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LWN.net Weekly Edition for August 17, 2006Coming soon: a free JavaSun Microsystems took advantage of LinuxWorld to announce that, at long last, it was serious about releasing much of its Java system under an open source license. The upcoming releases - which could happen by the end of the year - will include both the Java Standard Edition and Java Micro Edition products. The Hotspot VM and the Java Development Kit are to be part of this release. For many Java developers, this is the moment they have been waiting for. Of course, there are a few remaining questions.For years, Sun has resisted calls to release Java. The company's primary reason for keeping Java proprietary was that it was necessary to keep Java implementations compatible. A truly free Java would compromise the "write once, run everywhere" promise frequently made (if less frequently kept) by Sun. So, one might well ask what has changed. Here's the story from Sun:
We
now think the benefits of accelerating innovation, opening new
markets and opportunities, and fostering creativity that the open
source model brings now outweigh the risks to compatibility. These
risks are real, but at Sun, we believe that the wisdom of the
community has evolved to where the market and developer community
itself will act to demand compatibility as a bedrock feature of any
implementations based on Java technology.
So, in other words, we are now smart enough to be entrusted with a free Java. Better late than never. The usual post-announcement routine will have to be endured before a free Java is a reality. A thorough review of the code must be done so that Sun's lawyers can convince themselves that Sun has the right to release it all, and any encumbrances must be dealt with. Some sort of governance model must be chosen: who will decide what changes make it into mainline Java? Sun will want to retain some control here, but an overly tight-fisted approach could encourage a fork of the code and a potential loss of the compatibility that Sun values so highly. Then, there is the issue of what license is to be used for the Java release. One might expect Sun to reach for the CDDL first, and that might be just how it plays out. But Sun might just want to consider how the newly-licensed Java would play with existing free projects. GNU Classpath is licensed under the GPL, so mixing of Java and Classpath code can only happen if Java carries a GPL-compatible license. On the other hand, the Apache Harmony project, which has made great strides toward an independent and free Java SE implementation, is using the Apache V2 license, which is not compatible with the GPL. This license difference has helped to keep Classpath and Harmony separate until now, and Java may have to choose a side (or neither). One intriguing possibility is that Java could be released under GPLv3 (as soon as that license is real); version 3 of the GPL is intended to be compatible with the Apache license. All of this depends on whether Sun places any value on license compatibility with the other projects or not - and how that value compares to Sun's other goals. Sun will have to work through a lot of issues before it can come to a real answer to these questions. But it does appear that the company has committed itself to releasing Java under a free license, and that can only be a good thing.
X.org, distributors, and proprietary modulesX11R7.1 (also known as X.org 7.1) was released back in May. It contains a number of useful new features, better 3D performance on a number of video adapters, and tons of fixes. It is, in general, the platform that X users probably want to be using. This release is not as widely used as it could be, however, and the associated story illustrates one of the costs of proprietary modules.One of the developments merged into 7.1 was the AIGLX project, dedicated to the important goal of providing better eye candy for Linux users worldwide. Since this code had gone into the X.org mainline, the Fedora-based AIGLX developers decided that there was no reason to continue to maintain their own version. So the Fedora AIGLX repository stopped seeing updates; Fedora users wanting to use the current AIGLX code could get it straight from X.org 7.1. The Fedora Core 5 distribution, however, shipped X.org 7.0. So, it was asked: would FC5 be updated to X.org 7.1? A major upgrade of this type might not be something all distributors would contemplate, but Fedora is supposed to move rapidly. As a matter of policy, Fedora tends to fix problems (and security issues in particular) by upgrading to the current release rather than by backporting fixes. So, back at the end of July, it was announced that there would be an X.org 7.1 update for Fedora Core 5. Just one little problem stood in the way: the binary-only drivers from ATI and NVidia did not work with X.org 7.1 (ATI has since released an update). Perhaps, it was suggested, the X.org update could be postponed until such a time that the proprietary module vendors had released compatible versions? This idea was fairly strongly criticized on the mailing lists; Fedora is supposed to be a 100% free software distribution, and should not have to concern itself with the behavior of proprietary software vendors. Mike Harris, the Fedora X.org maintainer at that time (he has since retired), was quite clear on the subject:
Fedora does not support proprietary drivers at all, and never has,
nor has any Red Hat OS that preceded it. Our OS products are not
held hostage to the release schedule whims of 3rd party proprietary
driver suppliers.
Part of the decision of choosing proprietary software, is making a conscious decision that you are held hostage by the vendor of that software to provide you with support for it. That unfortunate limitation should not expand to encompass all users of open source software. If that happens, everyone loses. By this reasoning, everybody has lost. The Fedora advisory board met to discuss the issue; the resulting decision was that Fedora Core 5 would not be updated to X.org 7.1. The conclusion was that the interests of Fedora users using proprietary NVidia modules outweigh the interests of other users who would benefit from this update. Needless to say, this decision has not been met with universal acclaim. One Fedora user asked:
If you were the owner of a company that had just announced plans to
open source your drivers, would you feel you had made the right
decision if a major linux distribution announced it had changed its
mind about releasing the software that enabled your driver to run
and delayed its shipment for two months *because* there were still
vendors whose proprietary drivers were not updated?
The board has spoken, however, and the decision stands. Fedora users who are not up for the (sometimes hair-raising) experience of running from the development repository will have to wait for Fedora Core 6 to get X.org 7.1. Lest anybody think that this is a Fedora-specific issue, a visit to this Gentoo forum discussion may be of interest. X.org 7.1 remains masked in Gentoo for the same reason - lack of proprietary vendor support - and over half of the people voting in the attached poll believe that situation should continue. Interestingly, only the x86 and amd64 architectures are being held back. The other Gentoo-supported architectures, for which NVidia and ATI modules are never available anyway, have moved forward to the current X.org release. In both cases, distributors are acting in what they believe is the best interest of their users. Regardless of what one thinks of the outcome, it is encouraging that quite a bit of thought is clearly being put into the effects of changes on the user base. What is rather less encouraging is that the best interest of (at least) Fedora and Gentoo users is in the hands of proprietary module vendors, and that this dependency is imposing a cost on all users, whether they use the modules in question or not. These vendors should not have veto power over the release plans of free software distributions. One can only look forward to the day when current video hardware from all vendors can be used on 100% free systems.
cdrtools - a tale of two licensesWhen Sun Microsystems set down to create a license for the release of Solaris and other code, the end result was the Common Development and Distribution License or CDDL. Most people who have looked hard at the license have agreed that it is, indeed, a free software license. It is also, however, considered to be incompatible with the GNU General Public License (GPL); the Free Software Foundation has this to say about the CDDL:
This is a free software license which is not a strong copyleft; it
has some complex restrictions that make it incompatible with the
GNU GPL. It requires that all attribution notices be maintained,
while the GPL only requires certain types of notices. Also, it
terminates in retaliation for certain aggressive uses of
patents. So, a module covered by the GPL and a module covered by
the CDDL cannot legally be linked together. We urge you not to use
the CDDL for this reason.
This license incompatibility has, among other things, put a roadblock in the way of incorporating any Solaris code into the Linux kernel (and vice versa). The two remain in their own separate licensing universes, and cannot mix. Not everybody appears to share this opinion, however. Consider Debian bug 377109, filed by the sharp-eyed license watchers in that camp. It seems that Jörg Shilling, the maintainer of cdrtools (containing cdrecord, mkisofs, and other tools), decided to license his build system for those tools under the CDDL. The GPL requires that build tools and scripts also be released under the GPL, so mixing the CDDL build system with the GPL-licensed CD/DVD tools made the whole thing undistributable - at least, in the eyes of the Debian developers. Since that bug was filed, the situation has evolved somewhat. The current 2.01.01 cdrtools release has relicensed a number of code components under the CDDL. The relicensed bits include cdrecord and libscg. Other components, such as mkisofs and libparanoia, remain under the GPL and LGPL, respectively. Some of these licenses are unlikely to change; the mkisofs code has copyrights held by a number of people (and companies) other than Mr. Schilling, and going back as far as 1986. Since mkisofs, at least, is built with libscg, the resulting system is a combination of GPL and CDDL-licensed code. In the minds of most observers, this combination is not distributable. The Debian developers are now trying to figure out what to do about this situation. As most people familiar with the relevant personalities would likely expect, conversations with Mr. Schilling have not come to any sort of productive outcome - though it has yielded an amusing nine-point plan from Mr. Schilling on how to fix Debian's cdrecord problems. A very possible outcome is that Debian will drop Mr. Schilling's cdrtools distribution and maintain a fork starting from the last distributable version; other distributors may well follow suit. The dvdrtools project has been pointed out as a possible starting point. Forking cdrtools is not a particularly new idea. This package has been the subject of a long series of inflammatory disputes with its maintainer, who does not always agree with the Linux way of doing things. People have often wondered in public just why this version of cdrtools was still in use. The answer, presumably, lies in the fact that (1) cdrecord works for most people, who can happily ignore its maintainer, and (2) CD/DVD recording is a complex and tricky business which intimidates many developers who might otherwise jump into the code. Whatever the reasons might be, no cdrtools fork has gotten very far. The licensing issue might just be the final straw that makes a viable fork happen. Distributors can ignore a difficult maintainer, but it is harder for them to ignore possible licensing issues. If they decide that cdrtools cannot be distributed in it current form, they will have no alternative to ceasing distribution - and that means coming up with a replacement. This may be the year when, finally, cdrtools for Linux finds a new maintainer.
