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LWN.net Weekly Edition for February 15, 2007The Grumpy Editor's guide to note-taking applications
This is the information age, of course, and paper full of handwritten notes is tremendously obsolete. Your editor's pen just doesn't have enough fonts, and, besides, contemporary disk drives allow for the creation of much higher piles of stuff. It's clearly time to go electronic. There are numerous applications out there which are aimed at people trying to create a digital note pile; your editor decided it was time to give a few of them a try. As a way of narrowing the field somewhat, only graphical applications were considered; command-line utilities, Emacs modes, and so on were taken off the list. There's no shortage of web-based wiki systems which can be employed in this role, but they are a topic for another article some other time. Finally, there are a few systems which are aimed at "mind mapping," which is a different objective entirely. Mind mapping applications are on your editor's list to review, but, according to his kids, your editor has lost his mind entirely and will thus have a hard time mapping it. Each application was looked at from a simple point of view: how well does it support the tasks of quickly and easily creating, organizing, finding, and using notes? There are, as we will see, a few approaches to this task.
xpad
Like a number of note-taking applications, xpad puts an icon into the panel task area. Simply clicking on that icon appears to do nothing - though double-clicking causes all known notes to show up in the current workspace. The right mouse button yields a menu with the titles of each note window, along with "show all" and "close all" options. "Close all" doesn't just close the windows, it causes the application to exit completely. There is an "edit lock" feature in xpad; it turns off editing on all notes. There does not appear to be a way to lock a single window. There's not a lot of other features available: no searching, no linking between notes, no audio effects, etc. As a basic notepad, however, xpad seems good enough.
xpostit
Note windows contain simple text in the ugliest monospace font the developers could find. There is, beyond doubt, some X resource which can be employed to change that font, but your editor, it must be said, has not found messing around with X resources cool for some years now. Xpostit is one of the few notes applications with a "save" button; most of them save notes implicitly. There are no features of interest beyond the provision of containers for bare text. There is no panel icon, and no way to find a specific note beyond getting them all on-screen with "show all" and starting to dig. In your editor's opinion, xpostit is an application whose time has passed.
knotes
KNotes puts an icon in the task area; clicking on it gives a menu of note titles. Selecting a title will move to the virtual desktop containing the note (if any), a bit of a disorienting experience for users who are not expecting it. Even worse, it remembers which desktop last contained a note, and will put the note back in that desktop before moving. The right mouse button gives a menu with a number of options, including creating new notes, adjusting the ample (this is KDE, after all) configuration options, and searching. The search function is a valuable thing for a notes application to have; once the number of notes gets large, it can get hard to remember where something specific can be found. KNotes search is nice, in that it searches through all notes and it supports regular expressions. There are a couple of rough spots, though; if the next occurrence of the desired text is in a window found on a different virtual desktop, it moves the desktop rather than the window. Then it helpfully puts up a little "search for the next occurrence?" dialog - directly on top of the window containing the text the user was looking for. There are a few features unique to KNotes. One of those is alarms, added presumably so that the user can use notes as a simple appointment manager. There is an option to send notes via email. It is also possible to send notes directly to an instance of KNotes running on another system - though the acceptance of notes over the network is (sensibly) turned off by default. Notes can be locked on a per-note basis, preventing inadvertent modification of notes when desired. Another nice feature is that notes can be dismissed by hitting the escape key. As a result, pulling up a note, adding a line, and making it go away can be a very quick operation - and that, in turn, encourages the keeping of good and complete notes. Without the desktop warping, KNotes would be almost perfect as a simple, quick, capable, and visually attractive notes manager. It's worth noting (so to speak) that KNotes is also available as a component of the Kontact organizer. Running Kontact gives access to all of the notes created in KNotes, but it appears that the full integration of this functionality is a work in progress. Kontact notes windows look more like traditional text editing windows; they do not appear to be intended to be left around the screen like KNotes windows. Kontact does add a spelling checker, however. Even so, in your editor's opinion, KNotes works better as a standalone application at this time.
Tomboy
Tomboy places an icon on the panel - not in the task area. Clicking on that icon yields a menu with the titles of the ten most recently modified notes, along with create and search options. Unfortunately, your editor seems to cycle through a set of about eleven notes, with the result that the desired one is often not on the list. Selecting "search all notes" brings up a dialog with all known notes and a simple search box. Typing text into that box trims the list of notes to those containing matches. There is no regular expression capability. The escape key will dismiss a Tomboy window; combined with the panel icon, this feature allows for quick note updates. A feature unique to Tomboy - at least, among the applications reviewed here - is the ability to link between notes. By highlighting a term, the user can create a new note using that term as its title; thereafter, clicking on the term will bring up the new note. There is also a backlink feature: the tools menu includes a "what links here?" item which will give a list of notes linking to the current one. Tomboy has a fair number of options for decorating text with different fonts, colors, sizes, etc. For the most part, there is not much use for this capability in a note-taking application, but the ability to create bold headers can be nice. It's also useful to be able to strike out text to, for example, mark off completed items on a "to do" list. A long list of crossed-out items just gives more satisfaction than simply deleting them, somehow. Tomboy will also create bulleted lists when lines are typed beginning with an asterisk. Notes can be printed (a feature not supported by all applications) or exported to HTML. There is a plugin mechanism which can be used to add interesting functionality; current plugins offer integration with evolution and bugzilla, for example. Tomboy also has a spelling checker which, by default, decorates notes with lots of obnoxious red underlines. It is rare that perfect spelling is required in a collection of personal notes, however, so your editor is pleased that this feature can be turned off. Overall, Tomboy is a nice application; your editor's biggest complaint would be that its memory footprint is huge - even by GNOME standards. The use of Mono cannot help in this regard; it is hard to imagine which features in an application like this would really need the Mono framework for their implementation. With a bit less baggage, Tomboy would be nearly perfect.
BasKet
Unlike other note-taking applications, BasKet does all of its work within a single window. At the top level, it maintains a tree of "baskets," each of which can contain any number of notes. Only one "basket" can be viewed at any given time. Baskets can be configured with up to three columns; notes are then lined up in the columns. There is also a free-format mode, where notes can be placed anywhere, even on top of each other. In your editor's opinion, the proper metaphor might be a bulletin board - each "basket" is a place where any number of things can be pinned and organized. BasKet offers a great deal of control over fonts, sizes, weights, and so on. There is a mechanism for attaching tags to notes; each tag brings with it an icon and, perhaps, a set of heavy-handed color choices. Tagging an item as "work," for example, turns the text a sort of dark yellow color. There is an "insert image" operation which yields an empty note and a dialog on how BasKet cannot do image editing. Dragging an image over from konqueror does the expected thing - though your editor remains a little mystified by the concept of "moving" (as opposed to "copying") an image into the application. Baskets can also contain links, application launchers, and other surprises. The end result of all this stuff is that the BasKet window quickly turns into a gaudy mess of wild colors and images. If your editor's word is not sufficient on this fact, the BasKet screenshots page should dispel any doubt. The BasKet developers are also enamored of animated effects, tooltips, and the use of audio signals. The display of any given basket can be narrowed to items marked with a given tag. There is also a simple search mechanism which shows only the notes containing a given string. No regular expressions are supported, and the search only applies to the currently-displayed basket by default - though there is an option to make it global. There is a feature by which baskets can be globally bound to shortcut keys, allowing them to be summoned by a single keystroke. Unfortunately, an attempt to play with that feature left your editor with a totally locked keyboard, a situation which made the writing of this article rather more difficult than it otherwise had to be. Logging in over the net and killing BasKet took care of the problem. One assumes this behavior is not part of the original design specification.
SummaryOf the applications reviewed, the first two (xpad and xpostit) are of relatively little interest. They reflect the state of the desktop art as it was several years in the past. Xpad is still a useful application, but it has been surpassed by others. BasKet is an interesting attempt to do new things with notes. For your editor's needs, however, it is overkill. The whole point of note taking is to collect ideas together, track things to do, etc. It doesn't need images, colors, animations, sounds, and so on. BasKet seems to be more directly aimed at people who care about making their notes collections look cool. Your editor, who gave up any hope of looking cool back in high school, does not need BasKet's features. That leaves KNotes and Tomboy. Either is an entirely capable application. The Tomboy feature set still seems like it is most directly focused on the note-taking application; the search feature is nicer to use and linking between notes is useful. But one could get the job done quite nicely with either of these applications.
Avoiding the tar pitThis Washington Post article is one of many expressing disappointment with Microsoft's Vista release, which is famously late and which has failed to live up to Microsoft's early promises. The article claims that the problems are not specific to Microsoft:
The sad truth is that Microsoft's woes aren't unusual in this
industry. Large-scale software projects are perennially beset by
dashed hopes and bedeviling delays. They are as much a tar pit
today as they were 30 years ago, when a former IBM program manager
named Frederick P. Brooks Jr. applied that image to them in his
classic diagnosis of the programming field's troubles, "The
Mythical Man-Month."
