Linux in the news

Boot Linux faster (IBM developerWorks)

IBM developerWorks examines ways to make Linux boot faster. "Although simple to understand, the technique I present here for speeding the boot process requires careful implementation; my hope is that Linux distributions will adopt this technique and users will be spared the configuration task. But if you're feeling adventurous, read on."

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The 2003 Open Choice Awards (OfB.biz)

Open for Business has announced the winners of the Open Choice Awards for 2003. "While some of these choices will undoubtedly be controversial, we hope that you'll appreciate our selections and find our picks helpful in making deployment decisions. Many of our selections this year are returning favorites from last year's premier of the Open Choice awards, but you will also find a few new names throughout. Without further ado, let us present this year's Open Choice winners."

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Maximum Linux Kernel Performance (KernelTrap)

KernelTrap takes a look at installing Andrew Morton's -mm kernel. "Andrew Morton began releasing his -mm kernel patches a little over a year ago, in the summer of 2002. The -mm tree began as a 90k patch against the 2.5.17 development kernel, merging in the remote kernel debugger, kgdb. By the release of 2.5.18, the -mm patchset had grown to nearly 238k, merging in a wide assortment of fixes and new functionality. As of this writing, the current -mm patchset is 2.6.0-test5-mm3, weighing in at nearly 5 megabytes. Andrew's -mm tree has evolved from a testing ground for numerous new technologies, to a comprehensive patchset that is usually more stable than the mainline 2.6.0-test kernel itself. This bodes well for the future of the 2.6 kernel, as Andrew Morton will soon be the official 2.6 kernel maintainer."

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Linux Lunacy in Alaska (Linux Journal)

An ocean cruise with Ted Ts'o giving an "Introduction to the Linux Kernel"? Must be a Linux Lunacy cruise article on Linux Journal. "Ted also did a talk on "More than You Ever Wanted to Know about Filesystems", which balanced an overview of filesystem design with some practical advice for sysadmins who choose and maintain filesystems. Your best way to keep an ext2 or ext3 filesystem defragmented and running its best is not to fill it up all the way, or as Ted put it, "Overprovision like mad." Although it's difficult to come up with a benchmark that fairly measures the performance of a filesystem that has been in service for a while, the Postmark benchmark provides a good simulation of a running mail server, he said."

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HP to indemnify Linux customers (News.com)

According to this brief News.com article, HP has taken the bait and decided to indemnify its Linux customers against suits from SCO. "'We really thought about it and we decided we were just going to move forward and assume all risk ourselves,' the representative said. 'This is what we want to do to protect our customers.'"

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JBoss joins Java community process (News.com)

News.com covers the JBoss Group as it joins the Java Community Process. "JBoss says its software is compatible with the Java standard but that it has not gone through the formal process--and expense--of gaining J2EE certification from Sun, which controls the J2EE specification and brand. J2EE certification is valuable to corporations that want to ensure that software written according to the standard can work with other commercial J2EE products."

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Red Hat Spreading Its Linux Wings (eWeek)

eWeek covers Red Hat's plans for its Enterprise Linux platform. "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, due next month, will act as the unifying platform and be available on seven architectures for both client and server deployments."

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Sun's Schwartz Speaks Out on Linux, SCO (eWeek)

If you're still curious about Sun's approach to Linux, read this eWeek interview with Jonathan Schwartz, the company's software VP. "Also, let me really clear about our Linux strategy. We don't have one. We don't at all. We do not believe that Linux plays a role on the server. Period. If you want to buy it, we will sell it to you, but we believe that Solaris is a better alternative, that is safer, more robust, higher quality and dramatically less expensive in purchase price."

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Freeing Computers in Schools (Linux Journal)

Here's a Linux Journal article with examples of how free software is opening up a whole new world, with education as one of its beneficiaries. "[A] younger child dances to the music that a program called Bump and Jump plays, a piece of software written by a team of Swedish students. The best part is nobody paid for the CD the children are using; it's not pirated either. It can be run from any computer, simply by booting from the CD-ROM drive. The CD comes in a distribution called FreEDUC."