Security OpenOffice.org security concernsOver the past month, there have been various news articles regarding OpenOffice.org (OO.o) security, particularly in comparison with its main closed source rival, MS Office. Some articles have depicted OO.o as vastly less secure based on research by an organization within the French Ministry of Defense. The situation is a lot more muddled than that and unfortunately, because details are hard to come by, it is difficult to fully evaluate the threat. The original article (in French) described a meeting where a report on OO.o security was shared with various French ministries. The report supposedly claimed that for some threat types, OO.o was more vulnerable than MS Office. Another article, with the provocative title OpenOffice.org less secure than Microsoft Office?, appeared shortly thereafter and fanned the flames, positing that the city of Paris and other OO.o users in France might reconsider their tool choices based on the report. A 'response' to the articles appeared on the OO.o website but did little to shed any light. It was claimed that it would be inappropriate to respond to a "leak from a private meeting" followed by some platitudes about security response by the OO.o team. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there was no confirmation or denial of the security issues. Shortly thereafter, Sun's Technical Architect for OO.o, Malte Timmermann, posted some information in his blog. He and the OO.o team in Hamburg spoke with Eric Filiol, one of the authors of the report, to discuss the findings. According to Timmermann, there were three issues, only one of which was truly a bug and even it was "not really a security issue." All of the issues seem to revolve around macros and how they are trusted both by users and by the software itself. Timmermann followed that up with another blog posting this week that gave a few more details. He claims that the original report (which is to be published in the Journal in Computer Virology) was "conceptual problems only, not about security exploits." The problems described all stem from an initial infection which happens via a user running untrusted code (either as a regular executable or as a macro in an untrusted document). Timmermann rightly points out that if a user runs code from untrusted sources, changing security settings for OO.o may well be the least of their worries. Untrusted code can do anything that the user running it has permission to do and that has nothing to do with what OS or office suite you happen to be running. It may be that users still need additional training so that they do not run macros from untrusted documents, but OO.o does provide a security warning before executing them. He also points out that both MS Office and OO.o provide a powerful scripting language that has access to the underlying system and that threats from running untrusted macros are likely to be similar for both office suites. So, depending on who you listen to, there are either some serious (but largely unspecified, at least as of yet) security issues with OO.o, or there are not. OO.o is more at risk for these (again unspecified) risks than MS Office or it is not. There is at least one bug that Timmermann mentions, but it has not yet been fixed (based on the most recent security fix for OO.o which was 29 June, well before this information came to light). It is not clear why there is so much murkiness surrounding these issues. Is it due to 'responsible' disclosure policies? Or are folks unwilling to disclose the most interesting pieces of the journal article before it is published? Around the time these issues were being discussed, there were a number of 'zero-day' exploits in the wild against various MS Office formats. It seems likely that some of the technical press wanted to present 'balanced' coverage and seized on this issue to offset the negative press about MS Office. From the limited details we have seen so far, this particular report about the security of OO.o would not seem to merit the coverage that it has gotten.
Brief items Rails 1.1.6, backports, and full disclosureThe Ruby on Rails web log mentions an important security update for Rails. "The cat is out of the bag, so heres the full disclosure edition of the current security vulnerability. With Rails 1.1.0 through 1.1.5 (minus the short-lived 1.1.3), you can trigger the evaluation of Ruby code through the URL because of a bug in the routing code of Rails. This means that you can essentially take down a Rails process by starting something like /script/profiler, as the code will run for a long time and that process will be hung while it happens. Other URLs can even cause data loss. Weve backported a fix to all the affected versions for those of you that cant update."
New vulnerabilities drupal: missing input sanitizing
gallery: multiple vulnerabilities
heartbeat: out-of-bounds read
ncompress: buffer underflow
Ruby on Rails: several vulnerabilities
squirrelmail: insecure permissions
warzone2100: buffer overflows
WordPress: privilege escalation
Updated vulnerabilities apache: cross-site scripting
audacious: buffer overflow
binutils: buffer overflow
busybox: insecure password generation
bzip2: race condition and infinite loop
ktools: buffer overflow
cfs: denial of service
chmlib: missing input sanitizing
clamav: remote code execution
cpio: arbitrary code execution
vixie-cron: privilege escalation
cscope: buffer overflows
Cyrus-SASL: DIGEST-MD5 Pre-Authentication Denial of Service
dhcp: programming error
fbi: incorrect filtering
mozilla: multiple vulnerabilities
freeradius: several vulnerabilities
freetype: integer overflows
gdb: multiple vulnerabilities
gdm: improper file permissions
gedit: format string vulnerability
gnupg: integer overflow
grip: buffer overflow
gzip: arbitrary command execution
heartbeat: permission error
ImageMagick: heap overflow vulnerability
kdebase: local root vulnerability
kdebase: privilege escalation
kdelibs: kate backup file permission leak
kernel: denial of service by memory consumption
kernel: multiple vulnerabilities
kernel: privilege escalation
krb5: local privilege escalation
libdumb: arbitrary code execution
libgadu: memory alignment bug
libgd2: denial of service
libmms: buffer overflows
Net::Server: format string vulnerability
libpam-ldap: authentication bypass
libpng: buffer overflow
libpng: heap based buffer overflow
libtiff: buffer overflows
libtiff: buffer overflow
libvncserver: authentication bypass
libwmf: integer overflow
libxml2 - arbitrary code execution
libxml2: multiple buffer overflows
lynx: arbitrary command execution
mutt: IMAP namespace buffer overflow
mysql: format string bug
MySQL: logging bypass
nbd: arbitrary code execution
ntp: uses wrong gid
openoffice.org: several vulnerabilities
perl: setuid vulnerabilities
php: multiple vulnerabilities
phpbb2: missing input sanitizing
phpbb2: multiple vulnerabilities
phpMyAdmin: multiple vulnerabilities
pike: SQL injection
postgresql: SQL injection
ppp: privilege escalation
Py2Play: remote execution of arbitrary Python code
quake: buffer overflow
ruby: multiple vulnerabilities
scorched3d: multiple vulnerabilities
sendmail: denial of service
shadow-utils: mailbox creation vulnerability
sudo: vulnerability via scripts
texinfo: temporary file vulnerability
tin: buffer overflow
unzip: long file name buffer overflow
w3c-libwww: possible stack overflow
wireshark: multiple vulnerabilities
xine-lib: buffer overflow
xine-lib: buffer overflow
xine-ui: format string vulnerabilities
X.Org: buffer overflow
xpdf: buffer overflow
xpdf: integer overflows
zope: privilege escalation
Resources Bruce Schneier factsEver wanted to know more about high-profile security writer Bruce Schneier? A quick visit or two to the Bruce Schneier facts site may be just what you need.
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet Kernel development Brief items Kernel release statusThe current 2.6 prepatch remains 2.6.18-rc4; Linus will be on vacation for some time yet. In his absence, Greg Kroah-Hartman has released 2.6.18-rc4-gkh1, containing 64 patches intended for merging into the mainline after Linus returns.The current -mm tree is 2.6.18-rc4-mm1. Recent changes to -mm include a reworking of the serial ATA configuration options ("If you blindly run `make oldconfig' you won't have any disks."), a new set of USB endpoint functions, a big x86-64 update, a reworking of the network time protocol code, support for read-only bind mounts, and the new Thinkpad embedded controller driver (despite concerns about its origin - see below). The current 2.4 kernel is 2.4.33, released by Marcelo on August 11. This is Marcelo's final 2.4 release; the maintainership of this kernel now passes on to Willy Tarreau.
Kernel development news Quote of the week
ext3 will be around for many years yet. We cannot just let it rot
due to some false belief that performing routine maintenance
against it will for some magical reason cause it to break.