In this context, it behooves us to ask: is there a free software tar pit in our future? What can we do to avoid a grim future where we bog down, our software collapsing under its own weight? Looking at the state of the free software community now, it is tempting to say that, so far, we have nicely avoided the tar pit. But have we? Here are a few dates from the past which may be of interest:
The 2.5 development series was stalled for almost one full year while 2.4 reached a state which actually approached stable. Overall, the process from 2.2.0 to a stable 2.4 took almost three years; the kernel was in a "feature freeze" state for about two of those years. This was a time when quite a few people - many of them kernel developers - felt let down by the development process. This, your editor would attest, was a tar pit era. One might well argue that the kernel has not yet escaped that tar pit. Like Vista, we lack a shiny new next-generation filesystem; the only credible attempt at such a filesystem (reiser4) remains in a stalled, feature-reduced state. It seems likely, however, that most observers would agree that the tar pit has been left far behind. The kernel development process has been humming along at a high pace, delivering interesting new releases every few months. The same story can be seen in many other parts of the free software community. If we accept that things have gotten better, it can be interesting to look at why. One hint can be found in the same article:
Without that discipline, too often, software teams get lost in what
are known in the field as "boil-the-ocean" projects -- vast schemes
to improve everything at once. That can be inspiring, but in the
end we might prefer that they hunker down and make incremental
improvements to rescue us from bugs and viruses and make our
computers easier to use. Idealistic software developers love to
dream about world-changing innovations; meanwhile, we wait and wait
for all the potholes to be fixed.
Any successful free software project must get good at fixing potholes; in the worst case, users (and distributors) will do the job for themselves. In a well-managed project, the people who are trying to improve the whole world will not get in the way of the pothole fixers. There is no single team, charged with all the development on a project, which can get bogged down in that way. A "well-managed project" must find a way to keep whole-world improvements from stopping everything else, however. The older, multi-year kernel process did not always succeed on that front; the attempt to improve the entire kernel ended up bogging down the entire process. The new kernel development model, with its short release cycles, has caused some developers to complain that it is no longer possible to make major changes that require a long time to settle down. To the extent that this complaint is true, it should maybe be seen as a good thing. By only merging changes which can be brought to a releasable state within a month or two, the new process sidesteps the tar pit and keeps the development machine running. One of the key suggestions in The Mythical Man Month is the formation of "surgical teams" to support the lead programmer(s). Some of the team members - such as the clerk who "keys in" the code - seem a little quaint now. But the idea that the people running the project (or parts of it) need lieutenants, documentation writers, tool makers, etc. still makes a lot of sense. Once upon a time, the kernel lacked much of that structure, with everything concentrating on a single developer - Linus Torvalds. Now there is a vast network of lieutenants. Quite a few developers focus their effort not on the kernel, but on the tools used by kernel developers. All that's missing are the clerks - and, perhaps, the documentation writers. One of the biggest anti-tar pit technologies used by the free software community would have been hard for Mr. Brooks to imagine back in 1972: multiple, independent development teams. Any project of any size has a wide range of independent, sometimes conflicting development efforts happening at the same time. If one group bogs down, the others continue unhindered. The process may seem inefficient, given that a significant portion of the work which is done may never survive to a stable release. Throwing away code can be painful, but it is far less so than throwing away the entire project. Peer review is also missing from the Brooks landscape. But peer review helps to ensure one of the things he thought was vital for a successful project: a clear conceptual architecture for the project. That architecture may take a surprising form: few free software projects have the sort of extensive design documentation that he probably had in mind. But a crowd of reviewers can help to ensure that new code is consistent with the principles behind a project - and that it is maintainable into the future. In this context, it is notable (and worrisome) that an increasing number of proposed kernel features are finding themselves stalled by a lack of reviews. Finally, one should note that free software projects have mostly learned a sure-fire way to avoid a failure to live up to their promises: they don't make any. Vaporware tends to be scarce in this community; either the code exists or it does not. Very few projects are truly controlled by one corporation, so companies are also restrained in the promises they make about future releases; they are in no position to ensure that those promises are fulfilled. The relative freedom from marketing-driven promises helps free software projects avoid disappointments - but it also helps them to focus effort on objectives with a reasonable chance of success. To argue that the free software community is immune to the problems of large-scale software development would be foolish. For all their growth, many or most components of a system like Linux are still a fraction of the size of their equivalents on certain proprietary systems. As our code base grows, there will undoubtedly be new challenges for those who would continue to develop it. But the free systems we have today must certainly far exceed the size of System/360 when Mr. Brooks was managing it, and we would appear to be going strong. With widespread community participation, improving tools, and the willingness to change our development models in response to real-world problems, we should be about to stay out of that tar pit for some time yet.
Security Linux botnetsCollections of subverted machines, called botnets are typically associated with Windows; thousands of zombie desktops sending spam and causing other internet mayhem. Unfortunately, it is increasingly clear that Linux boxes (as well as MacOS X and other UNIX boxes) are participating in botnets, but in a bit of a twist, it is mostly servers that have been subverted. Botnets are an enormous problem that Vint Cerf recently estimated may involve up to one quarter of all internet connected computers. This translates to a botnet controller's fondest wish: 150 million zombie machines to rent to the highest bidder. Desktops are usually infected with a bot by an email-borne virus or a trojan attached to some application that the user installs, much like adware and spyware infect machines. The bot software then connects to a 'command and control' (C&C) infrastructure, that often use Internet Relay Chat (IRC) servers, to get instructions on what they should do. The 'owner' of a botnet (known as a bot herder) can then instruct the bots to do whatever they, or more likely their client, want. Because the traffic generated from a botnet comes from all over the Internet, it is difficult or impossible to recognize it for what it is. This allows botnets to be used for spamming, distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks, click fraud and other malicious activities in a largely untraceable way. The desktop infection methods are not typically as useful for Linux boxes and so bot herders have turned to web application exploits as a means for collecting subverted machines. Attacking servers has the additional advantage that they are usually machines with much greater resources: faster network connectivity, more storage, faster processors, etc. The attacks are largely targeted at everyone's favorite Internet security whipping boy, PHP applications. Open source PHP applications are the main target as they are ubiquitous and typically easy to exploit as some recent research indicates. An additional benefit of targeting a higher level application is that it is a cross-platform exploit; the operating system and web server software are immaterial if the target is a PHP application. The easiest type of vulnerability to exploit is often Remote File Inclusion (RFI) which allows an attacker to run code on a vulnerable server with the permissions of the webserver. Generally, those permissions are sufficient to allow the bot to do anything the herder might wish it to; sending email and other network traffic is not normally a privileged activity. Even a cursory glance at the Bugtraq mailing list will reveal numerous RFI vulnerabilities; they are reported regularly and each can lead to bot exploitation if not patched. Many different types of malware can be installed on a vulnerable machine, depending on the intent of the herder. As with the exploit itself, the installed code tends to be written in a scripting language so that it is cross-platform. The malware can range from simple test tools that indicate vulnerable servers to sophisticated shells that allow the attacker to effectively login to the server and perform any allowed operation. The most serious damage that these botnets have caused is to our inbox; bots seem to be the preferred way to deliver spam these days. Diligent anti-spam efforts tend to get spamming accounts or systems shut down within hours but there is no easy way to shut down a spam-delivering botnet. A less visible, but potentially more damaging effect is DDOS attacks on internet sites. By attacking a site and working their way up the chain of DNS servers and registrars, a botnet can silence a site the herder does not like or hold sites hostage until they pay a ransom. Past efforts to thwart botnets have often focused on destroying the C&C servers by shutting down the affected IRC sites, but botnets are moving toward using HTTP for C&C which allows that traffic to hide amongst the sea of similar traffic; it also has the advantage of getting through most firewalls. Botnets will be a serious problem going forward, and Linux systems are not immune to participation in them. The financial incentive is large and the means of prevention are weak, at least so far. As we have learned by trying to deal with spam, money makes our adversaries much more inventive which makes long-term solutions hard to come by.
Brief items An update on the Solaris telnet vulnerabilityFor those who are interested in the Solaris telnet vulnerability, Gadi Evron has put together a comprehensive summary of the problem, how Sun responded, where to get fixes, etc. "Whatever my thoughts are on how silly, sad or funny this vulnerability is (quaint really), how they use telnet (?!) and how Sun should be smacked on the back of the head for it, I have to honestly admit Sun's response and the level they were open to the community and industry on this without too many PR/legal blocks getting in their way are very encouraging..."
