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I can't believe it, Rottenflesh really is indestinguishable from Freshmeat

Here's an example (can you tell which it's from?):

About: GLiv is an OpenGL image viewer. It performs image loading via Gdk-pixbuf (which is bundled with GTK+-2.2) and rendering with OpenGL. The graphical user interface uses GTK+ with GtkGLExt. If Gdk-pixbuf cannot load your image, it uses ImageMagick to convert it to PNG. GLiv is very fast and smooth at rotating, panning, and zooming if you have an OpenGL accelerated graphics board.

Changes: A Russian translation has been added, and the Brazilian Portuguese translation has been updated. The progress is now shown when rebuilding the images menus. The slide show can now loop in both directions. ImageMagick loading is now more robust. Slide shows with only two images are now faster.

I think that's what his point is, that anyone can put something up on SourceForge.net or freshmeat, even if it's been done 384 times before.

The parody rottenflesh.net is indistinguishable from the real freshmeat. It also stays crunchy in milk.

I'm sick and tired of 0.x versions or the upgrade from release version 3.23.609 to 3.23.718c because the menu choice Options was rephrased as Settings.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

The trees should be pruned, or why not a peer-review ranking system? Reciprocal altruism, yadayada.

I think that's what his point is, that anyone can put something up on SourceForge.net or freshmeat, even if it's been done 384 times before.

The parody rottenflesh.net is indistinguishable from the real freshmeat. It also stays crunchy in milk.

I'm sick and tired of 0.x versions or the upgrade from release version 3.23.609 to 3.23.718c because the menu choice Options was rephrased as Settings.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

The trees should be pruned, or why not a peer-review ranking system? Reciprocal altruism, yadayada.

The Audrey is not an open system, and it is not based on Linux. It is based on Qnix, which is free for non-commercial use. The Audrey applications themselves are closed, and were developed by a third party (not 3COM). I am fairly certain that that at least the Address Book application uses GDBM, which is a GPL'd library (not LGPL) and as such they should have released the applications under GPL. There is (or was) an active Audrey hacking community, at http://www.audreyhacking.com.

Disclaimer: I have an Audrey, a Rio, and an I-Opener, plus a few other pieces of tech detritus I'm more embarrassed to mention. Not that I paid retail for any of them...

This would be great, why isnt this in the release notes?

more about this is found in
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15 9015
(copy and past,bugzilla does not accept /. refferrers)

This very close to the i.e. implementation. Microsoft documented their security mechanism:
howitworks/security/sspi2000.asp>
msdn

For the non windows users (or older mozilla users) ther is still an ntlm proxy that works very good.

Probably because Freshmeat.net already beat them to the punch.
;)

Probably because Freshmeat.net already beat them to the punch.
;)

Check Freshmeat's Duke Nukem Forever project page. Seems that it was released today.

I'd just like to review the 'jokes' so far... call it Flamebait, if you want to, but it just annoys me and I have to say it...

1. RFC 3514
   This one was nice. Obvious, but nice... as usual, the RFC people are doing a good job. Too bad Slashdot ruined it with the first April Fools dupe...
2. Gentoo on RPM
   Well, good idea of the Gentoo people, but waaay too obvious... imho a good AF joke is one you believe to be true for at least a couple of minutes until you've looked at it very closely. But OK, this was only number 2, so it was still nice... now AF story bloat yet.
3. Whitespace programming language
   Hm. As has been pointed out, it's not new... and even more obvious than the previous one (and pretty much boring too). I think then CPAN people know how to really make a good AF joke...
4. Microsoft + Security
   Hey... better at least. Nicely combining a true story with a joke story... though the joke was not very believable either. Also, it's number four already, and we're only half-way through the day...
5. The Register's story
   OK. By itself, not all that bad... but not too overwhelming either. And, on Slashdot, we're now at Number 5 and counting.
6. The dupe.
   OK, increasingly stupid... but then again, maybe the best joke today on Slashdot :)
7. Enlightenment 1.0
   Aawwww, come on. Enough. It hurts. And again, blunt joke. Latency between reading and noting the joke: .01 ms. Including the dupe, we're at seven now... and the day is still not over. I think I'll stop reloading the web site until I'm sure April 1 is over in all time zones...