The return of network block device deadlock preventionJust over one year ago, LWN covered a patch set aimed at preventing potential deadlocks in the network subsystem. The problem being addressed can come about when the system is using a block (disk) device which is located on the other side of a network link. When the system runs short on memory, one of the things it must do is to write dirty pages back to disk, allowing that memory to be reused for other purposes. But writing to a network disk can require memory allocations in its own right - a need which comes at the worst possible time. This particular problem, which also arises with locally-attached drives, has been solved for a while by keeping a small memory reserve specifically for block I/O operations.Network-attached drives have an additional problem, however, in that no write can be considered complete until an acknowledgment has been received from the remote device. Receiving that acknowledgment requires that the system be able to receive (and process) network packets - and that can require unbounded amounts of memory. There may be any amount of incoming network data which has nothing to do with outstanding block I/O requests, and that data can make it impossible to receive the packets which the memory-constrained system is so desperately waiting to receive. The deadlock avoidance patch made some changes aimed at ensuring that the system could always receive and process incoming block I/O traffic. A year later, this patch set has resurfaced. The original author (Daniel Phillips) has stepped aside, and Peter Zijlstra has taken the lead. In many ways, the current version of the patch resembled its predecessors, but there have been enough changes to warrant a new look. The patch still works by enlarging the emergency reserve area maintained by the core page allocator. There is a GFP flag (__GFP_MEMALLOC) which allows a particular allocation call to be satisfied out of the reserve, if necessary. The core idea is to use this reserve to receive vital incoming network packets without allowing it to be overrun with useless stuff. To that end, code which is performing block I/O over a network connection sets the SOCK_MEMALLOC flag on its socket(s). Previous versions of the patch would then set a flag on any associated network interfaces to indicate that block I/O was passing through that interface, but the current version skips that step. Instead, any attempt to allocate an sk_buff (packet) structure from a network device driver will dip into the memory reserves if need be. Thus, as long as the reserves hold out, the system will always be able to allocate buffers for incoming packets. The key is to receive the important packets without exhausting the reserves with useless data (streaming video from LinuxWorld keynotes, say). To that end, the networking code is patched to check for the SOCK_MEMALLOC flag as soon as possible after the socket for each incoming packet is identified. If that flag is not set, and the incoming packet is using memory from the reserves, the packet will be dropped immediately, freeing its memory for other uses. So packets related to block I/O are received and processed as usual; just about everything else gets dropped at the earliest possible moment. The latest version of the patch includes a new memory allocator, called SROG, which is used for handling reserve memory. It is intended to be fast and simple, and to release memory back to the system as quickly as possible. To that end, it tries to group related allocations together, and it isolates each group of allocations (generally the sk_buff structure and its associated data area) onto their own pages. So every time a packet is released, its associated memory immediately becomes available to the system as a whole. This patch set is proving to be a bit of a hard sell, however. The deadlock scenario is seen as being relatively unlikely - there have not been streams of bug reports on this topic - and, in most cases, it can be avoided simply by swapping to a local disk. The set of systems whose owners can afford fancy network storage arrays, but where those same owners are unable to invest in a local disk for swapping, is thought to be small. Making the networking layer more complex to address this particular problem does not appeal to everybody. Networking maintainer David Miller would like to see a different sort of approach to network memory allocations:
I think there is more profitability from a solution that really
does something about "network memory", and doesn't try to say
"these devices are special" or "these sockets are special".
Special cases generally suck.
We already limit and control TCP socket memory globally in the system. If we do this for all socket and anonymous network buffer allocations, which is sort of implicity in Evgeniy's network tree allocator design, we can solve this problem in a more reasonable way. This comment refers to Evgeniy Polyakov's network memory allocator patch, recently posted for consideration. This work is in a highly transitional state and is a little hard to read. The core, however, is this: it is (yet another) separate memory allocator, oriented toward the needs of the networking system. It is designed to keep memory allocations local to a single CPU, so each processor has its own set of pages to hand out. Allocated objects are packed as tightly as possible, minimizing internal fragmentation. There is no recourse to the system memory allocator in the current design, so, when a particular processor runs out, allocations will fail. Memory exhaustion in the rest of the system will not affect the network allocator, however. The author claims improved networking performance:
Benchmarks with trivial epoll based web server showed noticeable
(more than 40%) improvements of the request rates (1600-1800
requests per second vs. more than 2300 ones). It can be described
by more cache-friendly freeing algorithm, by tighter objects
packing and thus reduced cache line ping-pongs, reduced lookups
into higher-layer caches and so on.
This code is also written with an eye toward mapping networking buffers directly into user space, perhaps in conjunction with a future network channel implementation. The network allocator patch clearly has the eye of the networking maintainer at the moment. That code is fairly far from being ready to merge, however, and not everybody agrees that it solves all of problems. So this is a discussion which could go on for some time yet.
Code of (still) uncertain originIn last week's episode, we looked at the story of the new Thinkpad embedded controller driver and its author "Shem Multinymous." The situation had been put on hold after Pavel Machek had offered to sign off on the code, and the discussion died down for a bit. Not for long, though.Robert Love, the author of the accelerometer driver which (among other things) is replaced by this code, reviewed it, noting "I am glad someone has apparently better access to hardware specs than I did" That brought Andrew Morton back in, saying:
This situation is still a concern. From where did this additional
register information come? [...]
We're setting precedent here and we need Linus around to resolve this. Perhaps we can ask "Shem" to reveal his true identity to Linus (and maybe me) privately and then we proceed on that basis. The rule could be "each of the Signed-off-by:ers should know the identity of the others". That is not good enough for Greg Kroah-Hartman, however:
For what it's worth, I'm not going to be handling these patches at
all (normally the hwmon patches go to Linus through Jean and then
through me.) If the original developer does not want to work in
the open like the rest of us, I can respect that, but unfortunately
I can't accept the risk of accepting their code.
Jean Delvare has also declined to look at the code, saying that the legal uncertainty is too strong. Shem Multinymous, on the other hand, seems willing to come clean to Linus and Andrew if that is what it takes to get the code into the kernel. So it is conceivable that things could happen that way, with the code bypassing the maintainers who would normally handle (and review) it. Some residual concern could remain, however, perhaps to the point that distributors would consider removing the code from the kernels they ship. "Shem" has also posted two separate messages on the provenance of the information used in this driver. The story, it seems, starts with a reverse-engineered Windows driver. Then, a real spec for the embedded controller chip was found. After that, it was mostly a matter of putting the pieces together. Or so it is said. If this story holds together, then the new code probably is something which can be merged into the mainline without worry; it should be at least as legitimate as the original driver which it replaces. But, even if it gets in, this code will have set a precedent of sorts: anonymous submissions (at least, those submitted under an obvious pseudonym) are going to have a hard time getting through the process. Nobody wants to be the person who guided bad code into the kernel.
The cdev interfaceSince time immemorial, the basic registration interface for char devices in the kernel has been:
int register_chrdev(unsigned int major, const char *name,
const struct file_operations *fops);
int unregister_chrdev(unsigned int major, const char *name);
In the old days, register_chrdev() would allocate all 256 minor numbers associated with the given major, associating the given name and file operations with all of them. If the major number is given as zero, one will be allocated on the fly. The corresponding unregister_chrdev() call would release all of those minor numbers. This call asked for the name as a safety measure; if the name did not match that provided when the major number was registered, the unregister_chrdev() call would fail. In the intense period prior to the release of the 2.6.0 kernel, Al Viro set out to find a way to expand the device number range. One of the problems to be solved was the huge set of drivers which "knew" that minor numbers never went any higher than 255. One option would have been to audit every driver in the tree, ensuring that it did the right thing with minor numbers. Time was in short supply, however, and volunteers to do that particular job were in even shorter supply. So Al took a different approach: he created a new interface for the registration of char devices, then reimplemented the old interface as a compatibility layer which would allocate minor numbers 0..255 for a given major. In this way, unconverted code would continue to work as always, with the kernel guaranteeing that it would never see any minor numbers that it would not have seen before. Over time, drivers could be converted to the new interface, which has a number of advantages. As it happens, that conversion never really came to be. Since the old interface continued to work, was familiar, and was a little simpler to use, developers stuck with it. Perhaps more importantly, the long-feared device number shortage never happened. Greater use of dynamic numbers, more generic device interfaces, and the hotplug mechanism all came together to make (most) Linux systems fit easily within the older device number space, to the point that the expanded numbers are rarely used. A quick scan on your editor's system reveals exactly three minor numbers greater than 255, all under /dev/bus/usb. So there has been no strong reason to convert to the new character device interface. Recently, Alexey Dobriyan noticed that unregister_chrdev() no longer checks the name argument, so he posted a patch which removes that argument, fixing all callers in the process. Your editor suggested that, perhaps, this would be a good time to move those callers to the newer interface, rather than reworking the older, compatibility interface. In response, another developer suggested that better documentation for the new interface would be a good thing to have. To that end, here is a quick overview of how char device registration is meant to be done in 2.6. The newer interface breaks down char device registration into two distinct steps: allocation of a range of device numbers, and association of specific devices with those numbers. The allocation phase is handled with either of:
int register_chrdev_region(dev_t first, unsigned int count,
const char *name);
int alloc_chrdev_region(dev_t *first, unsigned int firstminor,
unsigned int count, char *name);
The first form will allocate count minor numbers, starting with the major/minor pair found in first, and remembering name with all of them. The second form is intended for use when the desired major number is not known ahead of time; it will allocate a major number, then allocate count minor numbers, starting at firstminor. The beginning of the allocated number range will be returned in first. The return value will be zero on success or a negative error code on failure. A few things are worth noting here. With either version, the major number used could be shared with other, completely unrelated devices. Only the specific minor number range allocated belongs to any given caller. These minor numbers can be greater than 255. It is possible that the allocated range of device numbers could overflow the minor number range, spilling into the next major number. That behavior is enabled by design, and everything should work correctly - though, as far as your editor knows, no production kernel has any allocations which work that way. Regardless of which allocation function was used, device numbers can be returned to the system with:
void unregister_chrdev_region(dev_t first, unsigned int count);
The association of device numbers with specific devices happens by way of the cdev structure, found in <linux/cdev.h>. It is possible to allocate an initialize a cdev structure with a sequence like:
struct cdev *my_dev = cdev_alloc();
if (my_dev != NULL)
my_dev->ops = &my_fops; /* The file_operations structure */
my_dev->owner = THIS_MODULE;
else
/* No memory, we lose */
In the more common usage pattern, however, the cdev structure will be embedded within some larger, device-specific structure, and it will be allocated with that structure. In this case, the function to initialize the cdev is:
void cdev_init(struct cdev *cdev, const struct file_operations *fops);
/* Need to set ->owner separately */
Either way, the structure is put into proper operating condition, and it will be equipped with the file_operations which should be invoked for the associated device. The owner field of the structure should be initialized to THIS_MODULE to protect against ill-advised module unloads while the device is active. The final step is to add the cdev to the system, associating it with the appropriate device number(s). The tool for that job is:
int cdev_add(struct cdev *cdev, dev_t first, unsigned int count);
This function will add cdev to the system. It will service operations for the count device numbers starting with first; a cdev will often serve a single device number, but it does not have to be that way. Note that cdev_add() can fail; if the return code is zero, the device has not been added to the system. Just as importantly: as soon as cdev_add() succeeds, the device is live, and its file operations can be called by the kernel. So a driver should not call cdev_add() until the initialization of the associated device is complete. To do otherwise is to invite unpleasant race conditions. Removal of a char device from the system is done with:
void cdev_del(struct cdev *cdev);
The cdev should not be referenced after this call. In particular, if cdev was obtained with cdev_alloc(), it will likely be freed in cdev_del(). One final trick worth knowing about: when a char device's file operations are invoked, the associated inode pointer will be passed in, as usual. The field inode->i_cdev contains a pointer to the cdev structure for the device. Drivers can use that pointer to get to their own device-specific structure (perhaps with container_of()). It is, thus, no longer necessary to try to map the minor number onto an internal device - an operation which many drivers got wrong. The cdev interface evolved somewhat in early 2.6 releases, but has not seen any changes in some time.