New vulnerabilities ImageMagick: buffer overflow
MoinMoin: cross-site scripting
rar: buffer overflow
smb4k: multiple vulnerabilities
snort: denial of service
twiki: arbitrary code execution
wordpress: multiple vulnerabilities
Updated vulnerabilities acroread: multiple vulnerabilities
apache: cross-site scripting
bcfg2: local password disclosure
bind: denial of service
bluez-utils: hidd vulnerability
bugzilla: multiple vulnerabilities
busybox: insecure password generation
cpio: arbitrary code execution
vixie-cron: privilege escalation
cscope: buffer overflows
cscope: buffer overflows
Cyrus-SASL: DIGEST-MD5 Pre-Authentication Denial of Service
dbus: denial of service
dovecot: index cache file handling error
elinks: arbitrary file access
fetchmail: password disclosure and DOS
ffmpeg: buffer overflows
Mozilla stuff: multiple vulnerabilities
freeradius: several vulnerabilities
freetype: integer overflows
ftpd: privilege escalation
gcc: file overwrite vulnerability
gd: buffer overflow
gdb: buffer overflow
gdm: improper file permissions
gedit: format string vulnerability
gnupg: stack overwrite
grip: buffer overflow
gtk2: denial of service
gv: stack-based buffer overflow
gzip: multiple vulnerabilities
horde-kronolith: local file inclusion
imagemagick: buffer overflows
ImageMagick: buffer overflows
imlib2: arbitrary code execution
java: multiple vulnerabilities
kdelibs: integer overflow
kdelibs: kate backup file permission leak
kdelibs: cross-site scripting
kernel: denial of service
kernel: denial of service
kernel: denial of service by memory consumption
kernel: denial of service
kernel: denial of service
kernel: multiple vulnerabilities
koffice: integer overflow
krb5: uninitialized pointers
krb5: local privilege escalation
libgadu: memory alignment bug
libgtop2: buffer overflow
libmodplug: boundary errors
libpng: buffer overflow
libpng: heap based buffer overflow
libtiff: buffer overflow
libvncserver: authentication bypass
libxml2 - arbitrary code execution
libxml2: multiple buffer overflows
lynx: arbitrary command execution
mpg123: denial of service
mysql: format string bug
MySQL: privilege violations
MySQL: logging bypass
nbd: arbitrary code execution
ncompress: buffer underflow
openldap: security bypass
OpenSSH: denial of service
openssh: privilege separation issue
openssh: remote denial of service
php: several vulnerabilities
php: buffer overflows
phpbb2: missing input sanitizing
phpbb2: multiple vulnerabilities
postgresql: insufficient verification
postgresql: SQL injection
proftpd: stack-based buffer overflow
quake: buffer overflow
rpm: arbitrary code execution
samba: several vulnerabilities
shadow-utils: mailbox creation vulnerability
thttpd: remote file access
ulogd: buffer overflow
unzip: long file name buffer overflow
w3c-libwww: possible stack overflow
wireshark: multiple vulnerabilities
xine: format string vulnerabilities
xine-lib: buffer overflow
xine-lib: buffer overflow
xinit: race condition
X.org: local privilege escalations
X.org: integer overflows
xpdf: buffer overflow
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet Kernel development Brief items Kernel release statusThe current 2.6 kernel remains 2.6.20; no 2.6.21 prepatches have been released. Patches are flowing into the mainline git repository, however - see below for the highlights.For older kernels: 2.6.16.40 was released on February 10 with a relatively small number of patches. The first 2.4.35 prepatch is now available; it contains a few fixes and a backport of the 2.6 "sky2" network driver.
Kernel development news Quotes of the week
I'm sorry, but could we please not mix the kernel with Vogon poetry
contest?
-- Al Viro
I have an email sitting in my drafts folder stating that I'll no
longer accept any features unless they've been publicly reviewed
in detail and run-time tested by a third party. The idea being to
force people to spend more time reviewing and testing each other's
stuff and less time writing new stuff. Maybe on a sufficiently
gloomy day I'll actually send it.
What came in through the merge windowAs of this writing, the 2.6.21 merge window is wide open. Something over 2,300 changesets have been merged, making changes all over the tree. This article summarizes the major changes merged so far for the 2.6.21 release.User-visible changes include:
Changes visible to kernel developers include:
A number of patches are still waiting to merged, and some decisions are yet to be made. Come back next week for what should be the final list of major new features in 2.6.21.
Alternatives to fibrilsSince the writing of last week's article on fibrils, there has been relatively little discussion of that set of patches. That silence does not mean that interest in the idea has faded for now, however; instead, a couple of different approaches have been posted for consideration.Linus Torvalds got inspired to create an asynchronous system call patch of his own. Simplicity is the word to describe this patch: it adds less than 200 lines of code to the kernel ("I even added comments, so a lot of the few new added lines aren't even code!"). It works like this:
The largest claimed advantage to this patch, beyond its simplicity, is that there is almost no overhead if the asynchronous system call can be completed without blocking. The fibril patch, instead, always runs asynchronous calls in independent fibrils. Linus claims that almost all asynchronous system calls can, in fact, be completed synchronously without blocking, so he would really rather see little or no up-front cost in that case. There are various issues with Linus's patch. If the asynchronous call blocks, for example, the return to user space will happen in a different process - a change which could prove confusing to user space. Only one asynchronous operation can be outstanding at any given time. There is also no way to wait for an asynchronous operation to complete except to poll the exit status. But this patch was never meant to be a complete solution; as a proof of concept it is interesting. For a rather more elaborate approach, Ingo Molnar's syslet patchset is worth a look. With syslets, a user-space program can run system calls asynchronously. Beyond that, however, it can load little programs into the kernel and let them run independently. To use syslets, the application starts by filling in one of these structures:
struct syslet_uatom {
unsigned long flags;
unsigned long nr;
long *ret_ptr;
struct syslet_uatom *next;
unsigned long *arg_ptr[6];
void *private;
};
Here, nr is the number of the system call to run, arg_ptr holds pointers to the arguments, and ret_ptr tells the kernel where to put the final status from the call. The private field is not used by the kernel at all. We'll get to the other fields shortly. Once the syslet_uatom structure is ready, the application can run it with:
long async_exec(struct syslet_uatom *atom);
This call will start on the requested system call immediately. If that system call never blocks, it will be run synchronously and the address of the atom will be returned from async_exec(). Otherwise the kernel will grab a thread from a pool and use that thread to return to user space, continuing the system call in the original thread. The application can then go off and do whatever makes sense - including running more syslets - while the system call runs to completion. What actually happens when the system call completes is a little more complex and interesting, however. Unless user space has requested otherwise, the kernel does not just complete the syslet after the first system call runs; instead, it looks at the next field of the syslet_uatom structure. If that field is non-NULL, it is taken as the user-space address of the next syslet to be run by the kernel. In other words, an application is not restricted to running individual asynchronous system calls; it can chain up a whole series of them to run without ever exiting the kernel. The cost of fetching a new syslet atom is far less than a transition to user space and back, so there is a significant performance improvement to be had just by chaining two system calls together. The final field in struct syslet_uatom is flags, which controls how syslets are executed. Four of them (SYSLET_STOP_ON_NONZERO, SYSLET_STOP_ON_ZERO, SYSLET_STOP_ON_NEGATIVE, and SYSLET_STOP_ON_NON_POSITIVE) will test the result of the current atom's system call and, possibly, terminate execution of the syslet. In this way, for example, a chain of system calls can be stopped early if one of them fails. It is also possible to create a kernel-space loop which reads a file until no more data is available. The SYSLET_SKIP_TO_NEXT_ON_STOP modifies the above flags so that, rather than terminating the syslet, the kernel skips to an atom found immediately after the current one in the process's address space. This flag allows a syslet to terminate a loop and move on to further processing within the syslet. If an application knows that a syslet will block, it can request asynchronous execution from the outset with SYSLET_ASYNC. There is also a SYSLET_SYNC flag which causes the whole thing to run synchronously. Syslets do not have any variables of their own. To help with the writing of useful programs, Ingo has added a new system call:
long umem_add(unsigned long *pointer, unsigned long increment);
This call simply adds the given increment to *pointer, returning the resulting value. The application can register a ring buffer with the kernel using the async_register() system call. Whenever an atom completes, its address will be stored in the next ring buffer entry; the application can then use that address to find the system call status. The kernel will not overwrite non-NULL ring buffer entries, so the application must reset them as it consumes them. If the application needs to wait for syslet completion, it can call:
long async_wait(unsigned long min_events);
This call will block the process until at least min_events have been stored into the ring buffer. This patch set, too, presents a number of unanswered questions. Once again, signal handling has been punted for now. There's no end of security implications which must be thought out; in the end, a number of system calls will probably be marked as being off-limits for asynchronous execution. There has still been no discussion on how this sort of interface would play with the kevent patches - kevents seem to be concept that nobody wants to talk about at the moment. 64/32-bit compatibility could present interesting challenges of its own. And so on. But the initial reaction to syslets appears to be positive (though Linus hates it); syslets might just point to the form of the fibril idea which eventually makes it into the mainline kernel.
Patches and updates Kernel trees
Core kernel code
Development tools
Device drivers
Documentation
Filesystems and block I/O
Memory management
Networking
Architecture-specific
Security-related
Virtualization and containers
Miscellaneous
Page editor: Jonathan Corbet Distributions News and Editorials Ubuntu Technical Board on Feisty FawnUbuntu's Feisty Fawn (aka 7.04) release is scheduled for mid-April. The fourth Herd CD, an alpha release reasonably free of showstoppers, should be out by the time you read this, for most or all of the official variants (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu and Edubuntu).Ubuntu has always taken a middle road in the free vs. non-free course of Linux distributions. Middle enough that two Ubuntu-based distributions have variants that are working on both sides of the fence. gNewSense strives for 100% FSF approved purity while Linux Mint is willing to sacrifice some freedom for convenience. Like Debian, its parent project, Ubuntu has always provided some proprietary software, in the Multiverse repository which is not enabled by default, similar to the non-free repository in Debian. Early in Feisty's development cycle it was reported that Ubuntu would ship binary drivers by default in Feisty. Mostly it sounded like it would be even easier to get at those drivers; however according to the latest announcement from Ubuntu's Technical Board it sounds pretty much like the status quo. "Ubuntu 7.04 will preserve the status quo with respect to proprietary video drivers. As in previous releases, these drivers will be provided for the convenience of users who choose to use them, but they will not be activated by default." This announcement also looked at the status of the PowerPC edition. "Beginning with Ubuntu 7.04, the PowerPC edition of Ubuntu will be reclassified as unofficial. The PowerPC software itself and supporting infrastructure will continue to be available, and supported by a community team." Those interested may join the Ubuntu PowerPC Architecture Team to work on the unofficial port. PowerPC releases will be maintained for all supported earlier releases. PowerPC servers will be supported until 2011 on Ubuntu 6.06 LTS.
