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First off, sorry about the loss. Even if the person isn't close to you personally, seeing how it affects the family is bad enough.

My advice would be to start with the laptop. Boot it off a rescue cd or USB stick and grab all the personal account (including root) md5 hashes out of the /etc/shadow file.

Then run those hashes through a rainbow crack to try and get some clear text representations of the hashes. Info on Rainbow Tables, here, here, and here.

Boot the laptop to a prompt and try all the clear text representations for the accounts and see if any of them work. If they do, then great, you have the passwords.

The passwords themselves are worthless on the laptop (you've already demonstrated you can snoop it without them, as you had to to obtain the hashes). Their value is in the fact that they _may_ have used the same passwords for their email, online accounts, etc.

HTH

The article makes vague implicit claims which are misleading and inaccurate. I have nothing against ReiserFS, however this article is mostly smoke.

It all but claims that ext3 is unreliable and slow. Ext3 is certainly not the fastest in absolute terms, but it is not slow. As for reliability, it is clearly the best tested and most reliable. It should also be noted that Ext3 supports higher levels of journaling than other journaling FS-es like XFS and JFS. So, Ext3 is fast, very reliable, excellently supported and under active development (as ext4) - no need to despair.

The article also implies that ext4 is an immature and incompatible replacement, which is also not true. In fact Ext4 is probably considered more stable than ReiserFS 4 by some. If it wasn't for the decision to change the name from ext3 to ext4, many people probably wouldn't know when they started using "ext4" after an upgrade.
There are more details in this LWN article: http://lwn.net/Articles/187336/

Actually usability testing has been going on with Linux for many years - since at least 2001 for GNOME when Sun started doing this ( http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/usertesting.html ). Here's a good article that talks about usability testing for Linux, also from 2001, and mentioning KDE user testing: http://lwn.net/2001/0614/desktop.php3

GNOME is the way it is today largely because of usability testing, I believe - while many power users and developers whinge about this, it is becoming much closer to Macs in overall usability.

So the issue is not "stupid developers", it's a matter of taking the time to do the testing - and it helps if you have some expertise at running the tests. Then it's the time to actually make the changes. Many developers aren't that interested in doing the testing, which is why there have been separate usability initiatives that can feed changes into projects.

Some of the issues logged here are not that easy to solve - e.g. making Firefox pop up an Ubuntu-specific Flash installation prompt, rather than executing the YouTube JavaScript logic that pushes people towards an Adobe plugin site that actually does have a Linux plugin for Flash, but one that's much harder to install than an Ubuntu-packaged Flash plugin.

Also, the one about finding MP3s on the Windows partition is not that easy - you could simply copy the files across with the Ubuntu migration assistant, but what if they're in a non-standard place? Indexing the Windows filesystem to quickly find these might help, but building the index could take some time. However, it would probably be enough if there was some feature in Ubuntu that scanned for existing partitions and said (based on partition type and a few key directories/files) that 'this looks like a Windows partition, it's available on the desktop through this icon', and ideally did a special symbolic link for the My Documents or similar (though that's tough as it's per-user under Windows - which user should this use).

This article should prove interesting.

I write to you to inform you that I have decided to join Atheros as a full time employee, as a Software Engineer, to help them with their goals and mission to get every device of Atheros supported upstream in the Linux kernel.

I would say at least one vendor has heard you.

Oh man, not these tired old arguments again. I have mod points and I was going mod this down, but I'm in a charitable mood and feel like feeding some trolls today.

Want to use your favourite software (photoshop, dreamweaver, GTA 4 etc: nope, that's for windows and/or mac only.

The Linux software ecosystem is rife with applications that perform the same task as their popular proprietary counterparts. Some of them aren't quite up to par (Gimp), some are roughly equivalent (OpenOffice), and some are leagues better (Firefox). There are more and more proprietary applications being ported to Linux all the time.

If your argument is that there are specific software packages that can't run on Linux, well, the same is true for both Windows and Mac. There are many Mac applications that you simply can't buy for Windows and we all well know that the reverse is true.

Neither Mac or Windows come with a system where you can browse from a catalog of over 10,000 applications and install any one of them instantly, for free, with the click of a mouse button.