Patches and updates Kernel trees
Core kernel code
Development tools
Device drivers
Documentation
Filesystems and block I/O
Janitorial
Memory management
Networking
Security-related
Virtualization and containers
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet Distributions News and Editorials Speedy Fedora updatesLast week a small rant was posted to the fedora-advisory-board mailing list, wondering why Fedora had not issued an update for security issues fixed in Firefox 1.5.0.5. For the record, updates for Fedora Core 5 were already in the works at that time. Both Firefox and Thunderbird updates were released very soon after the rant was posted.It turns out that Red Hat has one over-worked developer handling all Mozilla products for all releases from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1 through Fedora Core 6 development. Whew! It also seems that a problem with S/390 builds delayed the Fedora Core 5 update (even though that architecture is only supported by RHEL, not Fedora). According to the LWN vulnerability report, an advisory for the RHEL 3 Seamonkey package was very timely. That update was followed closely by Firefox and Thunderbird updates for RHEL 4. Nearly a week went by before the RHEL 4 Seamonkey package was updated, and Fedora Core 5 was the last to be addressed. From a business standpoint it makes sense for Red Hat to fix things for their paying customers first. Fedora is the community distribution, and it needs help from the community. Many interesting ideas were discussed in the ensuing thread ranging from having a Red Hat developer ask for help on the fedora-maintainers list when they need it, to better version control systems that would make it easier for community members to submit patches. Every one did agree that Fedora should be doing better.
New Releases Ubuntu 6.06.1 LTS releasedUbuntu 6.06.1 LTS has been announced, it features more than 300 post-release package updates. "The Ubuntu team is proud to announce the release of Ubuntu 6.06.1 LTS, the first maintenance release of "Dapper Drake". This release includes both installable Desktop CDs and alternate text-mode installation CDs for several architectures, for Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Edubuntu. Xubuntu is also included, although commercial support for it is not available from Canonical Ltd."
Ubuntu 6.06.1 LTS for UltraSPARC re-releasedA new ISO image for the UltraSPARC version of Ubuntu 6.06.1 LTS has been created. "Due to an unfortunate hiccup in the CD build system, the ISO image for Ubuntu Server on UltraSPARC had to be regenerated. The original image featured a set of mismatched kernel and module packages which would have prevented the installation from completing fully."
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Update 4The fourth update for Red Hat Enterprise Linux is out. The release notes contain the details. (Thanks to Scott Dowdle)
Slackware 11.0 RC 1Slackware 11.0 release candidate 1 was announced on the August 14 Slackware-current change log.
openSUSE 10.2 Alpha3 ReleaseThe third alpha release of openSUSE 10.2 is available for testing. "The codename of openSUSE 10.2 is "Basilisk Lizard". With the rename of the distribution, we renamed also the name in bugzilla.novell.com so that you have to report bugs against "openSUSE 10.2"."
Debian Installer etch beta 3 releasedThe third beta release of the Debian etch installer is out.Major new features introduced with this release:
* Option to install using a graphical user interface on i386 and amd64. For powerpc this option is experimental. * Support for setting up encrypted partitions during installation.
Distribution News Gentoo provides social workspaces to close the gap between users and developersThe Gentoo Overlays project, together with other groups including Gentoo Infrastructure and User Relations, has announced the availability of a new service to provide a single source for development overlays. "Stuart Herbert, the founder of the project, envisions this service, overlays.gentoo.org, as a way to create social workspaces where developers can collaborate with each other and with users to improve the Gentoo experience for everyone."
Novell Renames Community Linux Distribution 'openSUSE'Here's a press release (click below) from Novell officially rebranding its community distribution as "openSUSE(TM)". Novell's enterprise Linux products will continue to be designated "SUSE Linux Enterprise". openSUSE now has a new mailing list server as well.
Goodbye, NetwosixVincenzo Ciaglia has announced the end of the Netwosix distribution. "Linux Netwosix was originally created with the goal of providing a security environment for building and creating new security-related solutions. With the passing of time I realized that the project has failed to achieve its goals within 3 years of hard work. This, among many reasons, is the most important because I never received help from anyone. Regardless of the fact that Netwosix has been downloaded by more than 60,000 users all around the world, I'm here to announce the shutting down of my dear project. Day after day I understand that I can't create a "valid security-oriented product" alone."
Yum config for Fedora Core 4The Fedora Legacy project has released yum configurations for Fedora Core 4. Currently there are no Fedora Legacy updates for 4, however the latest updates as released by the Fedora Project are available.
Bits from the DPL: Looking backAnthony Towns covers several topics from his first few months as Debian Project Leader. "It's been a while since I've posted anything DPLish to dda, so to avoid ending up with a traditionally long aj-esque spiel, I'm splitting the stuff I want to talk about between two posts. We'll see how that works out..."
Report of Cuba visitDavid Moreno Garza reports on the state of free software and Debian in Cuba. "The first day I was in Cuba I had the chance to meet some of the active members in the free software community, precisely and as it was expected, at least as I know it, most of them are a bunch of good and big friends. We had the chance to drink some rum and to taste to nice black Cuban coffee, besides that Medardo cooked his worldwide famous spaghetti with a sauce which I still keep a wonderful memory because of its incomparable aroma."
Introducing automatic crash reporting in EdgyUbuntu has added automatic crash reporting to the upcoming Edgy release. "with today's ubuntu-meta change (which added the 'apport-gtk' package to ubuntu-desktop), Edgy now has automatic crash reporting. It is not yet quite as automatic as it could be, since we do not yet have a proper bug reporting tool, but it should already help developers to track down crashes more efficiently"
Distribution Newsletters Debian Weekly NewsThe Debian Weekly News for August 15, 2006 covers Debian's 13th birthday, the etch song, Wotomae - the distribution-wide tracker tool, a release update, a Python transition status report, a report from the Project Leader, Debian-Installer Etch Beta 3 released, and more.
Fedora Weekly News Issue 59This edition of the Fedora Weekly News looks at Fedora @ LinuxWorld SF 2006, Fedora Core 6 Test 2, Fedora Core 4 Transferred to Fedora Legacy, Fedora Core 4 Support and Yum Config, Fedora usability was born!, Review: Fedora Core 6 - First Impressions, and more.
Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue #9The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter for August 6 - 12, 2006 covers the 6.06.1 point release, Welcoming Jono Bacon, the new Ubuntu community manager, the Ubuntu web universe, MOTU School, Ubuntu New User Mentors Classroom, and several other topics.
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 164The DistroWatch Weekly for August 14, 2006 is out. "The openSUSE project celebrated its first year in existence last week and it has a lot to be proud of: two great releases, many new users and a solid base for Novell's enterprise products. In the meanwhile, the founder of Gentoo Linux Daniel Robbins is once again working on his old project, while the creator of Mandrake Linux Gaël Duval keeps on hacking on the mysterious Ulteo distribution. But not all is good news this week - we are sad to say good-bye to Shawn Milo and the podcast edition of DistroWatch Weekly. Finally, if you live in Central America, don't miss the statistical table summarising visits to DistroWatch from your region."
Package updates Fedora updatesUpdates for Fedora Core 5: kernel (update to 2.6.17.8), evolution (rebuild), libsoup (update to 2.2.96), evolution-connector (update to 2.6.3), gtkhtml3 (update to 3.10.3), evolution-data-server (update to 1.6), cvs (bug fixes), netpbm (update to 10.34), libwnck (update to 2.14.3), gnome-desktop (update to 2.14.3), gnome-menus (update to 2.14.3), gnome-panel (update to 2.14.3), gnome-screensaver (update to 2.14.3), nautilus-cd-burner (update to 2.14.3), eel2 (update to 2.14.3), file-roller (update to 2.14.4), gnome-session (update to 2.14.3), eog (update to 2.14.3), gnome-applets (update to 2.14.3), gnome-utils (update to zenity 2.14.3), nautilus (update to 2.14.3), gtksourceview (update to 1.6.2), gnome-games (update to 2.14.3), yelp (update to 2.14.3), gnome-themes (update to 2.14.3), createrepo (bug fix), cairo-java (new upstream version), libgtk-java (new upstream version), glib-java (new upstream version), libgnome-java (new upstream version), libgconf-java (new upstream version), libvte-java (new upstream version), libglade-java (new upstream version)
rPath updatesUpdates for rPath Linux 1: MySQL-python (bug fix), pycrypto (remove patented algorithms), conary, conary-build, conary-repository (Conary 1.0.28 maintenance release), conary, conary-build, conary-repository, conary-policy (Conary 1.0.29 maintenance release).
