait() finds the readable or writeable file descriptors. Rather than polling each file descriptor (and adding itself to wait queues), the epoll mechanism adds a callback structure onto the struct file associated with each file descriptor. When a file descriptor becomes readable or writeable, its callback(s) are called, and processes using epoll_wait() can be notified directly. So an epoll_wait() call never needs to make a pass over the list of file descriptors it is watching.
The epoll patch is ready, and Linus has indicated that he wants to merge it. For now, epoll only works for pipes and sockets (its initial use is likely to be network services that manage large numbers of connections). Expanding its scope to other types of I/O should just be a matter of doing the work, however.
Patches and updates
Kernel trees
Architecture-specific
Build system
Core kernel code
Development tools
Device drivers
Filesystems and block I/O
Janitorial
Memory management
Networking
Security-related
Benchmarks and bugs
Miscellaneous
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet
Distributions
News and Editorials
Clusters: Mandrake's CLIC and openMosix
Linux clusters may be one area in which Linux has already achieved World Domination. Clusters running some variant of the Linux operating system are in use at universities, large corporations and research centers worldwide. There are systems made with older hardware, some mix a variety of operating systems and processors in the cluster, but when a special version of the Linux operating system is combined with a set of rack-mounted high-end boxes, Linux clusters are among the fastest and most powerful supercomputers in the world. Clusters present unique challenges for an operating system. Good cluster distributions make it easy to get a large number of boxes up and running, and they make it easy to keep them up-to-date with the latest security and bug fixes. They have kernel patches and other software that enables them to best utilize CPU time. Right now there are several Linux distributors that do this very well, however World Domination requires constant work to maintain. Competition in this arena can only strengthen an already strong product, and keep Linux on top.Enter MandrakeSoft, who along with partners Bull and INPG/INRIA, has announced the first release of a new Linux Clustering Distribution named "CLIC", a project publicly funded by the French Agency for New Technologies (RNTL). The first CLIC version features rapid deployment, auto-configuration, MPICH, LAM and PVM support, a large number of mathematical libraries, and Netjuggler (a parallelized virtual reality 3D engine). Given the desktop success of Mandrake Linux, we can well imagine that CLIC is easy to use and maintain. CLIC is published under the General Public License (GPL). Users can download the first ISO here.
Also working to keep Linux ahead in clustering is the openMosix Project which has announced the release of openMosix version 2.4.19-6. openMosix is a Linux kernel extension for single-system image clustering, available under the terms of the GPL.
Distribution News
Debian Weekly News - October 29th, 2002
This week's DWN includes items by Matt Black and Andre Lehovich; an IndustryWeek report on corporate Linux are adoption; a very verbose installation walkthrough by Clinton De Young and much more.Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter - Issue #65
Here is the Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter for October 24, 2002. "This Week's Summary: Upcoming Frankfurt LinuxWorld Expo; Mandrake in the News; The Latest MandrakeClub Activities; Financial Corner; Linux Training; Desktop Fun; New Russian Mailing List; Software Updates; Headlines from MandrakeForum"
Slackware Linux
Slackware has a few more updates this week, including some tweaks to gcc. See the change log for full details.SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop to launch in January
SuSE has sent out a press release on its upcoming "SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop" offering. It is a new version of the SuSE distribution which is intended to coexist well with Microsoft installations and offer easy administration. It's based on StarOffice for productivity applications, but CrossOver Office is also thrown in so that Windows applications can be run. The whole thing should become available in January at a price of EUR 139.SuSE: Supported Distributions
With the release of the SuSE Linux 8.1 i386 ftp version, SuSE has announced that the SuSE Linux 7.0 distribution will be discontinued. Vulnerabilities found after Monday, November 4 2002, will not be fixed for SuSE Linux 7.0 any more. If you are still running versions 7.0 or earlier it is time for an upgrade.
Minor distribution updates
BanShee Linux/R
BanShee Linux/R has released v0.61 with major bugfixes. "Changes: In this release, E3 was upgraded to 2.4 and BusyBox was upgraded to 0.60.5, which fixes many problems."
Cool Linux CD
Cool Linux CD has released v2.00. "Changes: The boot procedure has been changed to be more compatible with some hardware. Some problems have been fixed, and a lot of software has been added."
Familiar Linux Distribution
The Familiar Project has a major new release of its iPAQ distribution. Version 0.6 has many improvements. Busybox was added to decrease the size, make it smaller, ipkg was upgraded, the GPE login manager now allows non-root logins and much more. Here's the v0.6 Freshmeat link.LEAF (Linux Embedded Appliance Firewall) Bering
LEAF Bering has released v1.0rc4. "Changes: This should be the final rc version before 1.0 stable is out. It includes a lot of minor bugfixes, an update to Shorewall 1.3.9b firewall, and major extensions to the documentation (both the installation and the user's guide)."