For some quality 4-1 jokes, see here (German), the above-mentioned cpan.org, or even the Freshmeat one which isn't so bad. This ain't so bad either. Kuro5hin points to this interesting link.

Can you /. editors pleease try to come up with a single good hoax and dump the rest? That would be nice.

Does anybody know of a good mailserver written in a higher-level language? This is what, the 82nd remote root-exploit in sendmail due to C coding problems? Let's see something written in Perl or Python or Java, even.

I do not think that there exists full Mail Transport Agents written with perl or python. However, some written with java exists, I think.

But check it yourself, of course.

Does anybody know of a good mailserver written in a higher-level language? This is what, the 82nd remote root-exploit in sendmail due to C coding problems? Let's see something written in Perl or Python or Java, even.

I do not think that there exists full Mail Transport Agents written with perl or python. However, some written with java exists, I think.

But check it yourself, of course.

Does anybody know of a good mailserver written in a higher-level language? This is what, the 82nd remote root-exploit in sendmail due to C coding problems? Let's see something written in Perl or Python or Java, even.

I do not think that there exists full Mail Transport Agents written with perl or python. However, some written with java exists, I think.

But check it yourself, of course.

You can check the release dates and changelog on Freshmeat to confirm the dates...

Okay. Check out the linked articles, yes, but also search SourceForge, Freshmeat and Google Advanced Search for what you're after.

Between these three, with a bit of intelligent searching, you should be able to find something related.

If you can't, your project is esoteric enough that you'll need to be looking thru' Google Groups and other such weird equivalents.

Enjoy,

If you are missing a .fonts directory, just create one:

mkdir ~/.fonts

Fontconfig keeps tabs on what is happening to the font directories it is monitoring and updates the X server lists as appropriate. All the other directories it monitors by default are only accessible by the superuser but you can add your own personal fonts to your own .fonts directory and fontconfig will pick up the new entries. If you ever get stuck and you think that fontconfig is missing some entries it should have seen, you can run fc-cache to regenerate the cache files. fc-list will tell you what is currently available via fontconfig.

If you want to know more about the fonts on your Gnome 2 system, I also recommend installing Fontilus for Nautilus which supports access to fonts via the fonts:/// virtual directory. It also allows you to query font files on your file system.

Cheers,

Toby Haynes

I want something that works like the Database Template Library for XML. It'd be nice just to map XML tags into a structure and suck the whole XML file in using an iterator.

I think it would help if there were a standard, minimal C string library

Check out PTypes. To quote the PTypes home page: ...a simple alternative to the STL that includes multithreading and networking. It defines dynamic strings...

I'm currently using it in a commercial project, and it's a nice package, well thought out, and quite stable.

Studies have shown that programmer productivity, measured by lines of code over time, varies little between languages.

Great! Now let's move on to some benchmark that actually matters. Lines of code over time has never been a good benchmark. Better ones are number of bugs, time to milestone, number of milestones accomplished on time, and user satisfaction. No, none of them are perfect. Welcome to reality.

the low-level constructs that C and C++ programmers spend time managing are the same ones that can get them into trouble

Sure, if you code using no libraries and are a dumbass about it. Heck, you can avoid most of the vulnerabilities he's talking about in C++ just by using std::string. Most of the other worries can be eliminated by using decent libraries like boost (its pointer templates are great) or Loki. In C it's a bit harder, but there's secure string and memory libraries available there too (I recently poked around in vsftp which is straight C code and uses wrappers for all string functions).

There's no need to move to a different language - although I definitely agree with different languages for different purposes - but you definitely need to know how to write things properly in the language you do use.

And while he acknowledges that high-level languages aren't immune to security bugs, he also seems to forget that most high level languages are written in lower level ones (such as Perl being written in C). A mistake in the code that creates the high level code can leave the entire thing wide open and you're back to square one. On the upside you only have to patch the language. On the downside you have dozens or hundreds of vulnerable programs instead of one or two.

Of course, the author also seems to forget that not everything was written in the past two or three years. Just how old is lpr? Is rewriting it - in any language - really going to be worth it?