Trustix updateTrustix has fixed various bugs in distcache and pvm for TSL 3.0.
Newsletters and articles of interest Gentoo Portage secrets (Linux.com)Linux.com looks at Gentoo's Portage package management system. "Gentoo Linux is perhaps the most-used source-based Linux distribution. One secret to its success is the powerful and handy Portage package management system. While Gentoo comes with extensive documentation covering most aspects of using Portage, the techniques described in Gentoo's handbook and other documentation are not always the most effective ones. Here are some insider tips that can greatly increase your productivity."
Everything you always wanted to know about Linux distros (Linux-Watch)Linux-Watch looks at the Wikipedia article, Comparison of Linux Distributions. "Want to know who created Arch Linux? It's in there. Want to know what version of the Linux kernel the Lycoris Desktop/LX reached before it was folded into Mandriva? That's there too. Do you hanker to know what desktop manager PCLinuxOS uses by default? You can find that there, too."
Debian Server Setup (DebianHelp)DebianHelp provides step-by-step tutorials for setting up Debian servers. This includes Debian Installation, FTP Server Setup, Webserver Setup, Samba Server Setup, Database Server Setup, Time clock sync, Mail Server Configuration, VNC Server setup, Proxy Server Setup, SSH Server Setup, tftp Server Setup, DHCP Server Setup, IPtables Configuration, DNS Server Setup, and more.
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol Development Tux Droid brings Tux the penguin aliveTux Droid is a fun new project that combines open-source software with a hardware project to create a wireless animated version of Tux the penguin, the Linux mascot:
Tux, the official Linux mascot, is alive! There's a new little companion dedicated to the Linux community.
Tux Droid is a robot wirelessly connected to a computer (running Linux!) which will add a new dimension to your applications.
The development team appears to be located in Belgium; they launched (PDF) the project in April of 2006, with hardware supplied by the company kysoh, whose name stands for Keep Your Sense Of Humor.
The Tux Droid can perform the following output functions:
A wide variety of possible applications have been suggested for the Tux Droid, including flapping its wings for incoming email, dancing along with music that is playing, controlling multimedia playback functions, and more. One use that your author particularly liked was having the penguin light up its eyes, flap its wings and make noise to signal a system error. One can imagine connecting some network monitoring software up to the device for an amusing system security alarm. A prototype of Tux Droid was recently demonstrated at the recent O'Reilly Open Source Convention in Portland, Oregon. A number of interesting animations show some potential uses for Tux Droid. This animation [Flash] presents a good representation of the penguin in motion. Hardware preorders are being accepted for early adopters of this critical technology. Tux Droid shows how, with a little imagination, an open-source project can be innovative, useful, and plenty of fun. The only thing your author would like to suggest is the replacement of the blue LEDs with RGB clusters. There's nothing like red eyes to convey a mood.
System Applications Backup Software dkop 010 announcedRelease 010 of dkop is available, it features bug fixes and improved documentation. "dkop is a Linux utility program for copying disk files to recordable DVD media. With dkop, you can copy your files to DVD for safekeeping or archival storage, and verify that the copy is good (no read errors). dkop is a free program licensed under the GNU General Public License. Three kinds of backup are available: full, incremental, and accumulate."
Clusters and Grids Linux-HA 1.2.5 releasedVersion 1.2.5 of the Linux-HA cluster management software is out. "1.2.5 is a recommended upgrade for anyone running a 1.2 version of heartbeat as it contains a fix for a remote denial of service vulnerability."
Linux-HA 2.0.7 availableVersion 2.0.7 of the Linux-HA cluster management software is out. "2.0.7 has is a recommended upgrade for anyone running a 2.0 version of heartbeat as it contains a fix for a remote denial of service vulnerability."
Database Software Firebird 2.00 Release Candidate 4 announcedRelease candidate 4 of the Firebird 2.00 DBMS has been announced. "Firebird 2 contains a large number of new features, including derived tables, support for Execute Block, increased table sizes, new improved index code (the 252-byte index length limit is no longer applicable), expression indices, numerous optimiser improvements, enhanced security features, support for on-line incremental backups, new international language support, along with numerous other improvements and bug fixes."
MySQL 5.1 New Features: MySQL PartitionsThe MySQL DBMS project has a tutorial article on partitioning in the upcoming MySQL 5.1 release. "Partitioning is a way of pre-organizing table storage. You can say "some of the table's rows will go here, some will go there, still others will go to to still other places". Often, depending on the storage engine, the effect is to spread the table's rows over different files or even different disks. We - one of the folks who write the MySQL Reference Manual and one of the folks who test new features - will try to touch on everything that we, or beta testers, or participants in the the MySQL forums, have ever considered is worth touching on about partitioning. Nevertheless we won't repeat what's already in the MySQL Reference Manual when we can't think of a different way to say it."
SQLite 3.3.7 releasedVersion 3.3.7 of SQLite, a light weight DBMS, is out. "Version 3.3.7 includes support for loadable extensions and virtual tables. But both features are still considered "beta" and their APIs are subject to change in a future release. This release is mostly to make available the minor bug fixes that have accumulated since 3.3.6. Upgrading is not necessary. Do so only if you encounter one of the obscure bugs that have been fixed or if you want to try out the new features."
Mail Software sendmail 8.13.8 availableVersion 8.13.8 of the sendmail mail transfer agent has been announced. "It fixes some problems introduced in 8.13.7, as well as some other bugs. For a complete list of changes see the release notes down below."
Networking Tools Hobbit Monitor version 4.2 releasedVersion 4.2 of Hobbit Monitor is out. "The Hobbit monitor is a full-featured, Open Source tool for monitoring the health and performance of networked systems. Systems can be monitored for various usage parameters such as cpu-, memory- and disk-utilisation; but also logfiles, network ports in use, file- and directory-size and the bandwidth used on network interfaces is automatically registered. Common network services (Web, E-mail, DNS, LDAP etc.) can be monitored, as well as custom network services, with a full check of whether the service is running and responding as it should."
VPN Software SSL-Explorer 0.2.7 released (SourceForge)Version 0.2.7 of SSL-Explorer, a browser based SSL VPN solution, has been announced. "The main addition to this 0.2.7 release of SSL-Explorer is a major alteration to the authentication flow which has been changed to a multi-stage login process. The system now has the ability to alter the selectable authentication schemes for a particular user depending on those granted to them via their policies. Additionally, an RSS based context sensitive help system has now been introduced into this release. Also included in the release are various bugfixes for proxy support."
Web Site Development Gallery 1.5.4 released (SourceForge)Version 1.5.4 of Gallery, a web-based photo album, is available. "This release is a pure bug fix release with no security fixes. The most annoying bug was the broken permission dialog."
Solr: Indexing XML with Lucene and REST (O'Reilly)Bertrand Delacretaz introduces Solr on O'Reilly. "Solr (pronounced "solar") builds on the well-known Lucene search engine library to create an enterprise search server with a simple HTTP/XML interface. Using Solr, large collections of documents can be indexed based on strongly typed field definitions, thereby taking advantage of Lucene's powerful full-text search features. This article describes Solr's indexing interface and its main features, and shows how field-type definitions are used for precise content analysis."
Miscellaneous acpitool 0.4.6 releasedVersion 0.4.6 of acpitool is out with a bug fix. "AcpiTool is (yet another) Linux ACPI client. It's a small command-line application, intended to be a replacement for the apm tool. The primary target audience are laptop users, since these people are most interested in stuff like battery status, thermal status and the ability to put their precious laptop to sleep."
Jitterbit 1.1 released (SourceForge)Version 1.1 of Jitterbit is out. "This release contains an important security fix where a logged-in user could overwrite variables, and a collection of regular bugfixes. Jitterbit is an open source integration tool that delivers a quick and simple way to design, configure, test, and deploy integration solutions. It supports many document types and protocols: XML, web services, database, LDAP, text, FTP, HTTP(S), file."
Desktop Applications Business Applications GanttProject 2.0.2 Final (SourceForge)GanttProject version 2.0.2 has been announced "GanttProject is a project scheduling application written in Java and featuring gantt chart, resource management, calendaring, import/export (MS Project, HTML, PDF, spreadsheets). The final build of GanttProject 2.0.2 is available for downloading. It is a maintenance release focused on the most annoying bugs and usability problems remained after GP 2.0.1."
Desktop Environments GNOME 2.16.0 Beta 2 releasedVersion 2.16.0 Beta 2 (2.15.91) of GNOME is available. "We are pleased to announce the release of GNOME 2.16.0 Beta 2 (2.15.91). This is one of the last releases in the 2.15 development series and represents a release that is now API/ABI, feature, string and UI frozen. This means that we're pretty close to the final 2.16.0 release. The GNOME contributors are now busy fixing the most important bugs that are still out there, localizing the whole desktop or updating our documentation."