Lonix
Lonix has released v1.0rc5. "Changes: Ncftp, lftp, compression tools, and network utilities were added. The system translation to English is now complete. Small problems with sendmail and proftpd were fixed. Lonixconfig was recoded to make it cleaner."
NSA Security Enhanced Linux
NSA Security Enhanced Linux has released v2002102211. "Changes: The base 2.5 kernel version has been updated to 2.5.44. The base 2.4 kernel version remains at 2.4.19, but many changes have been made to the 2.4 LSM patch and to the 2.4 SELinux module since the last release. The modified login, sshd, and crond programs have been updated to use a new configuration scheme. Socket handling has been improved. Internally, precondition functions have been removed in favor of early initialization support. The modified tar has been updated to tar-1.13.25. A number of other improvements, bugfixes, and policy enhancements have taken place."
PXES Linux Thin Client
PXES Linux Thin Client has released v0.5.1-6. "Changes: Mouse autodetection problems have been solved. lspci has been patched and included."
Sentry Firewall
Sentry Firewall has released v1.4.0-beta2. "Changes: This version includes several package and kernel updates. The howto has also been updated."
VectorLinux
VectorLinux has released v3.0. "Changes: The distribution has been rebuilt to be totally Slackware 8.1-compatible and mostly LSB-compliant. Glibc was updated to 2.2.5 and the kernel to 2.4.19. reiserfs was added as an install option. All the preinstalled software has been updated to the latest version. A clone of Debian's apt program called Autopkg was added that makes installing packages and keeping the system up-to-date a breeze. New instant messaging and CD burning tools were added. Installation has been improved with the novice Linux user in mind."
Warewulf
Warewulf has released v1.3. "Changes: This release adds many minor bugfixes, some enhancements, and support for the Sun Gridengine and Ganglia."
xbox-linux
xbox-linux has released v26-10-2002. "Changes: This release includes an audio driver update."
Distribution reviews
Review: Lycoris is Desktop Dream
ExtremeTech reviews Lycoris Desktop/LX. "I personally used Lycoris Desktop/LX, Amethyst Release, Update 1 on a regular basis between February and July. I was very happy with it, enough so that it got more use on my desktop than either Mandrake or Libranet, my two other personal favorites. But when Amethyst Release, Update 2 (Build 46) came out, I was even more impressed."
SuSE Linux 8.1 Professional (Linux Journal)
Linux Journal reviews SuSE Linux 8.1 Professional. "SuSE Linux 8.1 includes kernel 2.4.19 and gcc 3.2. The Powertweak program allows experienced Linux admins to modify kernel parameters to maximize performance."
SuSE 8.1 illustrates MS' fear (Register)
The Register reviews SuSE 8.1. "The user experience is so close to XP now that one can expect it to surpass it in the next edition or the one following. Now add to that Linux's resistance to viruses, the comparative speed with which open-source security bugs get fixed, the wealth of free applications included, and the GPL enlightenment that allows you to install it on as many machines as you please and upgrade it free of charge on your own, and you can see why MS is feeling the heat around the corner and not taking it terribly well."
Xandros Desktop 1.0: Another Winning Debian Distro (ExtremeTech)
ExtremeTech reviews Xandros Desktop 1.0. "Xandros is another debian based distro, geared toward the desktop and promising good Windows compatibility. Our initial impression of Xandros is very positive. It lives up to a lot of its potential, with a few drawbacks."
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol
Development
The Debian Desktop Project
The Debian Linux distribution has a new Debian Desktop Project, which was recently announced by Colin Walters. The project's aim is well stated: "Our motto is 'Software which Just Works'. In short, our goal is to bring Debian, GNU, and Linux to the mainstream world."
The list of project goals includes:
- Support for both the GNOME and KDE desktop environments.
- Keeping the needs of both novice and expert users in mind.
- Making configuration simple and foolproof.
- Focusing configuration options on standard desktop users.
- Integration of project management utilities into the standard Debian distribution.
- Simplification of installation questions with the non-technical user in mind.
- Having Fun.
- A menu rewrite project.
- Integration of KDE 3.
- Improvement of the Debian installer.
- Integration of webmin and/or Ximian Setup Tools into the Debian core.
- Improvements to the ppp system.
- Work on X11 configurations.
- Work on USB implementation.
- Internationalization and multilingualization.
- A clean-up of debconf questions to simplify system installation.
- Creation of a desktop-optimized kernel.
- Work on the Debian TODO list.
- Building Debian themes for GNOME and KDE.
- Adding items to this list.
Perhaps a good goal for this project would be to morph Debian into something that your grandmother would be comfortable using, assuming your grandmother isn't a software developer. Hopefully the project will undergo frequent testing by people who are not especially computer literate, with the literati looking over their shoulders.
System Applications
Audio Projects
"Helix DNA Client" source released
Real Networks has announced the release of the source for its "Helix DNA Client" application. "For the first time ever, developers can easily access the code of a commercial grade media player, integrate support for the industry-leading audio and video formats, RealAudio and RealVideo, as well as other formats, and create a robust media player for their own specific needs".