Finally, the author's list of vulnerable programs at the start starkly contrasts with his suggestions at the end. Of the six listed four (kernel, openssl, mysql, and glibc) are not applicable for rewriting in high level code - by the author's own admission. One of them (openssl) is not even a language issue - it's implementation. The last two could, in theory, be written in high level languages, but lpr seriously predates Perl or Python. Mutt might have been a candidate for a high level language though - so 1 out of the 6 is a viable gripe.

The author does make a good point... it's just buried in his pointless bashing of C/C++. You need to know your tools, and you need to know how to code securely. The tools can help, but if you don't code securely then all they can do is block the more egregious sins... and those are rarely the ones that get exploited (they get blocked or patched quickly).

Actually I myself have been meaning to set it up for myself...

-Benjamin Meyer

I think you made a mistake. You probably wanted to make this announcement on Freshmeat instead of here.

Over the years, how many people have been turned onto Linux from seeing a tricked-out E desktop? I'd say a lot.

I definitely agree with you there. One of Linuxs big selling points on the desktop is the configurability of the windowing system. The abstraction of the windowing system and the open nature of Linux have resulted in people experimenting with different types of interface. For a taster, check these out:

FluxBox
Ion
PekWM
TreeWM
WindowLab

Over the years, how many people have been turned onto Linux from seeing a tricked-out E desktop? I'd say a lot.

I definitely agree with you there. One of Linuxs big selling points on the desktop is the configurability of the windowing system. The abstraction of the windowing system and the open nature of Linux have resulted in people experimenting with different types of interface. For a taster, check these out:

FluxBox
Ion
PekWM
TreeWM
WindowLab

Over the years, how many people have been turned onto Linux from seeing a tricked-out E desktop? I'd say a lot.

I definitely agree with you there. One of Linuxs big selling points on the desktop is the configurability of the windowing system. The abstraction of the windowing system and the open nature of Linux have resulted in people experimenting with different types of interface. For a taster, check these out:

FluxBox
Ion
PekWM
TreeWM
WindowLab

Over the years, how many people have been turned onto Linux from seeing a tricked-out E desktop? I'd say a lot.

I definitely agree with you there. One of Linuxs big selling points on the desktop is the configurability of the windowing system. The abstraction of the windowing system and the open nature of Linux have resulted in people experimenting with different types of interface. For a taster, check these out:

FluxBox
Ion
PekWM
TreeWM
WindowLab

Over the years, how many people have been turned onto Linux from seeing a tricked-out E desktop? I'd say a lot.

I definitely agree with you there. One of Linuxs big selling points on the desktop is the configurability of the windowing system. The abstraction of the windowing system and the open nature of Linux have resulted in people experimenting with different types of interface. For a taster, check these out:

FluxBox
Ion
PekWM
TreeWM
WindowLab

I use e16 on and off and must say that as a Window Manger it is really cool in terms of being able to skin it. I can skip from and Aqua skin to a BeOS skin in a few seconds. Good place to look is at freshmeat

Rus

Programmable completion has been in bash for a while now. See the original project page for more, or use the debian bash package, which includes the completion libraries by default.

I actually had to disable the cvs-subcommand-autocomplete. I would try to complete the name of an actual file, and the cvs-completion would fire... generating network traffic to the CVS server... taking forever... when all I wanted was a local filename.

I'm amazed to see so many suggestions regarding promotion possibilities -- I wonder if you all work in a different IT industry to me. I'm only 30 (don't laugh), but I'm already as high up the technical career ladder as it's possible to be at my workplace (and changing jobs would be a demotion based on the job ads I've seen). To get any higher I'd have to become a manager, which doesn't yet excite me. Isn't there more to a career than just climbing the ziggurat?

Anyway, if you are a manager, the best advice I can give is to find a copy of Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams, read it, and use its advice. It's a thin book, but it is +100 Insightful when it comes to employees. Some links on the book:

• Publisher's info at Dorset House
• Slashdot review from some time in the past (can't find a year on the page).
• Freshmeat review from 2002.
• Atlantic Systems Guild, consulting company run by the book's authors.

