Slashdot Mirror

Linux.com's Stefan Vrabie has a look at the state of Transgaming's Cedega, which some claim to be the best current offering for running Windows games under Linux. While it may be better than nothing, the author still puts this solidly under the "plug and pray" column with the biggest drawback being the amount of fiddling required to make it work. From the article: "Cedega may not be the answer to games under Linux, but it's better than not being able to play at all, until gaming companies notice Linux users as a market and release games for Linux." Linux.com and Slashdot.org are both owned by OSTG.

An anonymous reader writes "According to DistroWatch, Damn Small Linux (DSL) is currently the most popular microLinux distribution. Linux.com (Also owned by VA) takes a look at why this might be the case, and how you can best take advantage of it. From the article: 'What began as a toy project to stuff the maximum software inside a 50MB ISO file has matured into a refined community project known for its speed and versatility. DSL includes the ultra-lightweight FluxBox window manager, two Web browsers, Slypheed email client and news reader, xpdf PDF viewer, XMMS with MPEG media file support for playing audio and video, BashBurn CD burner, XPaint image editing, VNCViewer and rdesktop to control Windows and Linux desktops remotely, and more. If they could do all this in 50 megs, imagine what they could do in more space. Last month the DSL developers released DSL-Not, a.k.a. DSL-N 0.1 RC1. It's 83.5MB of DSL coated with GTK sugar. Yummy!'"

AlanS2002 writes "As reported here on Slashdot last week, there are some people who are concerned that the Linux Kernel is slowly getting buggier with the new development cycle. Now, according to Linux.com (Also owned by VA) Linus Torvalds has thrown his two cents in, saying that while there are some concerns, it is not as bad as some might have thought from the various reporting. However he says that the 2.6 Kernel could probably do with a breather to get people to calm down a bit."

Linux.com (Also owned by VA) is taking a look at the once widely popular office suite, ApplixWare. From the article: "Passed to a subsidiary of Applix called VistaSource that later became independent, ApplixWare was repositioned as a combination of a basic office package and a developer's toolkit running from a common main menu. For a while, it was even renamed AnyWare. Now at version 6, ApplixWare is back to its original name, with versions available for AIX, GNU/Linux, and SPARC Solaris, with earlier versions still supported for Windows and FreeBSD. The trial download for GNU/Linux shows ApplixWare's age, but it also shows a trick or two that its newer rivals might learn from."

With the recent news that Anthony Towns will be taking over as the Debian Project Leader, Linux.com took a few minutes to sit down and feel out the new DPL-elect. From the interview: "The immediate plan is to organize the various ideas I've had so that I can work out which ones are actually worth working on, and what order to do them in; and to make sure that all the people who volunteered to be DPL during the campaign, or offered their help don't go away without some good ideas about extra things they can do. "

Joe Barr over at Linux.com (also owned by VA Sofware) has an interesting writeup on how he took his iPod Nano and installed iPodLinux on it, making it into a "dual-booting, sweet MP3-singing, iDoom-playing monster."

Linux.com (also owned by OSTG) is running a quick look at Trustix, a Linux distro designed for servers that focuses on ground up security and stability. From the article: "No operating system can claim to be completely secure. There will always be zero-day exploits, configurations errors, user errors, and other factors that can defeat the best security for any system. On the other hand, it's always good to start from a secure base and then add more security. Trustix provides a reliable and secure Linux distribution that you can build upon. There are no wasteful graphical displays and no wizards to set up your firewall. If you aren't comfortable with the command line, forget about Trustix. [...] That said, Trustix does a good job of keeping your system up-to-date, and if you have the required experience, you'll find that it's a robust distro. As a simple server distro with a high level of security and customizability, Trustix is a worthy contender."

Linux.com is running a user writeup of several handy tools by an up-and-coming Linux user. It is always interesting to see how newer users are approaching system customization. What have some of the more seasoned Linux power-users and sys admins put in their "toolbox top 10", and why?

An anonymous user writes "Linux.com (a Slashdot sister site) has up a review of Gnome 2.14. The piece touches on usability improvements, as well as the new administration and configuration tools included with this release." From the article: "GNOME 2.14 continues the steady improvement visible in the last few releases. It is an incremental upgrade, consisting largely of tweaks and the filling in of gaps in functionality. If few of these changes are major by themselves, the overall result is welcome. Perhaps the best way of looking at the release is not as an end in itself, but as a milestone on the road to desktop usability in free operation systems. From this perspective, GNOME 2.14 is a sign that much of the journey is already over -- and that the remaining distance is less than many observers think."