ALSA 0.9.0rc5 available
The ALSA sound card driver project has released version 0.9.0rc5, which fixes a bug involving GCC 3.2.
Database Software
SapDB available via CVS
CVS access has been added for the SapDB database source code.The Phrasebook Design Pattern (O'Reilly)
Rani Pinchuk examines Perl/SQL database issues on O'Reilly's Perl.com: "if you look at the code above, you will see two languages: Perl and SQL. This makes the code not that readable. Besides, SQL statements that are only slightly different may appear in several places, and this will make it more difficult to maintain. In addition, suppose you have an SQL expert who should optimize your SQL calls. How do you let him work on the SQL; should he look through your Perl code for it? And what if that guy is so ignorant that he doesn't even know Perl?"
Education
Python Escapes Classroom (O'Reilly)
Stephen Figgins writes about the use of Python in education on O'Reilly's ONLamp.com site. "PyKarel is a Python implementation of Karel the Robot. Introduced in the 80's, Karel was intended to jump-start students in the Pascal programming language. A virtual robot moves about a maze, interacting with walls and beepers, performing programmed tasks. It has a Pascal-like structure, but only five commands: move, turn left, pick beeper, put beeper, turn off. There are 18 or so conditionals that are mostly repetitious "if facing north", or "if facing south." There are no variables. Karel's virtue is in being both visual and simple."
Electronics
gEDA development news
The latest developments from gEDA, the Gnu Electronic Design and Analysis project include new versions of Icarus Verilog, Covered, and GTKWave.
Embedded Systems
BusyBox 0.60.5 released
Version 0.60.5 of the BusyBox Embedded system tool set has been released. "This is a bugfix release for the stable series to address all the problems that have turned up since the last release. Unfortunately, the previous release had a few nasty bugs (i.e. init could deadlock, gunzip -c tried to delete source files, cp -a wouldn't copy symlinks, and init was not always providing controlling ttys when it should have)."
Mail Software
SquirrelMail, a Web-Based Mail Server (O'Reilly)
Glenn Graham investigates SquirrelMail, a web-based mail server, on O'Reilly's ONLamp.com site. "I started my search for a Webmail solution at Freshmeat. After sifting through over 65 programs, I stumbled across SquirrelMail. It didn't have fancy screenshots, but to my surprise, had everything I needed. It's easy to install, runs right out of the box, and my clients love it. What else could I ask for?"
Networking Tools
Softgineering Java tools
A group of Australian surfers (and coders), known as Softgineering.com have released a Java-based library called Sniffer that is used for network security and management tasks.
Printing
PostScript printer margins
LinuxPrinting.org has an article that shows how to work with the GhostScript align.ps file for setting printer dimensions and margins. "A problem brought up very often on the Forums of linuxprinting.org is that PostScript files come out shifted, with a very wide border on one side and the image cut of on the opposite side. Or the printer prints much less close to the borders as it is able to by hardware."
Web Site Development
Mod_python 3.0 beta 4 available
Mod_python 3.0 beta 4 has been announced. This should be the last beta release before the official mod_python 3.0 is released.Zope Members News
The most recent headlines on the Zope Members News include: Zope Corp Funds Open Source ESI in Squid, ZShellScripts v0.1 is out, CMFReportTool initial release, WingDBG for Zope 1.1.6-2, Silva 0.8.5 released, Nuxeo releases Nuxeo Collaborative Portal Server, Maildrop Host 1.2 released, PersistentThreads 0.2 released, Localizer news!!, and MailBoxer 2.1 released.
Web Services
Whither Web Services? (O'Reilly)
Ed Dumbill looks at the current state of web services on O'Reilly's XML.com. "Whatever else they have or haven't been, web services have been a boon for the popular technology media. On the way up the hype curve, breathless reports of the coming automation of our very existence filled pages and pages. Software executives jostled to join the right cabals, and to sit in smoke-filled rooms hammering out the formation of committees and specifications with daft acronyms."
Developing Grid computing applications (IBM developerWorks)
IBM's developerWorks has an article on grid services. "According to Gartner, many businesses will be completely transformed over the next decade by using Grid-enabled Web services to integrate across the Internet to share not only applications but also computer power. In this article, Liang-Jie Zhang, Jen-Yao Chung, and Qun Zhou from IBM introduce developers to the basic idea of Grid computing and the Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA). They describe how developers can use the latest Globus Toolkit (Open Grid Services Infrastructure technology preview) to discover a Grid service, create a Grid service interface, and invoke a Grid service instance."
Standards
LSB v1.3 draft out for two week public review
The LSB workgroup has just released its latest LSB v1.3 draft for public review. The workgroup is soliciting comments from the community until Friday November 8th.