GARNOME 2.16.0 Beta 2 releasedVersion 2.16.0 Beta 2 (2.15.91) of GARNOME, the bleeding-edge GNOME distribution is out. "We are pleased to announce the release of GARNOME 2.15.91 Desktop and Developer Platform. This release includes all of GNOME 2.16.0 Beta 2 (2.15.91), tweaked and updated with love by the GARNOME Team."
GNOME Software AnnouncementsThe following new GNOME software has been announced this week:
The GNOME Journal, August EditionThe August edition of the GNOME Journal is out. Topics include the Women's summer outreach program, Glade 3.0, Tinymail, and an interview with Davyd Madeley. "Collaboration is somewhere where we can really get ahead of the game. Collaborative Abiword, collaborative Inkscape, these applications are really pushing the limits with how people expect conventional applications to function. The way we work is undergoing a paradigm shift, in that we no longer all work together in the same office and sometimes, there is no office at all. The ability to collaborate in the same basic way but over a network is seriously a cool thing."
KDE Software AnnouncementsThe following new KDE software has been announced this week:
KDE Commit-Digest (KDE.News)The August 13, 2006 edition of the KDE Commit-Digest has been announced. "In this week's KDE Commit-Digest: kdesu, the KDE application privileges manager, gets long-awaited support for the sudo method. Strigi gets .rpm and .deb package contents indexing capabilities, and can now index UTF-8 encoded text. Guidance gets a new power manager applet. Code import for the Physiks educational Summer Of Code project. Amarok gets support for MTP media devices. Work starts on porting KGoldRunner to KDE 4. Rewrites begin in the KReversi game and Oskar media player. GUI optimisations in KTorrent and KTU (KDE Translation Updater). Experiments using Kexi as a database backend in KPhotoAlbum, and rendering SVG in Unity."
Electronics Icarus Verilog 20060809 releasedDevelopment snapshot 20060809 of Icarus Verilog, an electronic simulation language compiler, is out. See the release notes for more information.
Interoperability Wine 0.9.19 releasedVersion 0.9.19 of Wine has been announced. Changes include: Support for a proper Trash folder, Many improvements to the IDL compiler, Better FreeBSD support, A number of MSI bug fixes, Many RichEdit improvements and Lots of bug fixes.
Wine Weekly NewsletterThe August 10, 2006 edition of the Wine Weekly Newsletter is online with coverage of the Wine project. Topics include: News: 0.9.17, 0.9.18, CrossOver Mac, WineConf 2006!, CreateRemoteThread & VirtualAllocEx, Metacity Fullscreen Issues, Preloader Problem on x86_64, Windows Notes Client with Wine and Winelib Port.
Mail Clients SquirrelMail 1.4.8 Released (SourceForge)Version 1.4.8 of SquirrelMail, a PHP4-based Web email client, has been announced. "This release contains an important security fix where a logged-in user could overwrite variables, and a collection of regular bugfixes."
Medical Applications FreeMED 0.8.3 released (LinuxMedNews)Version 0.8.3 of FreeMED has been announced on LinuxMedNews. "FreeMED 0.8.3, an enterprise-grade opensource electronic medical record / practice management package, has been officially released by the FreeMED Software Foundation. FreeMED's website has also been updated to provide a more community oriented portal for information about the software."
Music Applications stygmorgan 0.27 releasedVersion 0.27 of stygmorgan, an organ synthesizer with automatic accompaniment, is out. The project introduction states: "stygmorgan is an emulator of which nowadays the manufacturers of musical keyboards denominate like Interactive Workstation, that is to say, an organ with automatic accompaniment and capable to create more or less complex musical sequences. stygmorgan means a step ahead on the old project gmorgan1 because it uses real time patterns, the source code of the program has been rewritten practically completely."
Languages and Tools Caml Caml Weekly NewsThe August 15, 2006 edition of the Caml Weekly News is out with new Caml language articles. Topics include: Format polymorphism; Lexing, parsing, symbolic manipulation and interpreting; Streams; can ocamldep order .cmo files?; question about how to bind c++ classes to ocaml and Camomile-0.7.0.
Java GNU Classpath 0.92 releasedVersion 0.92 of GNU Classpath, the essential libraries for Java, is out. "This is the first release that has a full graphics 2D implemenation based on Cairo enabled by default. This enables the use of applications like JEdit, FlickrBackup and JFreeChart out of the box. Screenshots of CairoGraphics2D at http://www.jfree.org/jfreechart/samples-gnu.html Also new in this release is the inclusion of an applet viewer and plugin that can be embedded in webbrowsers or other applications. It works on any platform supported by the various runtimes based on GNU Classpath, including 64 bit architectures."
Perl Parrot 0.4.6 releasedVersion 0.4.6 of Parrot has been announced. "On behalf of the Parrot team, I'm proud to announce Parrot 0.4.6, the most recent close-to-monthly release of Parrot. I'm particularly pleased to report that Parrot 0.4.6 includes the beginnings of a Ruby implementation (named "Cardinal"), thanks to the work of Kevin Tew. What is Parrot? Parrot is a virtual machine aimed at running all dynamic languages. "
Python Dr. Dobb's Python-URL!The August 15, 2006 edition of Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! is online with a new collection of Python article links.
python-dev SummaryThe python-dev Summary for the period of July 1-15, 2006 is out with coverage of the python-dev mailing list.
python-dev SummaryThe python-dev Summary for the period of July 16-31, 2006 is out with coverage of the python-dev mailing list.
Build Tools Ant 1.7: Using Antlibs (O'ReillyNet)Kev Jackson looks at new features in the upcoming release of the Apache Ant Java build tool. "Most Java developers use Ant to do builds and are familiar with its core tasks. But Ant's tasks tend toward an undesirable coupling: everything important had to be a core task because it was hard to distribute new plug-in tasks. Fortunately, Ant 1.7's new antlibs feature makes it much easier to distribute and use new Ant tasks."
Page editor: Forrest Cook Linux in the news Recommended Reading Extending the GPL for application service providers (NewsForge)NewsForge covers a new license proposal. "Funambol CEO Fabrizio Capobianco is scheduled to announce a draft version of a modified GNU General Public License (GPL) today that would add a provision requiring service providers to distribute changes to code, even if they don't "distribute" the code beyond their own servers. Capobianco calls this the Honest Public License (HPL), and the additional provision could add an entirely new wrinkle to free software."
Linux's Legal World After SCO (LinuxWorld)Pamela Jones writes about the post-SCO world on LinuxWorld. "The SCO saga is drawing to a close, and Linux won. But what about the future? If a Son of SCO copycat appears, is the community now better prepared because of having gone through the SCO saga? What is now in place to handle legal issues that wasn't there when SCO first attacked in 2003?"
Trade Shows and Conferences LinuxWorld: less fun, more biz (Linux-Watch)Linux-Watch looks forward to LinuxWorld San Francisco. "Beneath all the hype and techno jargon, it's really pretty easy to see why businesses want it: They want to get the most use out of today's high-powered, multi-cored computers. Take it one more step, and it all boils down to people wanting to pay the least amount possible for their enterprise computing power."
A slow start at LinuxWorld (NewsForge)Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier reports from LinuxWorld. "As per usual, the first day of LinuxWorld consisted of tutorials only, while the exhibitors worked furiously to get their booths set up before the exhibit floor was scheduled to open on Tuesday morning. While Robin 'Roblimo' Miller was off getting video of attendees, I had the opportunity to attend some of the tutorials -- but not before hitting the press room and picking up a Nokia 770 Internet Tablet through a loaner program for press at LinuxWorld."
LinuxWorld awash with Linux phone buzz (LinuxDevices)LinuxDevices summarizes the cellphone-related announcements from LinuxWorld. "One of today's announcements notes that the Diffusion Group expects Linux to surpass Symbian, the current mobile phone OS marketshare leader, within four years."
Day two at LinuxWorld (NewsForge)Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier reports from LinuxWorld. "A hot topic of discussion this year has been the absence of Red Hat. The company isn't exhibiting at LinuxWorld, and people are wondering why a company that is practically synonymous with Linux is missing from the show floor. One attendee wondered, 'What's it say when someone gets an exhibit pass and comes to the show floor looking for Red Hat, and they're not here?'"
PostgreSQL Anniversary Summit Wrap UpThe PostgreSQL DBMS project has published a conference wrap-up for the PostgreSQL Anniversary Summit that took place in Toronto, Canada during July. "By any measure, the PostgreSQL Anniversary Summit was a success. The most exciting thing about the conference is that there have not been so many PostgreSQL major contributors together in one place since the GreatBridge-sponsored meeting in 1999 ... and back then there were only a dozen contributors to invite! 89 PostgreSQL contributors from more than 15 countries and more than 23 companies attended. 41 of these people were speakers, for 19 full sessions and 10 "lightning talks.""
The SCO Problem SCO is Still Distributing the Linux Kernel. Yup. The Whole Enchilada (Groklaw)Groklaw reports that Linux kernel source code is still available at ftp.iso.caldera.com. "Here's what our informant tells us: "This is the ISO image that contains Linux kernel source and binary RPMs under EXTRA/RPMS and EXTRA/SRPMS. The current disk image is dated April 1, 2004; the difference from the previous version is the removal of nmap (after Fyodor's request that SCO not distribute nmap any more).""