With the growing amount of talk on the usability of Linux for beginners, there have been quite a few people who have mentioned a script called "Automatix" for Ubuntu as a means of easing the average joe into a life of Linux. Linux.com's (a Slashdot sister site) Tina Gasperson takes a closer look at Automatix and how it could help soften the blow of a Linux switch, at least in the short term. From the article: "Automatix lives up to its reputation. It's worth any time and small frustration it might take to get through the script. And it's even worth that 'over-the-shoulder' time you might spend with a new Linux user to walk them through it. I don't see any reason why a beginner would not be delighted with Ubuntu after a magic touch from Automatix."

RomanianClimber writes "Tom Lynema assembles an Ubuntu-based Linux home media center. 'Like a lot of people nowadays, I have a growing collection of digital media. My digital media is stored on a home Linux server. Most of the digital media players available today do not support protocols to connect to a Linux server, which make them unsuitable for my use. I realized the best way to connect my digital media library with my home theatre was to build my own Linux home media center (LHMC).'"

missing_myself writes "Linux.com has nice summary on 'How major distributions are dealing with potential violations of patents and trademarks, cryptography, packaging proprietary software and consequential damages' from Bruce Byfield (a journalist from OSTG)." From the article: "Slowly, some commercial distributions are taking a different route. In the last few years, indemnification has become an increasingly important issue in FOSS communities, largely because of the SCO-IBM case. Claiming ownership of Unix, SCO alleges that IBM has allowed copyrighted code to pass from System V Unix to GNU/Linux. Although no evidence has been released and the trial is not scheduled until February 26, 2007, the issues in the case have made both commercial and community FOSS participants reevaluate their practices."

nanday writes "I currently have an article on Linux.com about Autopackage. Autopackage is developing a universal package manager for the GNU/Linux desktop, separate from the package management for the system. It includes installation for individual users, a lot of concern for interface design and documentation, and some ideas about the future of package management that are sure to raise some debate." From the article: "Besides ... technical problems, the Autopackage team believes that managing system and desktop software together is a mistake. It requires developers to pay attention to desktop applications that are of secondary importance to them, and confuses end users with problems about dependencies and upgrades." Linux.com is a sister site to Slashdot. (say that three times fast)

Joe Barr writes "Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier has listed his favorite top ten tools for Linux system administration in a story on Linux.com, one of Slashdot's sister sites." From the site: " Since I spend a lot of my time working with text files, either when I'm writing and editing or when I'm mucking with configuration files and shell scripts, I've become very attached to my editor of choice -- Vim. Over the years, I've tried a lot of other editors, but none of them has been sufficient to coax me away from Vim. Part of the reason for that is the fact that I no longer have to think about using Vi-style keybindings, and adjusting to anything else would seriously hinder my productivity."

cdlu writes "What do you get when you mix an old hacker with an old distribution? A good old review of the recently released Slackware 10.2." Joe Barr over at Linux.com (owned by the same company as Slashdot) lays down his thoughts on everything from the install to reliability and user loyalty.

UltimaGuy writes "While it's way too soon to say Sun is back on track, the return of Bechtolsheim, aggressive improvements in products and a healthy dose of humility among Sun's executives mean the troubled company and its investors have more cause for optimism than they've had in years." Of course, Sun's problems are still out there - dealing with projects like Geronimo for some of their base infrastructure, and of course other companies promoting Linux as the solution.

An anonymous reader writes "Ubuntu 5.10 "Breezy Badger" has been released! Direct links for the US install iso or the US install torrent file." Update: 10/13 18:08 GMT by Z : Linux.com has a look at the release, in-depth.

An anonymous reader writes "Logical partitioning provides POWER processor-based servers with the capability to do server consolidation and optimize system resources. Dynamic logical partitioning enhances this capability by providing control of the allocation of the resources without impacting the logical partitions availability. Linux on POWER supports dynamic LPAR for changes to physical I/O, virtual I/O, and processor resources."

farker haiku writes "The NSA has unclassified a pdf on how to secure your network in sixty minutes. All in all, it's an interesting and informative read if you are in the security biz. The article covers a variety of topics such as Buffer Overflows, Intrusion Detection Systems and using Tripwire ASR to ensure the integrity of your network server."

wikinerd asks: "I am sure all of you know what PHP is and many of you may even use it on your websites, like me. Some of you may have read a this article from Linux.com article that gives some examples on how to use PHP to automate your server administration tasks (or to say it with one word: administrivia). I wonder whether there are any Slashdot users that have already used PHP in their administrivia, and what the results are. Is PHP appropriate for this task? If you have written useful PHP scripts, would you consider to publish their source code here? I am sure that posting your scripts can be beneficial to many new (and old) admins, so let's share our work!"