Desktop Applications
Audio Applications
Sweep 0.5.10 released
Version 0.5.10 of the Sweep audio editor and playback tool is available. "New features in this release include vertical zoom with a draggable dB scale and mouse wheel control, and some basic channel operations: Duplicate to stereo/multichannel, Swap left and right, Remove left/right, Mix down to mono, and Add/Remove channels."
Desktop Environments
Kernel Cousin KDE
Issue #45 of Kernel Cousin KDE is available. This edition covers the new snake charmer Eric, Xrandr, KMail and Windows Viruses, a KMail OpenPGP/MIME HOWTO a KDE log file viewer, a KOffice filter status update and a Developer Newsflash.KDE 3.1 RC1: Ready for a Short Test Drive
KDE.News looks at the recently released KDE 3.1 RC 1. "A couple of points to consider: First, if you are wed to the hicolor icons, please note that they have been moved to the kdeartwork package; the other packages ship only with the new modern and attractive Crystal-SVG icon theme. Second, Klipper users who experience slowness or possible crashes in Konsole or KMail with this release should try disabling the Klipper syncing options, and then check the KDE 3.1 Info Page about reporting results. Please give this release a thorough testing so KDE 3.1 will be good and ready on schedule!"
GNOME Summary for 2002-10-20 - 2002-10-26
This week's GNOME Summary looks at the Captains of Nautilus; GNOME 2.1.1 development snapshot; Abiword robbed; First development release of GNOME 2 Galeon; and much more.FootNotes
Headlines on the GNOME desktop FootNotes site include: GPL movie editing project gets grant from LinuxFund.org, Release of GnuCash 1.7.2 alpha, Gtk# version 0.5 released, GNOME Foundation Elections, Galeon 1.3.0 Released, GNOME Development Series Snapshot 2.1.1, Eclipse IDE screenshots, MIME-Type Specific Properties tabs checked into Nautilus, GnomeMeeting 0.94.1 is out, the Debian Desktop Project, and more.
Games
Pygame developments
The Pygame Project has news of the projects page being split into a number of Gamelets, also check out the new versions of Spacewarpy and Monkeystomp.
Graphics
PLOT_PS/XPS: a C Graphic Library Package (Linux Journal)
The Linux Journal has an article that shows how to use the PLOT_PS and PLOT_XPS libraries to generate PostScript and X window viewable graphics plots. "Almost any data analysis benefits from graphic outputs. They often lead to a more affordable and synthetic view of results than any table can provide. To meet this type of need, we developed a graphic library that easily produces high quality printouts using the PostScript (PS) language."
GUI Packages
FLTK developments
The latest news from the FLTK project includes the release of flPhoto 0.7, a digital picture maniuplation program, and the Equinox Desktop Environment developers have joined FLTK Team.
Interoperability
Kernel Cousin Wine
Issue #141 of the Kernel Cousin Wine is out. Topics include Xandros Release, WineX with Lycoris, Klez Virus, RPC Update, Listview Update, Commctrl Update, Wanted: AppDB Maintainer, Wine PR Manager Needed, Web Browser Integration Needed, Running Australia's eTax, Running Native Windows Utilities, and Compiling Wine With glibc 2.3.
Office Applications
AbiWord Weekly News
Issue #115 of the AbiWord Weekly News is out with the latest AbiWord word processor development news. Topics include the theft of AbiWord funds on PayPal, selecting the right locale, status bar work, encoding problems, Word import/export improvements, the upcoming 1.1.1 release, AbiWord issues with Red Hat 8.0, and development stats.Kernel Cousin GNUe
Issue #52 of Kernel Cousin GNUe is out. Topics include PostgreSQL/Red Hat issues, Roadmaps and other project planning issues, Forms graphical resolution, a WikiWikiWeb for GNUe, Strong commercial interests and free software projects, the Status of GNUe Tools and Packages, and much more.GnuCash 1.7.2 alpha released
The second alpha version of GnuCash 1.7.2 is available. Release highlights include search by reconcile flag for transactions, read-only support for posted invoices and payments, an updated glossary, transaction retrieval improvements, two accounts for investment transactions, bug fixes, and more.
Web Browsers
Galeon 1.3.0 Released
Version 1.3.0 of the Galeon minimalist web browser has been released. "This is the first unstable release based on gnome 2 libraries and gtk2 mozilla. It's a development version. This means that it will crash, it won't work as expected and it may damage random files of your system. However, we encourage you to test it and report any bug you find, and send us patches if you feel that you can help."
Mozilla News
The latest Mozilla News includes the release of Phoenix 0.4, Mozilla 1.2 Beta, Bugzilla 2.16.1, Mozilla 1.0.1, Chimera 0.5, Netscape 7.0, a new API Announcement Mailing List, and more.mozillaZine
The latest mozillaZine topics include: Phoenix 0.4 (Oceano) Released, Help to Make Phoenix 0.4 Not Suck, Introduction to mozdev, Bugzilla Upgrade Plans, Creating Links with Mozilla's window.getSelection() Method, the Register on Web Sites that Block Minority Browsers, and Mozilla Independent Status Reports.