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Linux gets a phone call from Openwave (News.com)

News.com covers Linux compatible phone software from Openwave. "Openwave's adoption of Linux is important because the company sells more wireless browsers than anyone else in the world, beating even handset-making king Nokia. Its software now sits inside about a third of the world's handsets."

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Lobbying for Linux (NewsForge)

NewsForge presents a 'how to lobby' article. "A lot of coverage has been devoted to the software patents fracas, both in the USA and in the EU, and rightly so, but little has been written about the lobbying process itself and how individuals can and should approach it. This article attempts to redress the balance."

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WindowsRefund.net: Marching On (Linux Journal)

Linux Journal continues a look at one man's attempt to get a refund for Windows. "Getting back to my case against Toshiba, I remain fully committed to establishing a legal precedent that empowers future refund seekers to collect on the promise of the EULA. In order to prepare for the next phase of this ordeal, I have retained legal councel and am exploring options that can be used to obtain the desired outcome."

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Paul Vixie on VeriSign (O'ReillyNet)

Here's an interview with Paul Vixie on O'ReillyNet about VeriSign's SiteFinder. "VeriSign kicked a sleeping dog. It's a bizarre thing to do. Was it really VeriSign's decision to make, unilaterally? Did it need permission to make this decision? If so, what entity has the authority to grant such permission? As a result there will be a big policy debate now. Someone will decide if permission needed to be had. Someone will decide if it should be delegated to someone else."

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Inside Prelude, an Open Source IDS (O'ReillyNet)

O'ReillyNet interviews Yoann Vandoorselaere, the lead developer of the Prelude IDS. "Yoann Vandoorselaere: The popularity of IDS software can be considered to be a trend of the moment, with all the positive and negative side effect this can bring. The bad point about this is that we see more and more companies deploying an IDS without curing their security problem."

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Interview With Rusty Russell (KernelTrap)

KernelTrap interviews kernel hacker Rusty Russell. "Well known for his packet filtering efforts, having written both ipchains and netfilter/iptables, he has continued to make an impressive number of contributions to Linux kernel development. A large sampling of his current projects have been merged into the upcoming 2.6 kernel, including futexes, per-cpu counters, hot pluggable CPU support, and a complete rewrite of the in-kernel module loading code."

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Stress Testing an Apache Application Server in a Real World Environment (Linux Journal)

Linux Journal present a howto article on stress testing Apache. "We've all had an experience in which the software is installed on the servers, the network is connected and the application is running. Naturally, the next step is to think, "I wonder how much traffic this system can support?" Sometimes the question lingers and sometimes it passes, but it always presents itself. So, how do we figure out how much traffic our server and application can handle? Can it handle only a few active clients or can it withstand a proper Slashdotting?

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Building Unix Tools with Ruby (O'ReillyNet)

O'ReillyNet takes a look at building tools with Ruby. "Once you have a properly initiated instance of the option parser, you can add code to checks which options have been selected and what mistakes have been made. GetoptLong provides a lot of help here; your job is limited to defining a few global variables and handling any errors that may occur at this stage."

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Start Here to learn about Grid computing (IBM developerWorks)

IBM developerWorks takes a long look at grid computing. "How much do you need to know about the evolving grid standards? It depends. IBM and other industry leaders plus researchers and representatives from many grid software vendors are actively involved in the work of the GGF to define the grid standards. Are you a corporate software developer? If so, then you'll use the grid tools and products that will be based on the new standards as they unfold. You'll want to know about the standards and be generally aware of the work that's going on. Here on the developerWorks Grid computing zone, we'll do our best to keep you informed."

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StarOffice 7 is far faster and friendlier than SO 6 (NewsForge)

Robin 'Roblimo' Miller reviews StarOffice 7 in this NewsForge article. "If you need to work fast, SO 7's speed certainly makes it worth the upgrade money from SO 6 or OOo, assuming you are using it as a work tool -- and don't mind spending money on software. If you would like to have a free office software package that does most of what SO 7 does, at the same speed, and don't mind waiting a little while to get it, OpenOffice.org 1.1 is almost ready for you, and the latest release candidate (RC4) looks usable enough that adventurous souls may be comfortable using it today instead of waiting for the final version."

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