New Releases Fedora 7 Test 1 Release NotesAn abridged, "one-sheet" version of the Release Notes for Fedora 7 test1 (6.90) is now available. The full set of release notes will be released with test3.
Trustix Secure Linux 3.0.5 RC 2Trustix Secure Linux 3.0.5 RC 2 is out. This release adds postgresql 8.2.3, cpplus 3.3, samba 3.0.24, php 5.2.1, and lots of bug fixes and security updates.
Distribution News Linspire switches to UbuntuLinspire and Canonical have sent out a press release announcing a "technology partnership" between the two. The core of the deal appears to be that Linspire will base future versions of its distribution products on Ubuntu Linux rather than Debian. "Linspire will continue combining proprietary drivers, codecs and applications with open source software by default in their operating systems. This approach, unique among Linux distributions, offers out-of-the-box support for a broader range of software, hardware and multimedia file types than the Debian or Ubuntu baseline alone."
Debian votesThe second call for nominations has gone out in this year's Debian Project leader elections.There is a proposed general resolution which should soon be open for voting. "The Debian project resolves that Debian developers allowed to perform combined source and binary packages uploads should be allowed to perform binary-only packages uploads for the same set of architectures."
Debian announcementsInactive Debian developer accounts will be deleted using regular WaT (*W*here *a*re *T*hey?) runs to determine a developer's status. "Selection of the people included in those runs will be done in a way that we avoid sending out such mails to active people. As a good start we will take the upcoming DPL vote as an input source, everyone who doesn't vote this year will be included in the first run. * Please note that you can vote without expressing an opinion! *"The expiration of the Debian archive's signing key for 2006 has broken most of the installation media from etch RC1. "The only RC1 images that should remain usable are the full installation CDs and DVDs, but only when used without a network mirror."
CentOS mailing list are going internationalCentOS mailing lists will be available in German, French, Czech, Dutch, Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish added to the existing English list.
Changes to fedora-advisory-board listThe Fedora Advisory Board mailing list is becoming more open. Membership once required moderator approval, with a readonly list for those who wanted to follow along by not post. Now the advisory board list is open to all and the read-only list will disappear on March 1. "This decision also has the potential to lead to increased traffic on the list. Let's keep the traffic on-topic and high in signal, versus noise. The list's job will be to police its own."
Distribution Newsletters Debian Weekly NewsThe Debian Weekly News for February 13, 2007 covers a competition to augment and revise the current Secure Hash Standard, Debian etch on an old ThinkPad notebook, the question of supporting package downloads, LDAP and infrastructure updates, a final FOSDEM schedule, Debian powers New Zealand's electoral enrollment, restructuring parts of the Debian website, Debian-Installer Release Candidate 2, Debian GNU/Linux support from Hewlett-Packard, the Call for Project Leader Nominations, Debian Live Autobuilder, a first test report on Multiarch DVD, automatic installation and removal tests, archive signing key for 2007, and much more.
Gentoo Weekly NewsletterThe Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for February 5, 2007 covers KDE team seeking help, removal of mail-mta/qmail, interview with zzam, and several other topics.
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 189The DistroWatch Weekly for February 12, 2007 is out. "It was a fairly quiet week, with only Mandriva's new beta release and Linspire's announcement about its partnership with Ubuntu making major headlines. In this week's issue, we have the honour to bring you a rare interview with a female entrepreneur and Linux enthusiast: Dianne Ursini from Pioneer Linux. The news section then starts with a sad news of Florent Villard (Warly) leaving his employer (Mandriva) of eight years, before it continues with an observation about the Linspire announcement, comment on the Fedora release notes issue, update on the second release candidate of Debian Installer, and information about the status of Ulteo. Finally, don't miss several interesting links, such as the story of the RPM package manager and an interview with "Jaromil", the founder and developer of the dyne:bolic multimedia live CD."
Distribution meetings Upcoming Debian meetingsAndreas Schuldei reports on a couple of upcoming Debian meetings; one in France and one in Brussels (during FOSDEM).
DebConf8 location: Mar del Plata, ArgentinaA location has been set for DebConf8, the city of Mar del Plata, Argentina. "The estimated dates are the second and third weeks of August, 2008. Which means that this will be the first DebConf to take place in winter."
Upcoming Ubuntu EventsSome upcoming Ubuntu events include Ubuntu Education Summit, 3-4 May 2007 in Sevilla, Spain, Ubucon - Sevilla, 5 May 2007 in Sevilla, Spain, Ubuntu Developer Summit, 6-11 May 2007 in Sevilla, Spain and Ubuntu Live, 22-24 July 2007 in Portland, Oregon, USA.
Newsletters and articles of interest Discussing Dyne:Bolic and Freedom with Denis Jaromil Rojo (Packt Publishing)Mayank Sharma talks with Denis "Jaromil" Rojo. "Denis "Jaromil" Rojo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaromil) is an artist and a FOSS hacker. He's popularly known for Dyne:Bolic (http://www.dynebolic.org/), a Live CD distribution that contains several applications for audio and video manipulation. As a programmer, he is author of several free software that present new possibilities for online radios. As an artist he is known for his netart performances (http://lab.dyne.org/JaromilTalks) and for crafting the most elegant and efficient 13-character forkbomb ever written (http://www.digitalcraft.org/?artikel_id=292)."
Distribution reviews GoboLinux's recipe for delicious package management (Linux.com)Linux.com plays with GoboLinux. "From the start, GoboLinux's developers had no intentions of adding another package format like RPM or Debian packages. Furthermore, depending on the popularity of an application it might or might not be available in the RPM or Debian package formats. But all applications will be available as a compressed source tarball. Hisham H. Muhammad, who developed GoboLinux along with André Detsch, explains that a tarball can simply be unpacked, and then three commands, 'configure, make, make install', should install it."
New stable version of EnGarde Secure Linux hits the web (DesktopLinux)DesktopLinux looks at the release of EnGarde Secure Community Edition, version 3.0.12. "Guardian Digital on Feb. 7 announced the release of a new stable version EnGarde Secure Community Edition, version 3.0.12. The security-oriented Linux distribution features a 2.6.19 kernel and the latest versions of several server-based applications, and is intended for use as a Web, DNS, email, database, and general Internet server."
STUX live CD: Some technical difficulties (Linux.com)Linux.com reviews the STUX live CD. "STUX is a Slackware/Knoppix-powered live CD with the Morphix-like ability to build a custom ISO. While the combination has high potential, this implementation leaves something to be desired. It's worth the experience if you enjoy using new distributions, but if you're looking to replace your current desktop OS, look elsewhere."
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol Development The eyeOS Web Desktop EnvironmentThe eyeOS project, developed by the eyeOS development team, is a cross-platform open-source Web Operating System, a.k.a. a Web Office:
eyeOS is an Open Source Web Desktop Environment, commonly known as Web Operating System (Web OS) or Web Office. eyeOS is Open Source Software, and can be downloaded or used through the official eyeOS server. The basic System comes with some office and PIM applications.
![[eyeOS]](/images/ns/eyeOS.png)
The primary concept behind eyeOS is that it is a desktop system that is completely accessed from a web browser. File storage and most of the application processing is handled by the remote host. Officially supported browsers include Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Opera. Other standards-compliant CSS capable browsers should also work. The demo page gives a pretty good idea of what eyeOS is all about. The standard eyeOS applications include:
Custom themes and wallpapers can be obtained from the eyeLooks, some of the example themes resemble other popular desktops. An interesting feature of eyeOS is the online translation system, support for new languages can be provided by filling in a web form. The eyeOS server is claimed to run on any platform that has a web server with PHP installed. No database manager is required. Linux/Unix is the recommended server platform, according to the project documentation. Stable version 0.9.3-5 of eyeOS was recently released:
We have just released eyeOS 0.9.3-5, which includes two main improvements: The first one, focused into user security, improves the way eyeHome manages the files. The new system allows all files to be uploaded with no restrictions and uses the eyeOS XML FileSystem to recognize it's author, date of upload and file name.
The second improvement is the elimination of the ancient eyeTrash (which was not updated since 0.8.x versions of eyeOS). The new system uses eyeHome as file explorer for the trash, displaying "Trash" in the Sites list. All actions have been moved to eyeHome Actions bar and the translations of eyeTrash have been merged to eyeHome too. The Trash icon has been updated to use this new system.
Some other small bugs have been also solved.
The eyeOS Blog has the latest news on the system, it mentions the achievement of 100,000 registered users on the public eyeOS server as well as an upcoming 1.0 release. There are some tradeoffs to consider with such a system. Performance is limited by the available network bandwidth, and GUI capabilities are limited by going through a browser interface. On the positive side, it should be possible to access an eyeOS desktop from anywhere with a browser and an internet connection. System management issues are also centralized and client machines only require a working web browser. The system is available for use by anyone with a web browser and an internet connection, those wishing to run their own server can download the software.
System Applications Clusters and Grids JPPF 0.24.1 released (SourceForge)Version 0.24.1 of the Java Parallel Processing Framework (JPPF) has been announced. "The Java Parallel Processing Framework is a grid framework for Java, focused on performance and ease of use. The JPPF team has the pleasure to announce a new maintenance release. The communications and execution performance was increased by 10% Numerous bugs were fixed in the server, increasing its stability and scalability. A bug was fixed in the distributed class loader, that would cause the client to crash. The graphical administration console was upgraded to use Substance L&F v3.1 and JFreeChart v1.0.3."