Languages and Tools
Caml
Caml Weekly News
The October 22 to 29 edition of the Caml Weekly News is out. Topics include GlSurf: surface in OCaml/OpenGL, Baire Status, a standard library naming scheme, an email parser in ocamllex/ocamlyacc, a question about polymorphic variant, and macros and camlp4.
Java
Local Invocation for CORBA (O'Reilly)
Giuseppe Naccarato explains how to work with CORBA under Java on O'Reilly's OnJava.com site. "OBV (Object by Value) was introduced in CORBA 2.3 to allow the exchange of CORBA Object value types. This powerful extension is very useful, for example, to design mutable applications. You can combine OBV with RMI-IIOP to allow Java clients to obtain a copy of remote object."
From black boxes to enterprises, Part 2: Beans, JMX 1.1 style (IBM developerWorks)
Sing Li looks at JMX 1.1 on IBM's developerWorks. "JMX is a popular new standard extension to the Java platform that enables devices, applications, and services to be managed, controlled, and monitored through modern Network Management Systems or Enterprise Management Systems. In this second article of his three-part series on JMX, consultant and popular author Sing Li demonstrates how to rapidly add instrumentation code to a Java-based application."
Lisp
SBCL 0.7.9 released
Version 0.7.9 of SBCL (Steel Bank Common Lisp) has been released. This is a maintenance release that features new runtime checks as well as bug fixes.
Perl
This Week on perl5-porters (use Perl)
Use Perl's This Week on Perl5-porters is out for October 21-27, 2002. "This week was moderately busy for the Perl 5 porters. The highlights feature various crashes and considerations about Unicode string handling; not forgetting, as usual, about newly fixed bugs, and bugs yet to be fixed."
Making Journals from Emacs (use Perl)
Joe Johnston documents his Perl-based SOAP journaling software for the Use Perl site. "Like journaling at use.perl.org but hate composing entries in the HTML widget TEXTAREA? Tired of the Web Services hype and what to see a real application? Hold on to your hats, true believers, because the answer to both problems lies in the article below."
PHP
PHP Weekly Summary
Topics on this week's PHP Weekly Summary include PHP and GD, naming tests, the cURL extension, regex bundling, a new sybase_ct maintainer, and OpenSSL and sockets.Building a Simple Search Engine with PHP (O'Reilly)
Daniel Solin shows how to code a PHP-based web site search engine on O'Reilly's ONLamp.com site. "A little while ago, I was working on an intranet site for a mid-sized company. As the site grew in both size and popularity, the assigner requested me to extend the site with a search feature. Since one of the rules of the intranet was that all logic code should be written in-house, using an existing open source engine was not an option. Within a day, the engine was quite complete, and the result actually turned out better than expected. With PHP, MySQL, and a few techniques, these small projects are very easy."
Python
Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (Oct 28)
This week's edition of the Python-URL looks at transitioning from Java/C++ to Python, a comparison of Ruby and Python, and much more.The Daily Python-URL
This week's Daily Python-URL looks at articles on Open source in the lab, Mitch Kapor's open-source Chandler Personal Information Manager project, Linux Lunacy 2002, and more.
Ruby
The Ruby Weekly News
Topics on this week's Ruby Weekly News include the RAA Replaced, a comp.lang.ruby FAQ, and reading the current line from a file. New Ruby software includes FixedTime 0.0.1, Crawler 0.0.1, and Ruby QT Embedded 0.2.
Scheme
Scheme Weekly News
The October 28, 2002 Scheme Weekly News is out with a bunch of new Scheme-based software releases.
Tcl/Tk
Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL!
The October 29, 2002 edition of Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! covers the latest Tcl/Tk development news.
XML
XML 1.1: Here We Go Again (O'Reilly)
Kendall Grant Clark covers work toward the XML 1.1 specification on O'Reilly's XML.com. "Despite the frequent and usually accurate complaints that XML specifications and standards are insufficiently layered, there is a sort of conceptual stack of technologies which together constitute the architecture of the Web. In this week's XML-Deviant column I report on developments in XML, the base layer of the Web's architecture."
Page editor: Forrest Cook
Linux in the news
Recommended Reading
Linux vs. Windows installation comparo, Part 3 (LinuxWorld)
Joe Barr continues his comparison of installing Linux and Windows with Red Hat Linux 8.0 vs. a newbie install of Windows XP. "The rules for the installation were the same as before: defaults rule. If a choice was offered and a default given, the default was taken. If a choice is offered, there is no default and Susan doesn't know what to do, she can ask me for guidance. The only exception to the above would be a case in which she knew that the default is wrong without asking."
Open Source is good for America - US military advised (Register)
The Register covers a report commissioned by the US military which concludes that open source and free software should play a greater part in the infrastructure of the U.S military. "Mitre Corporation's 152-page study addresses the extent of software libre, or FOSS-licensed software use - FOSS being "Free and Open Source Software" ... - in various branches of the military."