captainJam writes "After many delays, the OQO is available for sale, or pre-order actually. However, they will begin shipping in the middle of next month. Read the scoop for how much it'll set you back. Check this link if you're still not sure what the OQO is." Update: 10/13 13:49 GMT by H : I've got a Model 01 that was sent over for review; I'll be checking it out with both XP & Linux; it's definitely one of the cooler handhelds out there.

editingwhiz writes "Jem Matzan has a cogent analysis of the new Gentoo Linux 2004.2 on Linux.com: "Gentoo Linux is the BSD of GNU/Linux distributions; it's elegant and customizable and you know exactly what you're getting when you install it. No mystery programs, no packages that you have to deinstall because you'll never use, no clutter, and everything is customized to your needs. If you do it right, Gentoo is also faster than your average GNU/Linux distro because everything can be compiled with higher compiler optimizations." (Linux.com is part of the OSTG network.)" Jem also has some criticism of the current version of Gentoo's AMD64 version.

editingwhiz writes "Jem Matzan has a cogent analysis of the new Gentoo Linux 2004.2 on Linux.com: "Gentoo Linux is the BSD of GNU/Linux distributions; it's elegant and customizable and you know exactly what you're getting when you install it. No mystery programs, no packages that you have to deinstall because you'll never use, no clutter, and everything is customized to your needs. If you do it right, Gentoo is also faster than your average GNU/Linux distro because everything can be compiled with higher compiler optimizations." (Linux.com is part of the OSTG network.)" Jem also has some criticism of the current version of Gentoo's AMD64 version.

UnderScan writes "Linux.com is running an article on Linux kernel sound subsystems, OSS & ALSA, and their APIs. Insightful commentary from both users and the project's developers can be found at OSNews.com comments section."

Roblimo writes "Brian Jones, a sysadmin for Princeton University, has written a Linux.com column that says open source developers need to provide better documentation if they expect support from sysadmins like him: 'With documentation, I can get to know the software,' he writes. 'Then I'll install it on a test box. If it works, great, I'm tickled pink. If it doesn't quite work, then I'm interested in giving feedback, because here's someone who will roll it back into the product or the documentation. This is a useful cycle that benefits millions, not the least of which is the coder! Documentation ends up resulting in a more mature product! Wake up!'"

Joe Barr writes "Mark Stone has thrown down the gauntlet for Linux filesystem developers in his thoughtful essay on Linux.com. The basic premise is that Linux must find a next-generation filesystem to keep pace with Microsoft and Apple, both of whom are promising new filesystems in a year or two. Never mind that Microsoft has been promising its "innovative" native database/filesystem (copying an idea from IBM's hugely successful OS/400) for more than ten years now. Anybody remember Cairo?"

Joe Barr writes "Linux.com is running a followup article by Ken Barber to his initial review of Fedora 2. This time he explains how to tame the GNOME and Fedora 2 problems he noted the first time around and get them both in working shape.."

Joe Barr writes "Linux.com is running a followup article by Ken Barber to his initial review of Fedora 2. This time he explains how to tame the GNOME and Fedora 2 problems he noted the first time around and get them both in working shape.."

An anonymous reader writes "Linux Weekly News has a now free review of terminal emulators. It might be old but still remains an important tool to many of the regulars here." If you're checking that out, it's also worth checking out Joe Barr's CLI series on Linux.com (also owned by OSDN)

An anonymous reader writes "Linux Weekly News has a now free review of terminal emulators. It might be old but still remains an important tool to many of the regulars here." If you're checking that out, it's also worth checking out Joe Barr's CLI series on Linux.com (also owned by OSDN)

darth_silliarse writes "Linux.com have posted an interesting review Fedora Core 2, which includes reference to the now famous Windows/Fedora Core 2 dual booting "feature". My favorite quote "Unfortunately, all of FC2's admirable qualities cannot save it from its congenital defects. These range from annoyances such as broken audio drivers to the abomination known as Gnome 2.6, and are serious enough to make the Fedora Project's second litter of pups unsuitable for any use other than as laboratory animals." Quite a indictment don't you think? My fav distro is SuSE but I'm interested to hear others views about this review..."

Anon. writes "Linux.com is carrying a pretty damning review of Sun Java Desktop System version 2. JDS seemed to have issues with almost each and every machine the author tested it on, support was quite bad - and to top it all, the software comes with a seven page license document. Something seems to be terribly wrong somewhere - otherwise why would Sun decide to ship JDS with kernel 2.4.19 at this stage?" (Slashdot and Linux.com are both part of OSDN.)