Want to buy new hardware... well you can if you scour the internet for days finding out if it's compatible; you can't just pop down pcworld one saturday afternoon and pick something up and know it'll work.

This hardware myth really needs to be put to rest. Linux supports a wider variety of hardware than any other operating system on the planet. True, there can be a delay between the time that a new device is released and the time that a common Linux distribution supports it. It's also true that some hardware vendors refuse to release their hardware specifications or even cooperate in any way with open source developers but these are very much the exception these days rather than the rule. If you think Windows supports hardware any better than Linux then you have either not used Vista yet or have somehow managed to be the only person on the planet who has never fought with Windows over printer, video, or wifi driver issues at some point.

Want to install some software... sure... if you broadband no problem...

Ubuntu and many of its derivatives will ship you a copy of their OS on CD at no charge. No media fees, no shipping and handling. Free. Most of the software that you can install afterward is not at all too large to pull down via a dialup modem. Windows and OS X cost hundreds of dollars each. I would say that I put my money where my mouth is, except that I don't have to spend any of it on Linux at all.

oh, but it might install the software anywhere on your system... good luck learning to grep it.

Not sure what you mean here. On KDE- and GNOME-based distributions, a shortcut to every installed application gets put into the applications menu. Which, by the way, is sorted by the software's function so everything is easy to find. Contrast with Windows where each application goes into its own folder or a folder named after the company that distributed it. Install enough applications and the Start menu becomes large and unusable. Contrast also with Mac, where you have to dig down into a special (and also unsorted) Applications folder to find newly-installed apps.

Fat chance if your friend has just given you a cdrom with software on it!

Why, you don't have any friends?

Okay, unprofessional personal attack aside, Linux-using friends are more likely to give you a URL than a CD-ROM. If someone's giving you a CD-ROM with Windows or Mac software on it, there's a good chance it's warez anyway unless they're in the habit of giving away their legitimate software.

want to play games.... err... well... no.. not really, but hey we've got solitaire!!!

There is, admittedly, a noted lack of high-profile games natively available for Linux. However, there are some good ones available. Recent versions of Quake and Unreal Tournament run fine natively.

And Red Hat are currently the leading company/organization contributing to the Linux kernel.

Rich.

Or you could just read the story on LWN.

Out of curiosity, why the link to PC World when the summary specifically mentions that it's on LWN? If Jon get paid for the PC World version because of the ad revenue, that's fine with me. However saying that it's an LWN piece and linking to another source is a bit misrepresentative.

Here's a much better link on Jon Corbet's own site, the famous Linux Weekly News:

http://lwn.net/Articles/272011/

More interesting than the bug itself is this discussion from lwn.net:

I think you got it backward. I claim it's standard because Linux does it that way. Linux is what violates the prescribed standard.

I also didn't state the de facto standard as precisely as I could have, because Linux clearly should change to clear the DF flag. But Gcc should continue to clear it too, because old Linux exists.

That guy is claiming that GCC should produce sub-optimal code rather than best possible within standards just to work around a Linux bug, and one where the patch is both trivial and already exists on top of that. Seriously, WTF ?

The GPL is a license, not a contract.

* Merkey explaining to Guy why it's OK for him to be in a separate reality because his astrologer said so:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:JzG&diff=prev&oldid=138290116
* Merkey the Mormon messiah:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:JzG&diff=prev&oldid=135869262
* The remarkable cosmic events surrounding Merkey's birth:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:JzG&diff=prev&oldid=138290116
* Merkey's "Right to Edit":
http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/Business_%26_Finance/Investments/Stocks_(A_to_Z)/Stocks_S/threadview?bn=2942&tid=423118&mid=423118
* Merkey's lawsuit against the internet:
http://www.theinquirer.net/images/articles/utah.pdf
* Merkey's peyote offer:
http://groups.google.com/group/mlist.linux.kernel/msg/c29b254c15fc5059
* Merkey disavowing his peyote offer YEARS after it was made:
http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0507.0/0230.html
* Merkey revealing that his Linux kernel buyout offer was part of his native american politicking:
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/linux/kernel/501519
* Merkey's arthritis cure, developed at Timpanogas:
http://www.uwsg.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0108.1/0587.html
* .. which is also a law firm!:
http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0010.0/0955.html
* Merkey vouching for SCO's case:
http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0410.2/2674.html
* Merkey's "Mormon masters" letter showing his hatred:
http://scofacts.org/Novell-TRG-1998-01-30-letter.pdf
* Merkey's _gold_ mine:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.cyberpunk/browse_thread/thread/3ca32f485a1ea07e/244b0f713989de6b?lnk=st
* Merkey's double-Y chromosome giving him a third brain and the powers of Einstein and Nostradamus:
http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0009.0/1206.html
* MANOS: The fantastic operating system noone ever saw.
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2113408/open-source-netware-compatible-unveiled
* Gadugi: More fantastic software noone ever saw:
http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0410.2/2723.html
* Novell threatens to destroy Merkey's family:
http://lwn.net/2001/0704/a/nwfs.php3
* Merkey gets his ass handed to him by Andre, who not too subtly hints that his NWFS code may be stolen:
http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0111.2/0450.html
* Merkey's the Toad dealer:

GREAT article - it is interesting for a non-programmer to read this type of technical detail, presented in an understandable way. For me, right at the edge of my theoretical-only knowledge. A detailed summary, I guess. (oxymoron)

Similar article on NetBSD: Waving the flag: NetBSD developers speak about version 4.0 (1/30/2008)

Linux focused links:

Current discussion:
LWN: Kernel
KernelTrap
KernelNewbies: Summary of Linux Changes
---
The Wonderful World of Linux series are excellent history - in-depth for outsiders:
WWOL 2.2
WWOL 2.4
WWOL 2.6
---
Towards Linux 2.6 - A look into the workings of the next new kernel(2003)
Kernel Comparison: Linux (2.6.22) versus Windows (Vista)(2007)

The next generations of multi-core CPUs will start including GPUs on them also, eliminating (or at least reducing) bandwidth bottlenecks between the main and video processors. AMD wanted GPU technology in-house, and that's why they bought ATI.

On a related note, AMD just released the 3D programming specs for their R5xx series chips (R6xx coming soon).

The real money is in the high end anyway -- consumer grade stuff may see high volumes but at very low margins, and AMD's technology does make a difference at the high end.

Oh and don't forget about Document Freedom Day on March 26th. Microsoft is getting desperate. They know they're in trouble more than anyone else. Who can compete with the Linux kernel pace of development. The first patch that took 2.6.24 to 2.6.25RC1 has 1.4M lines of diffs. I don't think their army of programmers could pull that off. Their development model doesn't scale as well as FOSS. And the Yahoo! offer was quite funny actually. Microsoft was practically begging Yahoo! to reconsider after the $40,000,000,000.00 rejection.

You don't get karma for +1 Funny posts, so the moderator may have wanted to ensure that karma was added for P.
P does, in fact, provide a succinct spanking of GP for attempting a snarky little swipe at Redmond, while using a vague term like 'platform', which can indeed refer to hardware as well as software.
Real hacker pros a) don't waste a lot of time on /., and b) don't waste time belittling others' work in general, as they kind of all live in glass houses
http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/268783/587af90fbc1b0132/

LWN has discussion on this, and there is a nice video presentation of LLVM 2.0 as well. Cool thing, but as they say it isn't really about replacing GCC.

Visual effects for movies, yes, but to my knowledge very few (if any) commercial games are developed using GNU/Linux. I used to work at a company that created both games and visual effects, and for the most part the game designers, artists and programmers didn't want to have anything to do with GNU/Linux, unfortunately, even when a particular tool was available only on that platform. Many man-years of effort were spent porting those tools to Windows so that the games division would use them.

Yeah perhaps more so in the states, but on the web I've actually never seen it put into words like that before. It's done a lot like LWN.nets 5 part Memory articles but that really isn't as bad as this...

Next thing you know he'll start using a web browser to view websites. :O

Two out of five questions have nothing to do with technology. And, one of the three is only marginally about technology.

Seriously, from now on we should have more tech oriented questions. Like:

1. Implement a linked list in x86 assembler. Be prepared to explain your code.
2. How do you feel about Richard Stallman not using a web browser...at all.
3. Would you give federal subsides to Ziff Davis to get Tech TV back on the air?
4. Which do you feel is superior, VI or Emacs, and why?
5. If you had to pull a Lewinisky, who would you pick between Kate Botello and Veronica Bellmont?