Companies
RealNetworks, U.S. government recognize power of open source (SiliconValley.com)
Dan Gillmor's latest column on SiliconValley.com looks at the Helix DNA Client code release. "Indeed, there's an echo in this development. Years ago, as Microsoft was turning Netscape into roadkill, Netscape announced it was moving key technology toward an open-source model as well. The Mozilla browser and development platform resulted, but not until Microsoft pretty much owned the browser market."
IBM plugs in new 'blade' server (ZDNet)
ZDNet looks at the latest computing blade products from IBM. "IBM on Wednesday unveiled a pair of dual-processor blades during a customer conference in Palm Springs, Fla., said Tim Dougherty, IBM's director of blade strategy. IBM's pSeries servers typically run Unix, but for its Power blades, the company expects the Linux operating system to be more popular, he said."
It's Linux for IBM supercomputer project (News.com)
News.com takes a look at IBM's newest line of Linux powered supercomputers. "Linux will be the main operating system for IBM's upcoming family of "Blue Gene" supercomputers--a major endorsement for the operating system and the open-source computing model it represents."
Open-Source Development Site Reaches Usage Milestones (TechWeb)
TechWeb reports that SourceForge.net now has 500,000 registered users, nearly 50,000 projects. "To support its growth, SourceForge.net began a migration to IBM's DB2 for Linux in August, with plans to be running fully on DB2 by mid-January 2003." That's a lot of eggs in one basket.
TCO is bottomline for Sun Linux PCs (ZDNet)
ZDNet covers a Gartner analysis of Sun's total cost of ownership advantage with Linux PCs. "Gartner sees an opportunity for Sun to create a relatively large cost differential compared to a mainstream PC, through lower-cost elements such as an Advanced Micro Devices processor and a lower software-licensing fee. Because Linux potentially consumes fewer resources, Sun could configure the system with a slower processor, less storage, and less memory. It can also carefully control the hardware, software, and messaging configuration to tune the systems for security and stability."
Business
Trustix clinches China Secure Linux deal (Register)
The Register covers a partnership between Trustix AS and Chinese server manufacturer Langchao Group to bundle its Trustix Linux Solutions Software (TLS) suite on the company's Intel-based hardware. "The Trustix portfolio includes the Secure Linux operating system distribution, as well as firewall, web server, proxy server, LAN server, web server, and mail server software through the TLS suite. The company has worked with IBM to deploy TLS on its xSeries servers for convenience retailer 7-Eleven, and most recently to replace an existing Novell network for sports car vendor Ferrari."
Study: Linux, .Net will dominate server market by 2009 (ComputerWorld.au)
The Australian ComputerWorld site looks at a study published by IT analyst company, Butler Group, part of Butler Direct Ltd. "Though Unix systems from Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP), IBM Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. will remain the server operating systems of choice through 2004, within seven years Linux and .Net will have fully penetrated the market from file and print servers, through to the mainframe, the Butler Group, in Hull, England, said in a statement outlining its study: "Server Operating Systems -- Winners and Losers in the Open/Proprietary OS Market."" Thanks to Vladimir Likic
Legal
U.S Congress ponders Open Source licenses
Some members of the U.S. Congress are looking into which software licenses will and will not be allowed for release of government-sponsored software. Alert LWN readers dwheeler, Barry Gould and Magnus Lycka have sent in links for three articles addressing this issue.This Newsforge article by Robin "Roblimo" Miller looks at how open source advocates are lobbying the U.S. congress as members decide which software licenses are and are not allowed for release of government-sponsored software.
InformationWeek focuses on Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., whose biggest campaign contributor is Microsoft, who has added an addendum to an official letter that criticized open-source software distributed under the GNU General Public License.
The topic is causing ripples as far away as Australia, as seen in this article in TheAge.
Resources
Embedded Linux Newsletter
The October 24, 2002 edition of the LinuxDevices Embedded Linux Newsletter is out with the latest Embedded Linux news.Realfeel Test of the Preemptible Kernel Patch (Linux Journal)
Here's a Linux Journal article about the preemptible kernel patch, and its effect on the interrupt latency of a Linux system. The patch reduces the measured interrupt latency of the system, making it more appropriate for real-time applications. "For this work, interrupt latency is measured with an open benchmark called Realfeel, written by Mark Hahn. Realfeel issues periodic interrupts and measures the time needed for the computer to respond to these interrupts. Response times vary from interrupt to interrupt. Realfeel measures these interrupts and produces a histogram by putting the measurements into bins."
Build a Secure Webmail Service Supporting IMAP and SSL (Linux Journal)
Linux Journal has an article by Jose Nazario on building a remote, secure web-based email system. "This article describes how you can set up your Linux computer to be a web-based e-mail system for yourself or a group of friends. It will work best, of course, if you are on a dedicated internet connection, like a cable modem or a DSL line at home. This will provide you with a secure method to check your e-mail from remote locations without having to add insecure connection methods that could be used by an attacker. While your friends and coworkers complain about their free web based e-mail system being inaccessible, yours will be humming along."