Database Software An Introduction to Hibernate 3 Annotations (O'Reilly)John Ferguson Smart introduces Hibernate 3 annotations on O'Reilly. "Over the years, Hibernate has become close to the defacto standard in the world of Java database persistence. It is powerful, flexible, and boasts excellent performance. In this article, we look at how Java 5 annotations can be used to simplify your Hibernate code and make coding your persistence layer even easier."
MySQL 5.1.15 beta has been releasedVersion 5.1.15 beta of the MySQL DBMS is available. "We are proud to present to you the MySQL Server 5.1.15 beta release, a new beta version of the popular open source database. Bear in mind that this is a beta release, and as any other pre- production release, caution should be taken when installing on production level systems or systems with critical data."
Revised PostgreSQL Security ReleasesNew security-fix releases of the PostgreSQL DBMS have been announced. "The PostgreSQL Global Development Group releases today a security update for all PostgreSQL 8.X versions: minor versions 8.2.3, 8.1.8, 8.0.12. This release replaces the security release from February 5th, which contained a type-casting bug affecting many users. If you downloaded a copy of 8.2.2, 8.1.7 or 8.0.11, you should discard that version and install the updated versions instead."
PostgreSQL Weekly NewsThe February 11, 2007 edition of the PostgreSQL Weekly News is online with the latest PostgreSQL DBMS articles and resources.
SQLite 3.3.13 releasedVersion 3.3.13 of the SQLite DBMS is out. "This version fixes a subtle bug in the ORDER BY optimizer that can occur when using joins. There are also a few minor enhancements. Upgrading is recommended."
Embedded Systems MiniWebsvr 0.0.6 Released (SourceForge)Version 0.0.6 of MiniWebsvr is available with several new capabilities. "MiniWebsvr is a small web server that aims to one day be embeddable. This version is a stand-alone web server that supports OPTIONS,HEAD and GET, with support for If-Modified-Since and Range HTTP requests to save on bandwidth."
LDAP Software LAT 1.3.2 announcedVersion 1.3.2 of LAT, the LDAP Administration Tool, is available. "This is the development branch that will eventually become 1.4."
Mail Software Postfix 20070212 is availableVersion 20070212 of the Postfix mail transfer agent is available. See the change log for details.
Printing Gtk-LP 1.2.3 announcedVersion 1.2.3 of Gtk-LP has been announced. "GTK LP for CUPS is a frontend for the lpr that comes with CUPS. It is written to make it easy to use nearly all the options from CUPS without knowing them by name. For print-admins, there is also an pretty simple queue tool implemented."
Netgear WGPS606 Printer Configuration Mini HowToThe CUPS printer project has published a Mini HowTo for the Netgear WGPS606 wireless print server. "I had a terrible time getting my HP1200 configured on the Netgear WGPS606 as a linux only user. These are the simple steps on how to go about configuring it."
Web Site Development Drake CMS v0.3.2 Beta (SourceForge)Version 0.3.2 Beta of Drake CMS is available with bug fixes and other improvements. "Drake CMS is a light-weight dynamic web authoring and content manag[e]ment system; its major features are the support of any database system (plus an embedded flatfile database), security, speed, easy management and customization."
Plone 3.0 alpha2 releasedVersion 3.0 alpha2 of the Plone web content management system is out. "Since the alpha1 release a tremendous amount of work has been done. A good indication of this is the list of PLIPs that have been added in this release".
Segue 1.7.0 Released (SourceForge)Version 1.7.0 of Segue has been announced. "Segue is an open source collaborative content management system designed for e-learning that combines the ease of use of course management systems with the flexibility of weblogs for creating various types of sites including course, news, and journal. This new version includes a number of bug fixes as well as introduces three new features".
A New Visualization for Web Server Logs (O'Reilly)Raju Varghese analyzes web logs in 3D with Perl and gnuplot. "There are well over a hundred web server log analyzers (Google Directory for Log Analysis) or web statistics tools ranging from commercial offerings such as WebTrends to open source ones such as AWStats. These take web server logfiles and display numbers such as page views, visits, and visitors, as well as graphs over various time ranges. This article presents the same data in those logfiles in a very different way: as a 3D plot. By the end of this article, I hope you will agree with me that the visualization described herein is a novel and useful way to view the content of logfiles."
Desktop Applications Audio Applications Alsaplayer newsThe Alsaplayer audio player has some new features and the development has been migrated from cvs to svn. "After the release of the long wanted bugfix Alsaplayer-0.99.77 release last week, I am very pleased to announce the release of a new exiting python module for Alsaplayer. This module is the work of Austin Bingham, a new active developer in the Alsaplayer team. Another developer just joined us, Peter Lemenkov. He is working on some new input plugins, included a wavpack plugin."
Business Applications Nuxeo Weekly NewsThe first edition of the Nuxeo Weekly News has been launched. "You are reading the first issue of Nuxeo Weekly News, a newsletter that will summarise every week everything interesting that has happened in the Nuxeo open source ECM community."
SQL-Ledger 2.7.11 is availableVersion 2.7.11 of SQL-Ledger, a web-based accounting system, is out with the following change: "added type of contact to differentiate between companies and persons".
Calendar Software pAgenda 3.2 releasedVersion 3.2 of pAgenda, a cross-platform calendar and schedule manager, has been announced. The description states: "Uses sqlite DB to handle multiple schedules with ease in single, small, portable files -- easy to backup or transfer. Simple, functional and the strongest feature is how well it prints out a daily schedule with a single-click. It can also keep track of contacts as well as appointments, import contacts and appointments from other schedule/users of pAgenda."
Desktop Environments GNOME 2.18.0 Beta 2 (2.17.91) Development ReleaseDevelopment Release 2.18.0 Beta 2 of the GNOME desktop is available for testing. "With this release, we'll enter the string freeze: no string changes may be made without confirmation from the l10n team and notification to both the release team and the GDP. Remember we're already API/ABI frozen, feature frozen and UI frozen :-)"
GNOME Software AnnouncementsThe following new GNOME software has been announced this week:
KDE Software AnnouncementsThe following new KDE software has been announced this week:
KDE Commit-Digest (KDE.News)The February 11, 2007 edition of the KDE Commit-Digest has been announced. The content summary says: "Much-requested "Page scaling" zoom mode introduced to KHTML. Work on the XPS document format backend, and intergration of a Phonon-based audio player for embedded document sounds in okular. More maps added to KGeography. KMines becomes the latest game to move toward a scalable graphics interface, with continued work on KBlackBox and KGoldRunner. scuba and wmap datasource additions to Kst. A better fullscreen interface for Digikam. Continued improvement in the KDE Fonts Manager. Amarok 2.0 development progresses at full speed. Initial import of version 2 of the Gwenview image viewer, and a possible KBabel replacement, KAider, into KDE SVN. Oxygen icons become further integrated into the desktop, with renamings and the setting of the theme as the KDE default."
Xorg Software AnnouncementsThe following new Xorg software has been announced this week:
Desktop Publishing LyX 1.4.4 releasedVersion 1.4.4 of LyX, a GUI front-end for the TeX typesetting system, has been announced. "This is of course a bug fix release, but some new features sneaked in, among which: Outline support: it is now possible to move around parts of documents in the Table of Contents dialog. Add new UI settings default-autotoolbars and default-alltoolbars allowing to select what toolbars are active or shown automatically. Improved documentation."
Fonts and Images fntsample 2.2 releasedVersion 2.2 of fntsample has been announced. "fntsample is a program for making font samples that show Unicode coverage of the font. The samples are similar in appearance to Unicode charts. Samples can be saved as PDF or PostScript files."
Games libtprl 0.1.2 released (SourceForge)Version 0.1.2 of libtprl has been announced. "Thousand Parsec has released a new version of libtprl, a C++ ReadLine library. libtprl is used by the C++ server, tpserver-cpp. There are changes to the actual library this time. New methods added and some small cleanup. Added were methods for getting the current commandset, setting whether readline catches signals, redisplaying the line and force redisplaying the line, and setting the finish of completions (disabling the filename completion)."
Open Yahtzee 1.7 released (SourceForge)Version 1.7 of Open Yahtzee is available. "Open Yahtzee 1.7 features enhancements to game play such as new dice graphics and dice animation. Another important change that now Open Yahtzee allows scoring according to the Yahtzee Joker rules, that means that if you have a yahtzee but already scored (even a zero) in the yahtzee box you will be able to score the dice in any open box in the lower section (assuming you scored already the suitable box in the upper section). The new version also int[ro]duces several bug-fixes."
Sear 0.6.3 ReleasedThe WorldForge game project has announced the release of Sear 0.6.3. "This version of Sear has a new method of representing character appearance based on clothing entities. It also fixes a crasher bug many users were reporting on Intel hardware. It also uses the newer Guichan 0.5.0 library." Also, version 1.1 of WFUT, the WorldForge Update Tool has been announced.
Instant Messaging Chirpy! 0.6 releasedVersion 0.6 of Chirpy! is out. "Chirpy! is an Open Source online quote management system. It allows you to keep a database of quotes by friends and foes. It is most useful for quotes collected on IRC channels. The Chirpy! project originated mainly out of frustration caused by the Rash Quote Management System, due to its numerous bugs and its lack of efficiency and extensibility. While its developers openly admit that it was a quick job, eventually, this became unacceptable."