Roblimo writes "SUSE 9.1 won't be out until May, but Joe Barr got access to a 'secret' beta download and tried it out. He liked some of what he saw, and found things he didn't like, too, but is willing to overlook some of the negatives because, he points out, 'This is a beta. Bugs are expected. Work will be done before it goes gold.' The review's at Linux.com." Linux.com and Slashdot are both part of OSDN.

An anonymous reader writes "Richard Stallman has written a piece on the state of free software and where it needs to go now, in celebration of GNU turning 20 today. It's available both on NewsForge and Linux.com."

An Anonymous Reader writes "If you recently set up a new PC with Windows XP, or if you had the pleasure to do a 'reinstall from scratch,' you probably found that many XP systems as they are shipped today are not patched against common issues like Blaster. Given that these worms are still going strong, it doesn't take long for a new system to be infected. In particular, if you have to connect it to the Internet to download all the patches. Well, help is in sight. The SANS Institute released a paper entitled Windows XP: Surviving the First Day." (Read on below.) Update: 12/24 17:59 GMT by T : Thanks for reader Bill Curnow for the updated link. Update: 12/24 19:15 GMT by T : Besides the workaround suggested below, Roblimo has a good suggestion on avoiding the first-day-of-Windows altogether.

"With many screen shots, it will walk you through the procedure to enable the XP firewall and downloading the patches without getting infected while doing so. This could be the (free) stocking stuffer that may save Christmas for your folks ;-). Given that its probably to late now to start downloading your favorite Linux distro."

But if you do have the time and bandwidth, and you're stuck on Windows, a nice live-CD distro like Knoppix or Mepis means you can download patches without racing the worms, and install your patches while offline. (And if you have time to download 50MB, you have time to grab Damn Small Linux.)

Jan Stafford writes points out an article in which "SearchEnterpriseLinux.com expert Ken Milberg digs under the hood of the upcoming 2.6 Linux kernel and examines the benefits and opportunities it presents for Linux in the enterprise." And Semaphore writes "Linux.com is running a great article on the future of ide-scsi in 2.6. It seems Linus and Joerg Schilling, author of cdrtools disagree on whether the problems are with Linux or the application software. Interesting read.."

Jan Stafford writes points out an article in which "SearchEnterpriseLinux.com expert Ken Milberg digs under the hood of the upcoming 2.6 Linux kernel and examines the benefits and opportunities it presents for Linux in the enterprise." And Semaphore writes "Linux.com is running a great article on the future of ide-scsi in 2.6. It seems Linus and Joerg Schilling, author of cdrtools disagree on whether the problems are with Linux or the application software. Interesting read.."

SCO's McBride claims that IBM is stage-managing all the attacks and bad press, which would probably explain why I cleared this article with IBM World Headquarters before running it (not!). The publisher of Linux Journal invites SCO to sue. One of SCO's lawyers has this barely coherent interview where he spouts legal rubbish for a gullible reporter. There's an interview in German (machine translation) with SCO's execs. And finally, SCO is still hoping for a settlement with IBM. Update: 08/22 18:26 GMT by M : ESR responds.

A lot is going on these days, ranging from the endlessly amusing SCO soap opera to plenty of mostly positive news about Linux and Open Source adoption by both corporate and government users, not to mention an increasing number of commercial applications being ported to Linux. And, of course, LinuxWorld is right around the corner. Bruce Perens is certainly as appropriate a person as any to help us get a handle on the current (and possibly future) state of Linux and Open Source. We'll send him 10 of the highest moderated questions, and post his answers as soon as he gets them back to us. As usual, one question per post, please, and don't bother asking questions that can easily be answered with a couple of minutes' worth of online research.

The SCO must go on. Informationweek has a roundup. News.com has some analysis of the legal case. SCO reiterates their threat to revoke IBM's license. Reader hobsonchoice sends a blurb: "Also more from analysts who saw SCO/Linux code comparisons under NDA. Bill Claybrook, of Aberdeen Group Inc., says SCO changed their story to him about whether they had any "direct evidence" that IBM copied any System V code into Linux. Laura Didio of Yankee Group has answered some detailed questions about her code review process. Lastly Fujitsu Siemens have joined in the debate: they don't think SCO's case is going anywhere." One observer of the SCO case has compiled some notes about Caldera's active participation in the IA-64 project. And look on the bright side: if you follow the school of thought that all publicity is good publicity, at least this suit has gotten Linux mentioned in many places where it normally wouldn't be.

sander writes "OpenOffice.org, everybody's favourite non-Microsoft office suite has just released a beta of its next version, OpenOffice.org 1.1. It's up for downloading , but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any cool screen shots anywhere???? The new release comes with a large variety of new features, from real goodies like Flash export for the slide shows , support for WYSIWYG DocBook/XML and mySQL databases to pretty boring ones like better footnotes (whatever that means)." And wahgnube writes "Here are the slides from Michael Meeks' presentation at the Open Office conference in Germany which give us details regarding the changes made by Ximian. Can't wait for the next major Ximian GNOME Desktop release."