Companies ATI: We like our proprietary Linux drivers (News.com)News.com obtained a clear statement from ATI regarding free graphics drivers: "'Proprietary, patented optimizations are part of the value we provide to our customers and we have no plans to release these drivers to open source,' the company said in a statement. 'In addition, multimedia elements such as content protection must not, by their very nature, be allowed to go open source.'"
Intel aims for open-source graphics advantage (ZDNet)ZDNet has posted a lengthy article about Intel's graphic driver release. "The move reflects the curious intersection of technological, legal, social and business motivations that operate in the open-source realm. By participating in the collaborative programming movement, Intel builds ties with outside programmers and open-source fans, but it also relinquishes some control over software and forgoes the possibility of keeping some software secrets."
Intel playing catch-up with open source (ZDNet)ZDNet's Dana Blankenhorn considers Intel's moves toward open-source video driver software. "Intel's release of 3-D Linux graphics software, with an open source license, is all about catching rivals ATI (recently bought by AMD) and nVidia in a niche where it's lagging. The software will support its new 965 Express chipset. The result will be graphics supercomputers using open source, probably within a year."
HP offers Debian Linux support (ZDNet)ZDNet reports that HP will be offering a support package for Debian. "Debian won't be on the same level as Red Hat or Novell, though... HP won't market it, and customers will have to download the software on their own. Software combinations with partners such as BEA Systems or Oracle won't be available with Debian. And HP won't formally certify Debian for its servers."
Interviews An interview with two 'granny hackers' (NewsForge)Joe Barr talks with Terri Gilbert and Becky Bace at Black Hat. "Terri, a whiz kid from California, has been involved with computers for 50 years. Becky, who hails from Alabama, is a whiz kid in her own right. During her 16-year tenure at the NSA, she was the project manager for the first intrusion detection system, which was being developed there in the '80s."
Resources The case for a native object database (IT Manager's Journal)Jim Paterson discusses the use of object database managers on IT Manager's Journal. "Linux users have their choice of good relational databases. However, some applications require an approach that takes advantage of object-oriented programming. Here's some advice on when and where to use a native object database like db4o instead of a relational database."
Security Testing your Apache Configuration with Nikto (HowtoForge)HowtoForge looks at Nikto. "This tutorial, inspired by one of the chapters in Hardening Apache by Tony Mobily (APress), will show you how to set up the free web server security scanner tool, Nikto. This tool will probe your Apache set-up for vulnerabilities, so you can get an idea of what holes may exist in your configuration. This tutorial will only get you so far as installing the tool, and running your first scan. A google search or the afore mentioned book will give you plenty of information on actually securing your Apache server."
Printing Avery labels with Linux (Linux.com)Michael Stutz looks at label printing under Linux using LabelNation, OpenOffice.org templates, LaTeX packages and Command-line scripts, in a Linux.com article. The popular gLabels label printing application is not covered, but deserves mention. "To aid users in the task of label printing, Avery Dennison offers a host of free (to download) software, including a program for the Mac released late last month. Linux still isn't supported, but that's no matter -- there's more than one open source application for Linux that lets you format text for printing on the whole universe of Avery labels, from DVD covers to business cards. Here's a look at them."
Untwisting Python Network Programming (O'ReillyNet)O'ReillyNet covers network programming in Python. "This article introduces basic client-side networking using both core Python modules and the Twisted framework. For its example, I will show how to send, receive, and delete emails, and conduct Telnet sessions. I have written two functionally equivalent examples, one using the core modules (mail-core.py) and another using Twisted (mail-twisted.py), with both start, stop, and interact with a server to process emails. These programs work with any standard-compliant SMTP and POP3 servers in sending and retrieving of emails. The starting and stopping of server are specific to the Apache James mail server, which I choose as a local testing server due to its ease of installation and its shutdown procedure in a Telnet session."
Ubuntu turns to NUN to help new users (Linux.com)Linux.com covers the New Users Network for new Ubuntu users. "Volunteer NUN mentors spend time on Ubuntu forums, mailing lists, and IRC channels looking for new user queries. The mentors have agreed to follow the NUN guidelines, which caution against the use of popular responses to newbie questions, such as RTFM, JFGI, and UTFS. Instead, they try to answer the queries in an easy-to-follow fashion, and point to online resources wherever possible, such as a wiki that explains things in details."
Ubuntu LAMP Server With Torrentflux In VMware (Howtoforge)Howtoforge is running a tutorial on setting up a Ubuntu machine as a LAMP server. "This tutorial is meant for Linux newbies who want to try and build a Ubuntu Server box as a webserver and torrent client. It is a step by step instruction on how to do this in VMWare on Windows XP to get the feel of it. I wrote this after, being a Linux newbie myself, a lot of trial-and-error and googling. Hope this helps you!"
Reviews Micro-Evolution: Dates and Contacts (Linux.com)Linux.com looks at a couple of lightweight applications for calendaring and address book management. "Both Dates and Contacts (the calendar and address book, respectively) are built to interact with Evolution Data Server (EDS). EDS was originally written for Ximian's Evolution email/calendar/addrebbook/tasklist client to expose Evolution's database of contacts, calendar events, and email desktop-wide, thus allowing easy integration with other applications."
Linux powers unusual multicore machine (ZDNet)ZDNet covers Linux-powered hardware from Movidis. "A start-up called Movidis believes a 16-core chip originally designed for networking gear will be a ticket to success in the Linux server market."
Using phpMyAdmin (NewsForge)Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier reviews phpMyAdmin on NewsForge. "So many open source projects depend on MySQL that it's almost impossible for administrators and other open source enthusiasts to avoid working with at least one MySQL database. MySQL's command line interface is easy enough to use, but if you don't feel like reaching for a five-pound MySQL reference book or Googling for proper SQL syntax, phpMyAdmin is a great alternative to learning MySQL commands by heart."
SeaMonkey suite still swimming along (NewsForge)NewsForge reviews SeaMonkey 1.0.4. "SeaMonkey still uses the "kitchen sink" approach. It includes the Navigator browser, the ChatZilla IRC client, the Composer HTML editor, a mail and newsgroup client, and an address book component all bundled into one big application. To get all the functionality of SeaMonkey using the separate Mozilla apps, you'd have to install Firefox, Thunderbird, the ChatZilla extension for Firefox, and a separate HTML editor such as Nvu (which is built using the Composer codebase)."
Page editor: Forrest Cook Announcements Non-Commercial announcements Creative Commons 3.0 licenses discussion startedThe Creative Commons has begun the discussion on the upgrade of its licenses to version 3.0. "[We] are looking to move ahead with versioning the CC licenses up to version 3.0 to improve the clarity of the terms of the licenses and to address some concerns of one of our first and very prominent license adopters - MIT, with their OpenCourseWare project, and to also take on board the concerns of the Debian group about the clarity of some provisions of our licenses." There are some remaining issues regarding the anti-DRM language; interested people might want to join the mailing list and comment on the drafts.
EFF: Innocent Target of File-Sharing Lawsuit Deserves Attorney's FeesThe Electronic Frontier Foundation has sent out a press release concerning the payment of legal fees for those wrongly accused of illegal file sharing. "The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), along with the American Association of Law Libraries, the ACLU, and Public Citizen, filed a brief with an Oklahoma district court Thursday, strongly urging a judge to award the innocent target of a file-sharing lawsuit the cost of her attorney's fees in battling the baseless allegations of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The RIAA sued Deborah Foster in November of 2004, accusing her of illegally downloading copyrighted material. Foster denied the allegations and fought back in court, and the case was dismissed. But many others who are falsely accused accept settlement offers from the RIAA because the cost of settling the case is less than what they might spend defending themselves."
Linuxaudio.org announces new membersLinuxaudio.org has announced the joining of nine new members. "Linuxaudio.org is a not-for-profit consortium of libre software projects and artists, companies, institutions, organizations, and hardware vendors using Linux kernel-based systems and allied libre software for audio-related work, with an emphasis on professional tools for the music, production, recording, and broadcast industries. The consortium aims to co-ordinate joint projects between members, collaborate on the promotion of Linux based systems for audio tasks, offer programs beneficial to members and subsequently its mission, and provide a single point of contact for prospective industry partners."
OpenVZ for RHEL4The OpenVZ Project has announced a special kernel for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4. RHEL users who want to play with bleeding-edge container technology can get checkpointing, live migration, virtual network drivers, and more. It is not clear how much of this work will ever make it into the mainline kernel, but it is undoubtedly an interesting set of features.
Commercial announcements Active Voice Increases the Capacity and Reliability of Repartee LXActive Voice has enhanced the Capacity and Reliability of its Repartee LX Unified Messaging Solution. "To address the needs of larger enterprise customers, such as hotels and resorts, hospitals, universities, and government offices, Repartee LX version 8.1.2 offers increased capacity to 60 ports from 40 ports, enabling it to support thousands of users. In addition, the new Repartee LX product supports the flexible Dell PowerEdge 2800 rack-mountable server with RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks), ideal for organizations seeking increased speed and performance, higher reliability and growth potential on their communications network."
Argus to support PitBull Foundation for SUSE Linux EnterpriseArgus Systems Group has announced that it will support PitBull Foundation for SUSE Linux Enterprise. "Users of the Argus solution will be able to implement multilevel security (MLS) on the SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 platform from Novell. PitBull Foundation for Linux, which is compatible with the Linux 2.6 kernel, is being built on proven security technology. It will offer users the ability to protect Linux systems at the core of the system, from within the kernel."