Medical Applications GNUmed 0.2.4.2 releases (LinuxMedNews)LinuxMedNews has announced the release of version 0.2.4.2 of the GNUmed medical record system. "For this version patient consultation management has been reworked and stabilized. New features include document import via an XSane interface, better episode management, the ability to export documents from the archive to storage media, drag and drop of files onto GNUmed for even easier archival, DICOM viewer integration, a webbrowser link to medical information on the web, a custom database backup script, a stage 2 link to the ifap index drug database as well as a framework for custom script hooks."
Office Applications Xfe 0.98.1 releasedVersion 0.98.1 of Xfe, a light weight file manager for the X window system, is available. "This release mainly fixes a serious crash bug and some minor bugs. The czech language translation has also been updated."
The Road to KDE 4: Okular and Ligature Document Viewers (KDE.News)KDE.News reviews a couple of KDE4 document viewers. "Users of KDE 4 are in for a treat with both okular and Ligature, as they are both shaping up to support a wide variety of (occasionally overlapping) media formats. But since they can both be embedded into KDE applications using standard interfaces, a user should be equally happy using either one of these viewers."
Video Applications ARToolKit 2.72.1 released (SourceForge)Version 2.72.1 of ARToolKit is available with bug fixes. "The Augmented Reality Tool Kit (ARToolKit) captures images from video sources, optically tracks markers in the images, and composites them with computer-generated content using OpenGL. Dual-licensed, under the GPL, plus commercially by ARToolworks, Inc."
Web Browsers Gran Paradiso Alpha 2 released (MozillaZine)The Alpha 2 release of Gran Paradiso has been announced. "This is the second milestone released from the Gecko 1.9 branch. There are no significant user interface changes. Core layout and rendering changes include support for the Web Applications 1.0 API for changing stylesheets, ACID2 test compliance, and improvements in the Cairo graphics layer. As mentioned earlier, Gran Paradiso the project codename for Firefox 3."
Word Processors Open XML Translator 1.0 now avalaible (SourceForge)Version 1.0 of Open XML Translator is available on the Windows platform. "Open XML Translator provides tools to build a technical bridge between the Open XML Formats and Open Document Format(ODF). As the first component of this initiative, the ODF Add-in for Microsoft Word 2007 allows to Open & Save ODF documents in Word."
Miscellaneous Visprint release 2.1Release 2.1 of Visprint, a fractal fingerprint generator, is out with bug fixes and new capabilities. "Visprint makes cool fractal fingerprint png images based on the contents of any file. The image will be different for almost every file with even slightly different contents. Visprint uses the IFS fractal generation process, pioneered by Michael Barnsley. It is a way to create images which are self-similar to infinite depths. In other words, the picture is made up of smaller versions of itself."
Languages and Tools C GCC 4.1.2 RC2 announcedVersion 4.1.2 RC2 of the Gnu Compiler Collection (GCC) is available. "The changes relative to RC1 are fixes for: 1. PR 29683: a wrong-code issue on Darwin 2. PR 30370: a build problem for certain PowerPC configurations 3. PR 29487: a build problem for HP-UX 10.10 a code-quality problem for C++ on all platforms". GCC 4.1.2 should be released within a week.
Caml Caml Weekly NewsThe February 13, 2007 edition of the Caml Weekly News is out with new Caml language articles.
PHP PHP 5.2.1 ReleasedVersion 5.2.1 of PHP has been released. "The PHP development team would like to announce the immediate availability of PHP 5.2.1. This release is a major stability and security enhancement of the 5.X branch, and all users are strongly encouraged to upgrade to it as soon as possible."
Tcl/Tk Tcl-URL!The February 7, 2007 edition of the Tcl-URL! is online with new Tcl/Tk articles and resources.
Cross Compilers GCC HC11/12 and MCX11 / MCX12A new port of the GNU 68HC11/12 cross-compiler has been announced. "I have ported the kernel MCX11 to MCX12 in order to use it with the MC9S12 microcontrollers family."
Editors peppy 0.5.1 releasedVersion 0.5.1 of peppy, the `Proximated Emacs Powered by Python, has been announced. Peppy is: "An experiment using the modern software development process -- this is a wxPython/Scintilla-based editor written in and extensible through Python. It attempts to provide an XEmacs-like multi-window, multi-tabbed interface using the Advanced User Interface (wx.aui) framework of wxPython."
Libraries FreeImage 3.9.3 released (SourceForge)Version 3.9.3 of FreeImage, an open-source library which supports the PNG, BMP, JPEG, TIFF image formats, is available. "This maintenance release improves the speed of the GIF encoder, adds a new JPEG downsampling feature (useful to generate thumbnails) and also provides a better MacOSX makefile."
Page editor: Forrest Cook Linux in the news Recommended Reading Local software for local people (ZDNet)Samba developer Jeremy Allison writes about software development topics. "Most software development is a local activity, done directly for the benefit of the people writing it. The wonderfully bureaucratic sounding "Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry" of the European Union recently commissioned an extensive study on what they call FLOSS (Free/Libre/Open Source Software)."
The Old Bugs Are the Best Bugs (Technology Review)Anybody who runs Solaris systems should have a look at this Technology Review article by Simson Garfinkel on the recently-disclosed telnet vulnerability. "What Maynor discovered is that an attacker can try to log in with a user name like '-fbin.' The '-fbin' is passed along to the log-in program, which misinterprets the "-f" as a command from the operating system to log the user in to the specified account without asking for a password." For added fun, consider that Solaris 10 enables telnet by default, and that the vulnerability is not particularly new.
Ubuntu says no to non-free video drivers for Feisty (Linux.com)Linux.com looks at two decisions by the Ubuntu Technical Board. "Ubuntu CTO Matt Zimmerman has announced two Ubuntu Technical Board decisions that will affect the upcoming Feisty Fawn release, due out in April of this year. For the Feisty release, proprietary video drivers are out of the default install, and the PowerPC port of Ubuntu is being downgraded to an unofficial release."
Trade Shows and Conferences Linux hackers tackle WiFi hassles (Linux-Watch)Linux-Watch covers the recent Linux Wireless Summit. "Once there, according to Stephen Hemminger, Linux Wireless Summit co-coordinator and a Linux software developer at the Linux Foundation, the attendees had a very productive meeting. Still, it's been slow going in some critical areas of Linux and WiFi, according to John Linville, the Linux wireless software maintainer. In particular, Linville reported that development work is proceeding too slowly on a new 802.11 stack (d80211); and with a new WiFi API (cfg80211), "development is even slower.""
LinuxWorld opens this week in NYC (Linux-Watch)Linux-Watch looks forward to LinuxWorld OpenSolutions Summit, which opens this week in New York City. "During the conference, attendees will network with their business-oriented Linux peers and learn from their experiences -- mistakes and successes -- through case studies. The conference will also feature in-depth technical presentations by leading Linux and open source experts."
SCaLE 5x: Day 1 (LXer)LXer has a look at SCALE 5X day one. "I have to tell you this is one big event, with over 70 booths and thousands of attendees this is by far the biggest SCaLE event ever. I will be posting pictures I have taken in the next few days. I have just been trying to take it all in. I met a man that has only been using Linux off of a live-CD that was given to him a couple of months ago. I asked him why wanted to switch to Linux and why he came to SCaLE. He told me that he is tired of Windows crashing and taking all of his music with it and he is attending SCaLE to get some help in installing Linux on his machine for good. He came to the right place."
LA hosts laid-back Southern California Linux Expo (Linux.com)Linux.com covers the fifth annual Southern California Linux Expo. "Most IT conferences, it seems, start with a keynote around 9 a.m., which means that attendees have to be queued up for registration by 8 a.m., which is a little earlier than is reasonable for people who've just arrived the night before on a redeye flight. SCALE's registration started at 9 a.m. on Saturday, with talks starting at 10 a.m., and the exhibit floor opening at the same time. SCALE's publicity chair, Orv Beach, says that the organizers decided to avoid keynotes because they wanted the sessions to be all about education, and that SCALE organizers didn't think that keynotes met that standard -- though they may re-evaluate that for future SCALE events."
SCALE 5x: Women in Open Source (The Jem Report)The Jem Report has a review of the Women in Open Source mini-conference at the Southern California Linux Exposition (SCALE 5X). "The subject of women in free/open source software is one that had not been previously explored in SCALE or other, similar conferences to date. Viewing its debut was, to say the least, an extrordinarily interesting experience. Most of the speakers were experienced in giving presentations of this kind, but had previously been the only or one of few female speakers at other free software conventions."
Companies We haven't heard the last of Marc Fleury (Linux-Watch)Linux-Watch looks at JBoss founder Marc Fleury. "Marc Fleury, founder of JBoss and often controversial open source, leader has left Red Hat. The move came as no surprise to many in the industry. In a statement, Fleury wrote, "I have done what I can to help Red Hat succeed. People need to understand that Open Source is a tsunami that is transforming the software industry in its wake and its inevitability is now well beyond challenge or the force of individual personality.""
Sun likes what it sees in the new GPL (ZDNet)ZDNet reports that Sun will probably use GPLv3 for Java and Solaris once that license becomes available. "The question is which open-source license should govern the building of projects out of the company's technology crown jewels. The open-source Solaris project began with a Community Development and Distribution License (CDDL), and open-source Java employs version 2 of the General Public License (GPL). Now, though, Sun likes the idea of governing both projects with the upcoming GPL version 3, Chief Executive Jonathan Schwartz said in a speech and an interview at the company's analyst summit here Tuesday."