Fabulous fonts in Linux (Register)
Here's a Register article about getting the best looking fonts in KDE. "One of the more common disappointments reported about the Linux GUI is clunky fonts under X. While it's true that they can look pretty rough out of the box, it's also true that sharpening them up is easy and well worth the effort, thanks to MS TrueType fonts and the open-source FreeType project which makes them useable on Linux. What follows is an explanation of how to get the most out of both, assuming KDE is your desktop manager. (I imagine this may work on other desktops, but KDE is the only one I'm well acquainted with.)"
Reviews
Torvalds: Linux 2.6 moving smoothly (ZDNet)
ZDNet examines the current Linux kernel release schedule. "Torvalds, the top programmer of the kernel at the center of the heart of the Linux software project, implemented a "feature freeze" for the 2.5 testing series, after which no new features will be permitted. The deadline is set for the end of October. Also, Torvalds said "early next year" will be the "code freeze," when the gates close for the software for those features."
Lindows 3 near--desktop Linux summit set (ZDNet)
ZDNet reviews the upcoming LindowsOS 3.0 Membership Edition, "Lindows.com has fixed a date for the "General Release" of its operating system software, promising that Lindows 3.0 will be available from mid-November. The company also announced that Hewlett-Packard and other companies will be sponsoring the Desktop Linux Summit next year."
A mixed welcome for Unreal Tournament 2003 on Linux (LinuxWorld)
Joe Barr doesn't think the Linux version of Unreal Tournament 2003 from Epic Games is quite ready for prime time, in this LinuxWorld article. "The rest of the news about the Linux port of UT 2003 is not so good. There are issues. And there remains in my mind a big question: why has the Linux release been slipstreamed into something of a stealth release? There is also one big issue that you need to be aware of before you rush out to buy the boxed version, but I'm getting ahead of myself."
Miscellaneous
Painless Linux (TECHWR-L)
A technial writer's publication known as TECHWR-L looks at Linux for a technical writer's platform. "The truth is, most of what you think you know about Linux is outdated. Today, most types of Linux have a graphical install, balk only at hardware that specifically requires a copy of Windows, and (depending on your choices) can be installed in as little as fifteen minutes. And, once you're up and running, you can use Linux applications for almost all your work-related computing. Diehards can use a distribution like Slackware to install the old-fashioned hard way, but installing and using Linux is only slightly harder than doing the same things under Windows. The program names, unfortunately, are still with us. You can't win them all." Thanks to Bruce Byfield.
Kernel Developer Hans Reiser to Speak at SVLUG (Linux Journal)
Linux Journal covers the upcoming meeting of SVLUG, where the featured speaker will be Hans Reiser, architect of the Reiser filesystem and founder of namesys. "Why is Reiser4 50-100% faster than version 3? Find out at SVLUG."
EDC developer survey: Linux, Windows neck-and-neck in embedded (LinuxDevices)
LinuxDevices.com covers data recently compiled by Evans Data Corp. which says Linux and Windows are running neck-and-neck in terms of developer use for future projects. "Interestingly, Wind River's VxWorks embedded OS, which is generally considered to be the encumbent embedded software market leader, trails slightly behind Embedded Linux for current project use. Additionally, VxWorks' modest gain of just 2.9 percentage points for expected use in future projects drops it to a distant third place position, ending up with less than half the usage rate of the two neck-and-neck future project usage leaders (Windows Embedded and Embedded Linux)."
Open Saucery (Dr. Dobb's)
"Verity Stob" pokes fun at open-source announcements on Dr. Dobb's. "Will there be lots of feeble Open Source wordplay, for example, referring to the FSF as a bunch of "gnerds"?"
Page editor: Forrest Cook
Announcements
Commercial announcements
WalMart.com now selling Lycoris Desktop/LX pre-installed on Microtel PCs
Lycoris Desktop/LX is now available on Microtel PCs at WalMart.com. After undergoing the Desktop/LX Certification process to ensure consumer satisfaction, nine different Microtel PCs from $228 and up are now available.'Business and Economics of Linux' published
Prentice Hall PTR and HP announced the publication of "The Business and Economics of Linux and Open Source" written by open source expert Martin Fink. This book offers managers a guide to the role of open source in a corporate environment and how to use it to gain a competitive advantage.Fujitsu Steps Up Linux Business Aimed at Large-Scale Enterprise Systems
Fujitsu Limited announced that it is positioning Linux as one of the key operating systems for its next-generation IT systems, and it plans to commercialize large-scale, mission-critical enterprise systems to run on Linux within the next three years. As a first step in its stepped-up Linux business efforts, Fujitsu released Linux versions of nine of its middleware and packaged software products, available initially in the Japanese market. (Thanks to Maya Tamiya)TV Linux Alliance
The TV Linux Alliance has invited vendors in the cable, satellite and telecommunications industry to participate in the TV Linux Alliance by joining the Alliance as members.The Alliance has also announced the availability of its specification version 0.8.