Before I start this, I have to make sure that people reading it actually "get" what XFree86 is. A lot of people who complain about X (in the generic sense) think that it IS the GUI. They see that X shaped cursor and the 50% gray background and think "ewwww!" But what they don't understand is that the "GUI", as they perceive it, is really an environment like KDE or GNOME. Assuming we are talking KDE... you need X for KDE to run and vice-versa. They are interdependent. I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say "I like KDE better than X Windows". With that said:

After reading some of the comments on the OS News board, it seems to me that there are two needs arising out of the discussions:

-Continuing development of XFree86 and it's robust feature set (many of which are sadly lacking in Windows unfortunately)

-A completely new non-networkable direct rendered system (more like the Windows approach)

First of all, to make my case, I will tell you to think of it in terms of a standard console vs. a framebuffer console. They both have their place for two different types of users. In the same way, a system like XFree86 and some new direct rendered display system will have acceptance with certain kinds of users.

I, personally, love XFree86 and all it has to offer. It performs very well for me on a local workstation as well as over my home network and at my place of employ. Displays are easily exported on a per application or per session basis as needed. And with the LBX proxy, I can use it when VPNed into my workplace.

It's VERY flexible: I typically run 3-4 X servers on my workstation and laptop so that I can dedicate full screens for certain things at different resolutions or run under different users simultaneously on each display. (To those in the know: How's that for fast user switching? XP cough cough... :) Ctl-Alt-F8 and you are one user, Ctrl-Alt-F9 and you are another, etc...)

For example, if I am playing a game (Sierra's Lighthouse for instance) under Wine, I like to do it full screen, with no desktop environment at all. Just the game. What's even nicer is that I can actually make the display large enough the Lighthouse isn't a small window with black space around it, it almost becomes full screen. Same thing with Riven. All this while I still have IRC downloading the latest episode of Enterprise in another session as another user. All I need to do to check on my download progress is the Virtual Console key combo.

Now... I will say that if a project starts up to provide a direct rendered system. This could actually be a good thing. It would probably meet the needs of the generic home user fairly well, and remote desktop services could be provided by something like VNC or an RDP clone. I do admit that Joe Average is probably going to have little use now and in the future for X type capabilities. So, this new system should be packed with other "consumer" features. Specifically, the 3D support for games, DVD and MPEG acceleration where applicable and TV in/out support for cards that have such features. A project like this would do a lot to make Linux more palatable to the average consumer. All a distro would have to do then is break down their distros into categories (RedHat for example):

-RedHat "Lite" - A distro for the average consumer that is rypically pre-installed on new systems. No X, no devel tools, no servers, just a very basic OS that allows them to safely get on the Internet, run some productivity apps and play some games.

-RedHat "WS" - As it exists currently. With X (just the direct rendering system that people are alluding to), devel tools, basic servers and some of the enterprise features that power users crave.

-RedHat "Collection" - Capable of installing every distro from one set of disks. You just choose which distro combo you want.

So... don't bash X because you don't understand it. It's a great system with a great feature set. It would be nice to see 3D acceleration networkable or even clusterable though...

offtopic? huh. well, the link was offtopic, sort of. the freshmeat project is here.

autoslack - written by David Cantrell

Has anyone tried this SCI interpreter for Linux? I loved Space Quest, King's Quest, and Quest for Glory...

There are some interesting things happening with window managers, which cannot happen on other platforms due to Xs lack of interface policy. It would have been interesting if the author had looked at the following:

FluxBox

Ion

PekWM

TreeWM

WindowLab

Next time maybe...

There are some interesting things happening with window managers, which cannot happen on other platforms due to Xs lack of interface policy. It would have been interesting if the author had looked at the following:

FluxBox

Ion

PekWM

TreeWM

WindowLab

Next time maybe...

There are some interesting things happening with window managers, which cannot happen on other platforms due to Xs lack of interface policy. It would have been interesting if the author had looked at the following:

FluxBox

Ion

PekWM

TreeWM

WindowLab

Next time maybe...

There are some interesting things happening with window managers, which cannot happen on other platforms due to Xs lack of interface policy. It would have been interesting if the author had looked at the following:

FluxBox

Ion

PekWM

TreeWM

WindowLab

Next time maybe...