BONUS QUESTION: Name three design patterns and how you'd implement them in any language.

Aah, so that's why they're not doing ANY kernel development. http://lwn.net/Articles/264440/. As opposed to everybody else.

"Who ARE you? Bill Gates?"
Really, that is totaly uncalled for.

"Canonical is doing what they can with what is available and has no obligation, either moral, ethical or legal, to do anything for or against the producers of the FOSS they use."

Aah, so that's why they're not doing ANY kernel development. http://lwn.net/Articles/264440/. As opposed to everybody else.

The only guide I've seen that makes sense about DRAM has timings was at LWN.net and was part of a massive series called What every programmer should know about Memory. Part One explained how dynamic ram picks the words it reads from an access matrix, so requires time to energise the reading portion of the memory cell. IIRC, the answer to your question is in that link, but I can't remember the exact details to recite here.

The only guide I've seen that makes sense about DRAM has timings was at LWN.net and was part of a massive series called What every programmer should know about Memory. Part One explained how dynamic ram picks the words it reads from an access matrix, so requires time to energise the reading portion of the memory cell. IIRC, the answer to your question is in that link, but I can't remember the exact details to recite here.

Linux is sorely missing out on commercial software.

we should only use the pure, open source software that no large corporation has so much glanced at

Video Editing software, for example; you'd be far better off using one of the many commercial programs than one of the few open source ones.

Having commercial software avaliable for Linux can only help the adoption of Linux on the desktop, and, really, unless you're Steve Ballmer, there is no possible downside to this.

And that would be a particular type of license in a particular state, being ruled upon by only one circuit court, and appeals, context, and later rulings, other exclusions and qualifications not included.

The GPL Is a License, not a Contract

It sounds like it's talking about memory management for external fragmentation. Here is an article that looks like it is talking about those patches. Here is a site that seems to explain memory management pretty well. I could try explaining stuff myself but I'd probably miss some of the nuances (I'm no OS expert by any stretch).

I googled a little and found this article http://lwn.net/Articles/211505/. I'm not sure that this is all of the story, but it should be a good starting point for further investigations.

A controversial branch of GStreamer added DRM support a few years back. The idea is that a trusted module can receive data from an untrusted module but only send data to another trusted module. Trusted modules are usually based on the same source code as the signed module but have been compiled by a party that the previous trusted module trusts, and there is a PKI like system to manage which signatures are accepted by which modules and it uses some sort of an asymmetric signature checking system to verify this.

I don't know whether this is going forward or not, the very idea of this system is going to invoke the ire of the free software world and I doubt the GStreamer guys are stupid enough to go against community beliefs (and possibly prejudices) since it relies on the community for patches, bug reports and publicity. Anyway, GStreamer is a great platform that is widely used now and it is worth checking out, thought the DRM side might need a lot of TLC without much help from the community.

I hope this helps, even though I wish DRM ill in general, I admire anyone with the courage to post something like that on Slashdot, though it would have impressed me more if you had your account/email address attached.

Here's another take that argues against liability laws: http://lwn.net/Articles/247933/

http://lwn.net/Articles/224615/

It does if those people actually turn out. It doesn't otherwise. They can't help fix the code if they can't see the code though. OSS is a security opportunity, and not one that's necessarily fulfilled.

There are advantages to having the code open besides security, too. Code reuse, code clarity, project longevity, and more can be helped by having more than one small team working on code.

There are two situations in which OSS helps most. One is the small team that opens their code because even a few outside helpers is a significant increase in programmers. Many projects, including the Linux kernel, start out this way.

The other is when a project becomes popular enough or gets close enough to meeting enough people's needs that large groups of programmers and major commercial and noncommercial organizations start working on the code. Here each additional programmer is statistically less significant to the overall project numbers, but the total number of people is bigger than you'd expect a development team at even a large company to contain. This is where Linux is now, with almost 2,000 developers in a fairly recent version. Sure, they're not all working on the Linux kernel full-time, but that's still a lot of eyeballs on the code.