Linux at Work High-performance Linux cluster in operation in Chemnitz (heise online)heise online covers the launch of the CHiC cluster system. "On February 7, the CHiC massive parallel Linux cluster with 2,152 processors distributed across 538 server nodes went into operation in Chemnitz. The new Revision F generation of AMD's Opteron CPUs, which support DDR2 RAM and AMD's "Secure Virtual Machine (SVM) virtualization technology, are used. Infiniband is used to connect the nodes, which are equipped with IBM server boards."
Interviews Portrait: LinuxChix Brazil's Sulamita Garcia (Linux.com)Linux.com takes a look at Sulamita Garcia and LinuxChix Brazil. "A lot of people have bemoaned the lack of women participating in open source communities, but Sulamita Garcia is one of the few who have stepped up to do something about it. A Slackware user from Florianopolis, Brazil, Garcia has been heading up LinuxChix Brazil for four years."
Why a secret patent deal won't help Linux/Windows (LinuxWorld)Don Marti interviews Jeremy Allison of the Samba project. "LinuxWorld: Now the reason that you left Novell has to do with Microsoft and Novell setting up a deal to in effect pay Microsoft a patent royalty on copies of Linux sold. Allison: Thats right. I mean essentially, its a patent cross license. They dont call it that. They call it a covenant not to sue with customers. But when you boil it down, and you look at it really closely, it is a patent cross license. And section seven of the GPL specifically states that you cant cut yourself a special patent cross license deal. Essentially its one of those situations where everyone has to hang together not separately, as it were. So, in other words, you cant cut yourself special deals. And as I said, I wanted to like the deal. I had no objections."
Resources Time-Zone Processing with Asterisk, Part I (Linux Journal)Matthew Gast discusses the addition of timezone processing capabilities to the Asterisk PBX system in part one of a Linux Journal series. "I returned to my idea once I started using Asterisk, because it provides an extensive toolkit for designing PBX-hosted services. Anything that can be coded in a computer can become an Asterisk service. After I understood the basics of Asterisk, I sat down to implement a feature that kept track of the time of day where I visited and prevented calls from coming in at inconvenient times."
Reviews Linux to power super-router (Techworld)Techworld looks at the Open Linux Router project. "The project, called the Open Linux Router, joins some other efforts at bringing open source into the world of routers, notably the Extensible Open Router Platform (XORP) sponsored by Vyatta, but aims to add features such as a file-sharing server and a firewall. It is the brainchild of four Michigan university students, who acknowledged Vyatta as an inspiration but saw the need for a more expandable, easier-to-use system. The system, like XORP, is intended to run on off-the-shelf hardware, with enough modularity to allow it to run on anything from an embedded device to an enterprise server."
Review: Frets on Fire (Linux.com)Linux.com reviews a game called Frets on Fire. "You suck on electric guitar. If you are not aware of that now, you will be after playing Frets on Fire -- a cross-platform, GPLed music game from Unreal Voodoo, where your PC's keyboard is the instrument and you play lead. Game play is similar to the commercial GuitarFreaks and Guitar Hero series. With the backing track to a song playing, notes scroll towards you in real time on a simplified guitar fretboard. When they reach the front, you fret the notes in question by holding down the corresponding keys with your fret hand, and you "pick" the notes by hitting the Enter key."
The Pillars of KDE 4: Decibel (KDE.News)KDE.News looks at the Decibel chat and phone communication service architecture that will be part of KDE 4. "The goal of Decibel is to create a bridge between different communication technologies. Decibel will make it easy to integrate real-time communication technologies into applications, Tobias says. Decibel provides a central storage place for settings of real-time communications. This will allow one communication application (say, email) to talk to another communication application (say, instant messaging) without having to learn a new language."
An Introduction to openQRM (O'ReillyNet)O'ReillyNet looks at cluster management with openQRM. "openQRM, which just reached version 3.1, is an open source cluster resource management platform for physical and virtual data centers. In a previous life it was a proprietary project. Now it's open source and is succeeding in integrating different leading open source projects into one console. With a pluggable architecture, there is more to come. I've called it "cluster resource management," but it's really a platform to manage your infrastructure."
Enhance security with file encryption tools (Linux.com)Rui Lopes reviews Linux security tools on Linux.com. "System-wide security solutions such as SELinux, AppArmor, Bastille and grsecurity can, in most cases, make your Linux desktop more than reasonably secure. But there are still cases where file or directory encryption is necessary. Here are some tools that can help you when you need to move files outside of your home computer, carry personal data around with you on a pendrive, or send email messages containing sensitive information."
KDE 4's Sonnet will turbocharge language processing (Linux.com)Linux.com looks at Sonnet, which will be included in KDE 4. "With the Sonnet library for KDE 4, developer Jacob Rideout hopes to reinvigorate the field of desktop linguistics by adding automatic language detection and other innovative features. Sonnet is to be for KDE 4 what KSpell 2 is for the current version of the K Desktop Environment, providing spellchecking facilities to applications as diverse as the Konqueror Web browser, Kopete instant messenger, and KWord office software. Unlike KSpell, however, it will also provide grammar checking, multilingual tools, and perhaps even translation, dictionary, and thesaurus functionality across all of KDE."
Intel, Novell deliver virtual Windows drivers to Linux (Linux-Watch)Linux-Watch looks at the release of paravirtualized network and block device drivers that allow Windows Server to run unmodified in Xen virtual environments. "These device drivers support SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 (SLES), and work on Intel-based server platforms featuring chipsets using Intel-VT (Virtualization Technology). The new drivers will let customers migrate to newer and fewer energy-efficient servers, consolidating legacy Windows or Linux solutions onto virtual servers."
Miscellaneous Mix Libre (Linux Journal)Dave Phillips covers a selection of recent news in the Libre audio world. "It's a mixed bag this week from Studio Dave. I'll skip the preliminaries and just invite you to dive in and check out some of the latest news from the ever-expanding world of Linux sound and music software. There's far more going on than I can possibly cover in my allotted space, but here's a quick survey of some recent remarkable activity."
Linux and Vista users share driver pain (InfoWorld)Here's an InfoWorld column on the driver troubles being experienced by Windows Vista users. "Given how many other companies are similarly under-delivering on hardware drivers for Vista, it's enough to make you wonder why more vendors don't do more to support Linux. If writing drivers for Vista is really this much of a chore, getting open source drivers for Linux will seem trivial by comparison."
In Good Company (Michael Geist)Here's a posting by Michael Geist on the International Intellectual Property Alliance's list of countries which, it feels, do not live up to proper IP protection standards. "These are just fourteen examples - there are dozens more countries on the list, including many developing countries, each invariably criticized for not adopting the DMCA, not extending the term of copyright, not throwing enough people in jail, or creating too many exceptions to support education and other societal goals. In fact, the majority of the world's population finds itself on the list, with 23 of the world's 30 most populous countries targeted for criticism (the exceptions are Germany, Ethiopia, Iran, France, the UK, Congo, and Myanmar)."
Page editor: Forrest Cook Announcements Non-Commercial announcements EFF Fights to Unmuzzle Citizen JournalistsThe Electronic Frontier Foundation has announced an effort to support free speech by citizen journalists. "The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) told a judge Wednesday to remove the legal muzzle on citizen journalists caught up in a court battle over documents relating to the controversial prescription drug Zyprexa. EFF argues that the injunction against publication of the documents online is prior restraint on their free speech and a violation of First Amendment rights. EFF's client posted links on a "wiki" to electronic copies of damaging internal Eli Lilly documents about Zyprexa."
FSFE NewsletterThe February 13, 2007 edition of the FSFE Newsletter is online with the latest Free Software Foundation Europe news. Topics include: FSFE becomes the legal guardian of the OpenSwarm Project, Transcript of Richard Stallman on the Free Software movement, Windows Vista released - FSFE recommends switching to GNU/Linux and Get Active: Join the Revolution!
Recommendation: no GPLv3 for SolarisA committee within the OpenSolaris community has been having a long discussion on whether Sun should dual-license the Solaris code, allowing it to be distributed under the terms of either the CDDL or version 3 of the GPL. That committee has now posted its recommendations: no move to GPLv3 anytime in the near future. "GPL* licensing OpenSolaris would be yielding to a small vocal minority of FOSS developers who use the lack of GPL licensing, purely as a means of fostering FUD towards OpenSolaris and who will, in all likelyhood, find some other workable mechanism to continue to foster FUD towards the project."
OpenMoko updateThe OpenMoko team has sent out an update on the status of its completely open GSM phone. It seems there have been a number of setbacks which are delaying the project, but they are still pushing forward. The phone's software will be opened up on schedule, despite its rougher than desired condition. General availability of the phone now appears to be September.
The Open Solutions Alliance uncloaksThe Open Solutions Alliance has announced its existence. "Initially, the OSA will focus its efforts on defining and promoting tools, frameworks and best practices that facilitate easy deployment and interoperability between applications. It will also build 'meta-communities' by partnering on projects that involve a variety of companies, communities and individuals to drive innovation and collaboration. Finally, the OSA will coordinate joint marketing campaigns to raise the awareness of business-hardened, open source applications and solution suites."
OpenSSL secures new FIPS validationThe OpenSSL cryptographic module is now certified for use by the US government. "The Open Source Software Institute (OSSI) announced today the FIPS 140-2 validation of the OpenSSL FIPS Object Module, a cryptographic library based on the widely used OpenSSL product. The official validation certificate (#733) is now posted at the NIST FIPS 140-1 and 140-2 Cryptographic Modules Validation List".