There are some interesting things happening with window managers, which cannot happen on other platforms due to Xs lack of interface policy. It would have been interesting if the author had looked at the following:

FluxBox

Ion

PekWM

TreeWM

WindowLab

Next time maybe...

• Agata (report gen, PHP-Gtk)
  
• DataVision (report gen, Java)
  
• SQL Databases for Linux (article, old but lotsa links)
  
• DataMiner (mining/editing frontend, PHP)
  
• DBA-Dialog (DBA tool, BASH (yes really!))
  
• DB Designer (complex-SQL-database design tool, apparently C++/Qt)
  
• Foxxess (DBA frontend, apparently C++/Fox)
  
• knoda (define, populate, report on DB's, apparently C++/Qt)
  
• Koala (similar, Python/Gtk)

Theres a reply, buts a score of 1, so people might not view it. (I was thinking same thing, So I'll reply also...)

Windows GUI is ok, mostly just for alt-tab/taskbar. But I switched over to BB4win (Blackbox for windows). Supports blackbox themes, just grab new ones off freshmeat. Virtual window support, and with bbkeys, hotkey support rocks. (shift+ctrl+p = launchs putty)

Also, to help memory useage, switching bloated apps to freeware applications helps. SecureCRT uses 22megs per instance, Putty uses 800K with the same scrollback buffer. I find for WinXP the memory sweet spot is about 320 megs for myself with all my apps (office/exchange/putty/browsers/java apps). Even a slower windows box can get a large improvement by adding ram.

Oh, and on my sun box, I run icewm with the MicroGui theme, with some extra buttons added. Works fine for getting work done.

Have you looked at peanut linux or maybe slackware? They're usually really small distros. Another option is to search freshmeat. Just a quick search for linux floppy brought up several results for distros that run on one or two floppies. The only trick is the more current versions of X often require a fair amount of space. You might also have to use a really old kernel (i.e. 2.2 series).

Atomic Bomberman is a dream

You should try xblast, it's actually much more fun in my opinion. It's available here or for other platforms try the left links at the (noisy) homepage, or grab the Debian package.

cannot be blocked
cannot be marked as "junk mail"
cannot be forwarded ( say to "abuse" at hotmail.com)
does not specify how i can stop recieving it

I've already explained to my wife that Freshmeat isn't a pr0n site. Now I would have to explain that to someone else too? Great...

(As a side note: my wife's actual comment was "Freshmeat? A porn site? Cool! Let's see!")

mpeg2-movie

Ogg Vorbis Quicktime component (for high quality sound ;)

OpenQuicktime

GNU VCDImager

PGP extensions

A little geek duct tape ;)

mpeg2-movie

Ogg Vorbis Quicktime component (for high quality sound ;)

OpenQuicktime

GNU VCDImager

PGP extensions

A little geek duct tape ;)

mpeg2-movie

Ogg Vorbis Quicktime component (for high quality sound ;)

OpenQuicktime

GNU VCDImager

PGP extensions

A little geek duct tape ;)

mpeg2-movie

Ogg Vorbis Quicktime component (for high quality sound ;)

OpenQuicktime

GNU VCDImager

PGP extensions

A little geek duct tape ;)

See the Freshmeat project page for some of the answers here.

Actually it works for all PIC compiled binaries, which on my system works out to everything except winex and svgalib (or something). It's essentially taking the binaries and libraries on your system and making them faster to load by doing part of the dynamic linker's work ahead of time.

I couldn't tell you why more people aren't using it, but it works for any binary on your system. I think it's just more noticable because KDE takes the most noticable amount of time to start.

--
Daniel

This is a tough one ... I mean you can block off any ports you don't need exposed but that wouldn't stop the packet from "going through the meter". I think setting up proxy tar-pits is the best existing solution. Enter the DOS Apache module. If some server is pinging you at a rate that doesn't add up then make it wait all day (ok 10 seconds) for your replies. There's no reason why this couldn't be implemented in front of any other exposed ports. Not much help in a targeted DDOS attack though.

That said, yeah ... the one sending 'em should foot the bill but unless some worldwide organization springs up for this purpose, I wouldn't bet on it.

That reminds me of a new window manager I saw last weekend on freshmeat that makes use of infinitely tall menu items/Fitts's law called WindowLab. It's small too.