AMD Announces Opening of AMD Developer Center
AMD has announced the opening of the AMD Developer Center and the availability of two additional development support resources - a beta x86-64 Linux distribution and the AMD x86-64 Architecture Programmer's Manual.Cray Inc. Receives Cluster Order from Ford
Cray Inc. gets into the Linux cluster market with this announcement that the Ford Motor Company has ordered, installed and accepted a Linux-based cluster with 192 processors at its data center in Dearborn, Michigan.
Resources
Building Online Communities (O'Reilly)
O'Reilly has an article about building online communities. "The Internet exists to improve communication. Communities can grow anywhere communication occurs."Truisms or not, those statements have tremendous implications. Their adherents see a commercial Web site less as a brochure and more as an opportunity to communicate with customers. They consider those who run a television fan site not as copyright infringers but as a community of fans. They think in terms of conversations and relationships. Cultivate a community, and you'll attract eyeballs and ears willing to read and to listen to your message. Encourage discussion, and you'll attract people willing to share their own messages.
KOrganizer Workshop: Outlook2Vcal
KDE.News points to an online workshop for KOrganizer.LSB adds PPC32 and IA64 to certification program
The Linux Standards Base will be adding the PPC32 and IA64 architectures to its certification program.Linux Audio Developers Techie Database
The Linux Audio Users Guide has added a section called the LAD Techies Database that lists Linux Audio Developers who are able to assist in setting up Linux audio software. Click below for the announcement.Loving Lisp
An online Lisp book called "Loving Lisp" has been published by Mark Watson.
Upcoming Events
UMeet conference on IRC
The online IRC-based UMeet conference will be held from December 9-20, 2002. Participants will include Alan Cox, Rik van Riel, Dave Jones, Greg Kroah-Hartman, and Chris Wright.educationaLinux 2003 cfp
A call for papers has been issued for the educationaLinux 2003 miniconf, to be held on January 21 and 22, 2003 at the University of Western Australia.Major Tech Companies to Sponsor Desktop Linux Summit 2003
Lindows.com, Inc. has announced their sponsorship of a conference called the Inaugural Desktop Linux Summit, which will be held in San Diego on Feb 20-21, 2003. "The Summit will be the first event entirely devoted to desktop Linux and will be hosted by the top executives of leading technology companies worldwide including Codeweavers, Hewlett Packard, Lindows.com, Lycoris, MandrakeSoft, Sun Microsystems, SuSE, and Ximian. Key political and open source community advocates have also confirmed their place at the Desktop Linux Summit."
Events: October 31 - December 26, 2002
| Date | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| October 31, 2002 | International Lisp Conference 2002 - The Art of Lisp | San Francisco, CA |
| October 31, 2002 | Think-Linux, The Solutions Show | (The Pinnacle)Toledo OH |
| November 1 - 3, 2002 | 2nd Annual Ruby Conference(RubyConf 2002) | (Washington State Trade and Convention Center)Seattle, Washington |
| November 2, 2002 | Southern CaliforniA Linux Expo 2002(SCALE) | (Davidson Conference Center, University of Southern California)Los Angeles, CA |
| November 3 - 6, 2002 | International PHP 2002 conference | Frankfurt, Germany |
| November 3 - 8, 2002 | 16th System Administration Conference(Lisa '02) | Philadelphia, PA |
| November 6, 2002 | Red Hat Road Tour 2002 | St. Louis, MO. |
| November 9, 2002 | Lightweight Languages 2002(LL2) | (MIT)Cambridge, MA |
| November 14 - 15, 2002 | The Open Source Health Care Alliance(OSHCA) | (UCLA Medical Center)Los Angeles, CA |
| November 18 - 21, 2002 | Embedded Systems Conference, Boston | (Hynes Convention Center)Boston, Mass |
| December 3 - 5, 2002 | Linux Bangalore/2002 | (J.N.Tata Auditorium)Bangalore, India |
| December 9 - 20, 2002 | UMeet conference | On IRC |
Software announcements
This week's software announcements
Here are the software announcements, courtesy of Freshmeat.net. They are available in two formats:
- Sorted alphabetically,
- Sorted by license.
Miscellaneous
Over 15,000 UnitedLinux downloads
The UnitedLinux folks have sent out a press release claiming that over 15,000 copies of the UnitedLinux beta release have been downloaded over the last month.Danish DMCA proposed
The Danish parliament is in the process of implementing the European Union directive called "copyrights and related rights in the information society" in the Danish law code. The directive is probably better known to LWN readers as the EU version of the DMCA. Protests are underway.Bruce Perens calls for donations
Bruce Perens has sent out a personal message asking for financial support of his ongoing work to defend and promote free software.
Page editor: Forrest Cook