Lots of commercial software isn't written by Microsoft, SCO, IBM, Novell, CA, Adobe, Apple, and the other big corporate software houses. Lots of it, too, is written by small teams in small companies or by in-house people supporting some other industry. Most of it is, in fact. While there are many types of software development targets, there are vanishingly few companies that have hundreds of programmers working on a single system of software. Most of the projects in the world that get hundreds of programmers involved are written, in fact, as OSS or in one of just a handful of companies.

The biggest reason OSS is so important is not necessarily because it presents a challenge to companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Adobe although OS and office suite alternatives are always nice. It's because if companies with 2 or 20 programmers who have the start of something good can have just one bug fixed by each of another 2 or 20 programmers and another company can pick up that program and develop it further without redoing the work of those 2 or 20 programmers, those things are really significant at that scale.

I'm so much of a rabid MS hater that I'm writing this post from Firefox 3b2 on Windows XP. Get real.

Where did you pull the 1% of OSS users being programmers from? Your ass? You didn't even cite your own ass? How rude! ;-)

Yeah, there aren't enough world-class programmers to go around the millions of OSS projects out there, or even the most popular hundred thousand of them. Maybe not the ten thousand most popular. Yet over half the patches for the Linux kernel come from people other than the core development team.

In fact, the top submitter of changesets into Linux 2.6.20 only accounted for 4.8% of them. The top 20 contributors accounted for 28% of changesets. Similar numbers pop up by number of lines added. Linus only personally signed off on 13% of the changes in 2.6.20 so there's a good spread there, too.

The people developing the Linux kernel aren't just weekend coders in their parents' basements. Red Hat, IBM, Novell, Intel, Oracle, Google, University of Aberdeen, HP, Nokia, SGI, Astaro, MIPS Technologies, MontaVista, and Broadcom were among the top 20 sources of changesets. Stats of 7.7% for "no employer" and 25% for "unknown" appear, along with a few lesser-known companies. Add Sony to the list of employers of contributors by lines of code. Put Freescale in the list for the versions in the year in which versions from 2.6.16 to 2.6.20 were developed.

In all, 65% of the changes to the Linux kernel for version 2.6.20 was from corporate development. Over 1,900 people had patches make it into the 2.6.20 version of the kernel alone.

All these statistics on who develops Linux can be found at LWN.net's article called "Who Wrote 2.6.20?".

How many companies write and vet the code at Microsoft? Yes, I'm sure there are a bunch of dedicated people at Microsoft, and they do a pretty good job at making a usable OS. They're getting better about security. It's my opinion that Vista's kind of a mess particularly because they're having trouble designing for both usability and security from the ground up. They'll improve on that, too. I don't hate Microsoft's developers (maybe their marketing and legal departments ;-), and they obviously have advantages over many smaller OSS projects.

However, the biggest OSS projects really do have a lot of people who are highly skilled professional programmers writing their code. They also have an advantage of being able to attack issues most important to their varied employers using skills and development methods different from those at other corporate contributors.

It's not a black or white issue. Microsoft's got pros and cons, and so does their software. OSS has pros and cons. I have two PCs at this desk. One's XP Pro and one's Linux. I use both every day I'm in the office. I also use Linux servers and I have a Mac at another desk. At home I have XP, Linux, Solaris, Mac, and OS/2 (the OS/2 is for fun). My wife's PC has XP on it, but she can use the Linux box when she needs to. She's not an admin level user, but she can fix some issues on Windows just from having used it so much for so long.

To bash MS when they really screw something up isn't to be a "rabid MS hater". To praise them when they do something well isn't to be an MS fan. The same's true of OSS projects. Most people want their software to meet their needs and don't root for one "team" or another. Most people who do prefer a particular project are still willing to give other projects their due respect. There are very vocal fanatics in every camp, but just because they're loud and quicker to spout doesn't mean they're actually that numerous.

How many times does it have to be repeated? Counting vulnerabilities is a stupid way to measure security. Counting vulnerabilities is a stupid way to measure security. Counting vulnerabilities is a stupid way to measure security.

Shouldn't Slashdot link to some more insightful analysis?

Try reading this: http://lwn.net/Articles/259710/ (What every programmer should know about memory, Ulrich Drepper). There's a link there to the article broken down into HTML pages if you don't want to look at the PDF.