Coverity technology helps Mozilla developers find bugsCoverity tools have been scanning Mozilla code, Firefox in particular. ""The results of our analysis have shown that the Firefox browser is very high quality software, especially given how complex it is," said Seth Hallem, CEO of Coverity."
Digium receives first round of VC fundingDigium has announced the receipt of venture capital funding. "Digium, creator of Asterisk, the first open source telephony platform (PBX), has received its first round of VC funding, $13.8 million from Matrix Partners."
GarageGames Releases Version 1.1.1 of Torque Game BuilderGarageGames has announced the release of Torque Game Builder version 1.1.1. "Just over a month since the release of TGB 1.1.0, GarageGames is proud to present the first in a long line of updates, sporting many improvements and some new functionality!"
Ingres introduces Project IcebreakerIngres has announced their Project Icebreaker. "Ingres Corporation, the leading business open source database company, today unveiled Project Icebreaker, an integrated software maintenance unit that dramatically lowers the cost and complexity of database and operating system maintenance and support. The integration of the Ingres 2006 database with the Linux operating system enables a single, easy-to-manage environment where the operating system becomes transparent and support is provided by one point of contact and a unified maintenance stream."
Openwave and Trolltech Collaborate on Linux-Based Development PlatformOpenwave Systems Inc. has announced a collaboration with Trolltech. "Openwave Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: OPWV), the leading provider of open software products and services for the communications industry, and Trolltech(R), the company that makes software faster to build and easier to use, today announced an agreement to port Openwave client software onto Trolltech's Qtopia Phone Edition Series 4. The Openwave technologies include the Openwave(R) Mobile Browser, Mercury Edition and Openwave(R) Mobile Integrated Dynamic Application System (MIDAS), a user experience engine."
Open-Xchange partners with SpikeSourceOpen-Xchange is partnering with SpikeSource to Offer Spike Certified Solutions Smart Collaboration on Red Hat and SUSE Linux Stacks. "Open-Xchange Server 5 enables Smart Collaboration by providing mission critical collaborative functions like email, calendaring, contacts and task management - fully integrated with advanced groupware features such as Documail, Smart Linking, Smart Permissions, document sharing, project tracking, user forums, and a knowledge base. Open-Xchange Server 5 works with the widest variety of browsers, mobile devices and rich clients' such as Microsoft Outlook. Open-Xchange Server 5 is now available as a SpikeCertified business ready solution."
Oracle Enhances Oracle Validated ConfigurationsOracle Corporation has announced an expansion of its Oracle Validated Configurations effort. "Oracle today announced the expansion of its Oracle(R) Validated Configurations effort with the addition of new configurations and partners -- Brocade, Cisco Systems and Pillar Data Systems. Now, customers will have access to a broader range of pre-tested and validated architectures .- software, hardware, storage and networking components .- to help accelerate and simplify their Oracle on Linux deployments."
OSDL and LiPS to Announce Formal CollaborationOpen Source Development Labs (OSDL) and the Linux Phone Standards Forum (LiPS) have announced that they will collaborate to reduce fragmentation in the mobile space and provide the industry with open, flexible and customizable Linux-based solutions. "This move will maximize the benefits of the organizations' complementary approaches: OSDL focuses on the kernel and operating system levels, and LiPS works on applications and service enabler layers."
The Portland Group Delivers a PGI CDK Roll for Rocks ClustersSTMicroelectronics has announced its PGI Cluster Development Kit. "The Portland Group(TM), a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics and a leading supplier of compilers and development tools for High-Performance Computing, today announced availability of its PGI Cluster Development Kit(TM) (CDK) in a roll configuration compatible with the popular Rocks cluster software distribution technology. The PGI CDK is a turn-key suite of software for building and testing programs designed to take advantage of the performance of Linux clusters."
SGI releases SGI ProPack 5SGI has announced the release of SGI ProPack 5 for Linux, the latest version of its software supplement that boosts the capabilities and performance of Linux on SGI hardware.
ACCESS and PalmSource LinuxWorld announcementsACCESS CO., LTD and PalmSource, Inc. have announced the ACCESS Developer Network, an online resource designed to accelerate the creation, distribution and usage of mobile Linux applications for devices based on the ACCESS Linux Platform (ALP).PalmSource, Inc. has announced it is releasing its recently created software library known as libsqlfs, under a Lesser General Public License (LGPL).
Penguin Computing Ships Scyld ClusterWare HPCPenguin Computing, Inc. has announced the release of its Scyld ClusterWare platform. "Penguin Computing, the leader in Cluster Virtualization, today announced availability of its new Scyld ClusterWare(TM) platform, which provides a virtualized cluster environment that is so easy to manage, even non-system administrators can run a cluster. This simplicity of management and scalability is a result of Scyld ClusterWare HPC's innovative, single point command/control architecture that has earned it Linux Journal Product Excellence Award finalist status Scyld ClusterWare HPC significantly improves system scalability while retaining overall simplicity of management with enhanced "just-in-time" provisioning."
rPath to launch 2.0 at LinuxWorldrPath has announced the general availability of rBuilder 2.0. "This latest release of rPaths flagship product allows software developers to transform their applications into software appliances. A software appliance combines an application with a tailored version of the Linux operating system and runs on industry standard hardware or in a virtualized environment."
LinuxWorld announcementsLinuxWorld San Francisco continues to be an occasion for commercial announcements. Here are a few of the press releases we have seen for August 15th:
New Books "Innovation Happens Elsewhere" under a CC licenseThe book Innovation Happens Elsewhere, by Ron Goldman and Richard P. Gabriel, has been released under the Creative Commons noncommercial license. "This book is intended for anyone considering using Open Source. It describes what open source is, discusses business reasons for using open source, and describes how an open source project works in a day-to-day manner."
Resources FSFE NewsletterThe August 10, 2006 edition of the Free Software Foundation Europe Newsletter is online. Topics include: SELF project officially launched, Second draft of the GPLv3 presented, Bernhard Reiter spoke at University of Bayreuth (Germany), Free Software at Campus Party in Valencia (Spain), Experts Meeting on Internet Governance Forum, Microsoft fined another 1.5m EUR per day, 280.5m EUR total and FSFE servers moved.
LPI launches a Linux jobs serviceThe Linux Professional Institute has announced the launch of an "employment and contract matching service" for people registered with LPI. It is, in particular, aimed at matching those who pass the LPI certification exams with jobs, but one need not be certified to get into the database. There is no public site for the database; employers and recruiters seeking candidates will have to inquire about pricing before getting that information.
Calls for Presentations SCALE 5x Calls For Papers (LinuxMedNews)LinuxMedNews has announced a call for papers for the SCALE 5x conference. "Preparing for its 5th annual event, SCALE 5x, the Southern California Linux Expo has issued a call for papers. SCALE 5x will be held on Feb 10-11, 2007 at the Los Angeles Airport Westin. Past speakers have included Chris Dibona, Jon "maddog" Hall, and Andrew Morton."
Upcoming Events KDE-Edu Birds of a Feather Session at Akademy 2006 (KDE.News)KDE.News has announced the KDE-Edu Birds of a Feather Session, to be held at the Akademy conference in Dublin, Ireland on September 28. "This year in Dublin will host the annual meeting of the KDE community, and it will be a great occasion for developers to meet, code, hold bug-fixing sessions, discussions and much more. During the week of the conference, some KDE-Edu developers will meet to discuss themes including their future strategies of the module for the upcoming KDE 4, current applications, ideas for new ones and collaboration with other education-related projects, like SkoleLinux."
LinuxBIOS Symposium in Europe this year!The LinuxBIOS project has announced a European symposium. "Join the firmware revolution! This year's LinuxBIOS symposium will take place on October 1-3 in Hamburg, Germany. We cordially invite you to participate. Expect to meet interesting people from all over the world, thrilling topics and exciting talks and discussion about LinuxBIOS."
Wizards of OS 4"Information Freedom Rules" is the title of the 4th Wizards of OS conference, taking place in Berlin on 14-16 September 2006. Among the topics are the future of free software and the presence of free netlabel music, the freedom of art and the free culture nation Brazil. The rules to be discussed include copyright law and licenses, quality assurance in free information and regulation of the electromagnetic spectrum, an essential resource as we move into the mobile wireless era. Another essential resource is money. New rules for an economy based on free culture will be one of the focus issues of WOS4.
Events: August 24, 2006 to October 23, 2006The following event listing is taken from the LWN.net Calendar.
If your event does not appear here, please tell us about it. Web sites GNOME Software in 3 Clicks (GnomeDesktop)GnomeDesktop.org mentions the new GFiles.org site. "GFiles.org is a dedicated GTK/GNOME Linux software repository. At the present time repository include more than 1000 pupular GTK/GNOME applications. We are trying to increase number of software titles presented in our database. So, if you are an opensource author or commercial vendor please submit your applications on GFiles.org."
Yahoo launches Python developer networkYahoo has launched a new Python developer network with links to Python resources, HOWTO articles, educational sites and community resources.
Page editor: Forrest Cook
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![[Tux Droid]](/images/ns/tuxdroid.png)
Tux Droid is interfaced to the host computer via a 2.4 Ghz wireless
USB link. Control information and audio are routed back and forth
across this link. The wireless link allows Tux Droid to be
separated from the host computer, expanding the possible uses
for the device.
Power to the penguin comes from a set of rechargeable
batteries and an AC power supply/recharger.