Commercial announcements ACCESS at 3GSM World CongressACCESS CO., LTD. has made several announcements at the 3GSM World Congress where the company is demonstrating its Linux platform running on Texas Instruments' OMAP platform and on Marvell's consumer electronic devices including feature handsets, smartphones, GPS navigation systems, and wireless handhelds. The company has also announced a Product Development Kit and a pre-release version of its Software Development Suite and a Global Partner Program to expand the mobile Linux market.
50,000 Linux desktops deployed in BrazilHere is a press release from BitWay Computadores, EnabledPeople, and IMTECH Brazil proclaiming the deployment of 50,000 Linux desktops under the Brazilian government's "Computers For All" program. Another 10,000 systems are yet to be deployed. The companies appear to have developed their own distribution: "Linux XP Desktop is a user-friendly desktop operating system for home and office users. With a preinstalled version, a user gets an applications set including OpenOffice package (supports .DOC, .XLS, .PPT formats), corporate class Evolution e-mail client, Firefox web browser, multi-protocol GAIM instant messenger and other software. Linux XP Desktop is RedHat-compatible OS and therefore has a maximum of other software available." (Thanks to Gary Smith).
Canonical and SpikeSource announce partnershipSpikeSource has announced a partnership agreement. "Under this agreement, SpikeSource will certify its applications and stacks on Ubuntu, and will eventually deliver the entire SpikeSource application suite on Ubuntu. Users of Ubuntu will benefit from SpikeSource certified applications and integration as part of a wider Open Source IT infrastructure."
Half of Top Enterprise Open Source Projects Don't Offer Enterprise Grade SupportOpenLogic, Inc. has sent out a press release concerning a survey they conducted on the use of open-source software in business. "Key findings: 58% of all respondents have an open source policy, are currently developing one or have a plan to create one. 83% of organizations using more than 25 projects have an open source policy, are currently developing one or have a plan to create one."
Microsoft and Novell Announce Technical Collaboration for CustomersNovell and Microsoft have unveiled more details about their joint technical roadmap and the benefits customers can expect from the collaboration. ""With this first installment of the Microsoft-Novell development roadmap, we see that both companies are building on this relationship to develop real, product-specific solutions to deliver on the promises made to customers," said Al Gillen, research vice president, System Software, for IDC. "The great potential of the November announcement between Microsoft and Novell could have been disappointing without a product-specific roadmap to execute against. With the roadmap, the technology benefits customers can expect will be tangible and delivered on a predictable basis.""
Novell and Intel to Provide Devices for Unmodified, Virtual Windows to Run on LinuxNovell and Intel Corporation have announced the availability of paravirtualized network and block device drivers that will allow Microsoft* Windows* Server 2000/2003/XP to run unmodified in Xen* virtual environments on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 from Novell.
OpenMoko.org goes publicOpenMoko, the company working toward the creation of a completely-open GSM phone, has announced the opening of a number of resources, including its source code repositories and bug tracker, a public wiki, and more. All can be reached from the openmoko.org pages.
Oracle announces Linux support for Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue ManagementOracle Corporation has announced a Linux version of its Oracle(R) Communications Billing and Revenue Management enterprise revenue management application. "The announcement furthers Oracle's commitment to deliver world-class application functionality on Linux."
rPath launches rBuilder 3.0 and the rPath Appliance PlatformrPath has announced the availability of rBuilder 3.0 and the rPath Appliance Platform. "rPath now provides software vendors complete appliance lifecycle management -- from creation to deployment to configuration to maintenance. Together, rBuilder and the rPath Appliance Platform give software vendors a solution that simplifies software and drives revenue growth."
Userful announces Open Source Pre-BookUserful Corporation has announced the open-source release of its PreBook PC reservation and usage management system. "PreBook allows libraries, Internet cafes, and universities to manage and track usage on both Windows and Linux client PCs, efficiently controlling time and usage on their computers. Customers use PreBook to manage all their computers through a single web-based interface, saving hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars over competing products."
Visual Integrity upgrades FLY BatchVisual Integrity has released FLY Batch 6.5, a developer component for automating volume PDF and PostScript file conversion into web, print and archive formats. "The company also cut prices up to 50% on all Linux versions of software to match Microsoft Windows version pricing. FLY Batch converts any PDF, PostScript or EPS file into a variety of formats needed for print and web publishing, to meet compliancy requirements and for archival projects. Scalable vector output formats include WMF, EMF, SVG, DXF, CGM, HPGL, EPS, and MIF. High-fidelity TIFF, GIF, PNG, JPEG and BMP image formats are supported and plain formatted ASCII can be extracted."
Vocalscape participates in the Ekiga Softphone projectVocalscape Networks, Inc. has announced their participation in the Ekiga softphone project. ""Joining the open source community working on the Ekiga softphone allows Vocalscape to share our experience with VoIP technology and provides our customers and end-users with added functionality more quickly," said Ron McIntyre, President of Vocalscape. "Soon, in addition to our Eyefon softphone for Windows, end-users running Linux operating systems will be able to make calls on the Vocalscape network. Additionally, the Ekiga softphone will give users some added functionality such as video calling and text messaging.""
Xandros BridgeWays announcedXandros has sent out a press release for its "BridgeWays" product: "...a new suite of next generation, cross-platform and cross-service, workflow-driven and rules-based, management products and integration frameworks." The buzzword storm does not relent anywhere through the release - it is a masterpiece of the art. But we not really been able to figure out what the product does...
New Books Build Your Own Ruby on Rails Web Applications - New from SitePointSitePoint has published the book Build Your Own Ruby on Rails Web Applications by Patrick Lenz.
Rails for Java Developers - New from the Pragmatic ProgrammersPragmatic Programmers has published the book Rails for Java Developers by Stuart Halloway and Justin Gehtland.
Education and Certification LPI Offers Discounted Certification Exams at FOSDEM 2007The Linux Professional Institute will offer discounted certification exams to attendees of the FOSDEM 2007 conference in Brussels, Belgium on February 24 and 25. "Exams will be in the English language and include all LPIC-1 (101 and 102), LPIC-2 (201 and 202), LPIC-3 (301, 302) and MySQL certification exams. This will be the first time in the world that paper versions of LPI's new LPIC-3 exams will be offered."
Calls for Presentations GUADEC 2007 Call For Papers (GnomeDesktop)A Call For Papers has gone out for GUADEC 2007. "The GNOME Users and Developers European Conference (GUADEC) invite you to participate in the 8th annual conference on the 15-21st July 2007 in Birmingham, England. The deadline for proposals is Monday 12th March."
Call for Papers: IT-Incident Management and IT-Forensics 2007A call for papers has gone out for IT-Incident Management and IT-Forensics 2007. The event will take place in Stuttgart, Germany on September 11-12, 2007.
PAKCON III: Call for PapersA Call for Papers has gone out for PAKCON III. The event will take place in Karachi, Pakistan on May 26, 2007, submissions are due by April 5.
Upcoming Events Akademy 2007 Call for Sponsorship (KDE.News)KDE.News has announced a Call for Sponsorship for Akademy 2007. "aKademy is the KDE World Summit, this year taking place in Glasgow at the end of June. Sponsorship is an opportunity to promote your company or product to the developers, users, deployers and consultants who will attend the conference. It will also provide a marketing avenue for your company to the thousands who read our website and publications. Most importantly, it gives vital support which ensures that hundreds of KDE contributors can meet together to plan the future of the free desktop."
Libre Graphics Meeting 2007The Libre Graphics Meeting 2007 will take place in Montreal, Quebec, Canada on May 6, 2007. "This year's LGM provides a venue where FLOSS graphics application developers, users and professional artists from all over the world meet to discuss collaboration, outline the future of the projects together, with the goal of increasing interaction between developers, professional graphics artists and print professionals to improve the steadily expanding FLOSS graphics' application ecosystem."
Linux Installfest workshop in Davis, CAThe Linux Users' Group of Davis has announced the next Linux Installfest workshop. The event takes place in Davis, California on February 18, 2007.
Network and Distributed Systems SecurityThe Network and Distributed Systems Security conference will take place from February 28 to March 2, 2007 in San Diego, CA. "NDSS is a traditional scholarly academic security conference with a peer reviewed track of papers. However, this year we have made a special effort to make NDSS more relevant to security practitioners by adding an invited talks track focused on security threats by some leading practitioners."
RailsConf Europe 2007: Call for Participation is OpenA Call for Participation has gone out for RailsConf Europe 2007. "To meet the increasing demand for skill building, and to spread the joy of Rails, Ruby Central and O'Reilly Media are teaming up to produce RailsConf Europe 2007, an entire conference dedicated to Ruby on Rails. Happening September 17-19 in Berlin, Germany, RailsConf Europe will offer keynotes, sessions, and tutorials from the most innovative and successful Rails experts and organizations."
Events: February 22, 2007 to April 23, 2007The following event listing is taken from the LWN.net Calendar.
If your event does not appear here, please tell us about it. Audio and Video programs How to Win Friends and Influence People in Washington (O'ReillyNet)O'Reilly presents a podcast from the Web 2.0 Summit. "Web 2.0 Summit program chair John Battelle moderated a public policy discussion with Art Brodsky, the communications director of Public Knowledge, Ebay's Tod Cohen and Amazon.com's Paul Misener."
Page editor: Forrest Cook
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