After this Slashdot discussion about the relationship between BIOS biggie American Megatrends Inc. (AMI) and Palladium appeared, we got an email from AMI sales engineer (and former Linux.com contributor) Brian Richardson, who wrote, "I am a bit concerned that the information you provided misled your readers into thinking AMI was promoting Palladium or taking some sort of anti-open-source stance. This might be due to the fact that TCPA was mistakenly equated to Palladium, or questioning how Linux would run on a TCPA-enabled system ... or by the horde of angry Slashdot readers telling us they would never buy an AMI product because we were forcing standards on them." Brian offered himself up as (his words) a "Slashdot interview victim" to clear things up.(Update by RM: And, says Brian, he's happy to answer other BIOS questions as well.) So ask, already, and let's get things cleared up. (Usual Slashdot interview rules.)

Anonymous Noder/LJ'er writes "Linux.com is running a story written by Slashdot's Krow, one of the authors of Slash comparing the LiveJournal site engine to the Everything2 engine. He went over the installs of the two engines and talks a bit about customizing both. I really like both sites so it is interesting to see someone talk about what makes them tick."

Muddie writes "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is reporting that television execs and advertising agencies think product placement and the 30 second commercial spot are not getting the respect they deserves from us consumers, so in order to combat us ignoring them, there will be pop-up ads taking up the lower quarter of your screen during normal programming. Not only that, but the ads will run during relevant portions of the programming (see a guy shaving in the mirror, get a pop-up ad from a razor company). Do "They" think we just don't see enough advertising in a day? If you aren't busy throwing things through your television yet, you can read the article over here (with no pop-up ads)."

xercist writes: "Xiph.org, the bringers of the mighty Vorbis codec, have done it again. The patents on On2's VP3 video codec have been effectively neutered, and it is being released under the BSD license for all to enjoy. The combination of VP3 video and Vorbis audio (in an OGG bitstream, of course) will be called Theora, and will soon take over the world. The ETA to a 1.0 release is approximately one year. You can also read an interview with Emmett Plant (Xiph CEO) here. The official press release will be up tomorrow, so don't complain about lack of mention on xiph.org just yet."

Anonymouse writes "I just saw on Linux.com that NewsForge has reviewed the new Linux-based TiVo Series 2 PVR. TiVo now (unofficially) supports broadband via a USB ethernet adapter as well, so it doesn't tie up a phone line." Yes, NF and LC are both owned by OSDN, as is Slashdot.

Muddie writes: "OnVideo.org reminded me that on January 15 , Disney is releasing the "Tron 20th Anniversary Collector's Edition" (1982) on DVD and VHS. Directed by Steven Lisberger, the film stars Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner and Barnard Hughes. The 2 disc DVD set contains the remastered film with commentary by Lisberger, producer Donald Kushner and visual effects supervisors Harrison Ellenshaw and Richard Taylor, a new 75-minute "making-of" documentary "The Making of Tron", deleted scenes, original soundtrack music deleted from the film and more all for $29.99. Check out all the happy details at Amazon's link"

An Anonymous Coward writes: "Running on Newsforge/Linux.com is a hardware review where Slashdot's Krow took a couple of OmniCluster's Slotservers and and built a cluster configuation inside of a singe host computer (and even had DB2 running on one of the card's inside of the host). Could something like this be the future of computing where for additional processing power you just kept adding additional computers inside of a host?"

Several folks noted that VA is changing its name to "VA Software" to reflect the fact that they aren't a Linux company anymore. VA of course owns OSDN which runs various Linux and Open Source web sites including amusingly enough Linux.com. Can't say it matters much to me what they call the thing as long as they let us keep running Slashdot, but it really is sad knowing that most of the cool open source hackers no longer work there. My bad. Anyone have a link to the press release that doesn't require a login?

snotty writes "A well written article by Ganesh Prasad over at linuxtoday arguing that the shift towards web services has reduced the attractiveness of the current generation of Open Source web products. He talks about the market share decrease in Apache. Also mentions how .NET, Microsoft, Sun, Java, and Open Source Software fit into the picture." I think that the decrease in Apache's share is a red herring, but the bigger picture of web services is a troubling one.