Hope that helps.

There should be no unused services turned on by default!

Right, that's what's he's saying... right?

Also, rock solid and secure? Uh, didn't I read an article not too long ago about how the update.microsoft.com site was broken into?

I don't doubt that. Of course shit happens elsewhere as well.

As an answer to my own question, here's an article from LWN.net: The GPL is a License, not a Contract.

This article is a bit more relevant to what you're looking for I think. Their figures point to only between about one fifth to one third of Linux kernel development (just one piece of the OSS pie of course) being done by actual unpaid volunteers.

Oh, the moderation got stripped anyway, so there's no point in hiding behind Mr Anonymous Coward, so allow me to repost unmasked:

Being one of the two moderators who deemed the GP worthy of a +1 insightful, allow me to elaborate:

You state that the kernel developers are largely from these corporations.

No, the GP never made such claims. The GP however rejected the widespread myth that Linux is created by a rag tag band of volunteer programmers.

Figuring out who's behind the contributions is no easy task and requires a lot of digging, a quick scan of the changelog won't provide you with any trustworthy numbers.

Actual numbers are few and far between, but back in February LWN.net conducted a study "Who wrote 2.6.20?" and dared - after some hesitation - to conclude that:

Either way, the results come out about the same: at least 65% of the code which went into 2.6.20 was created by people working for companies. If the entire "unknown" group turns out to be developers working on a volunteer basis - an unlikely result - then just over 1/3 of the 2.6.20 patch stream was written by volunteers. The real number will be lower, but it still shows that a significant portion of the code we run is written by developers who are donating their time.

Being one of the two moderators who deemed the GP worthy of a +1 insightful, allow me to elaborate:

You state that the kernel developers are largely from these corporations.

No, the GP never made such claims. The GP however rejected the widespread myth that Linux is created by a rag tag band of volunteer programmers.

Figuring out who's behind the contributions is no easy task and requires a lot of digging, a quick scan of the changelog won't provide you with any trustworthy numbers.

Actual numbers are few and far between, but back in February LWN.net conducted a study "Who wrote 2.6.20?" and dared - after some hesitation - to conclude that:

Either way, the results come out about the same: at least 65% of the code which went into 2.6.20 was created by people working for companies. If the entire "unknown" group turns out to be developers working on a volunteer basis - an unlikely result - then just over 1/3 of the 2.6.20 patch stream was written by volunteers. The real number will be lower, but it still shows that a significant portion of the code we run is written by developers who are donating their time.

--Taagehornet

are you pulling that number right out of your ass? This survey from feb 2007, begs to differ. It puts Oracle on 0.8% contributions. That means Oracle comes after(Unknown), RedHat, (None) IBM, QLogic, Novell, Intel, MIPS Technologies, Nokia, SANPeople, SteelEye, Freescale, Linux Foundation, MontaVista, Simtec, Atmel, HP, and SGI (in order of contributions) in terms of contributions.

Oh yes it did.
Recent kernels patched a flaw where you couldn't explicitly seed /dev/urandom on a system with no entropy sources. Or at least, you could seed it however you liked and it made no difference to the output.
One description is here: http://lwn.net/Articles/239835/
What this meant for little embedded linux systems (eg routers) which are used for any crypto (eg VPNs) I'll leave as a thought exercise for the reader.

But, with the linux case the problem was reported, discussed and patched in about a week.

lwn.net had a story about this a while back. Worth reading at http://lwn.net/Articles/256904/. One of the comments in particular:

Actually, I really think he has a point. Not only does Google have enough employees working on Firefox to ram through whatever change they desire, they also control enough members of the self-appointed WHAT-WG "HTML 5" group to do whatever they want there as well. So an idea can be "standardized" instantly solely by Google employees, then implemented, reviewed, super-reviewed, and committed entirely by Google employees.

This is not theoretical, it already happened with the "ping" attribute in HTML 5, which benefits nobody except advertising companies (read: Google).

There are a few "official" links that people might find useful:

Release Summary -- http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/8/ReleaseSummary

Release Notes -- http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/f8/en_US/

Fedora Project Leader's release announcement -- http://lwn.net/Articles/257644/

And of course the downloads at http://torrent.fedoraproject.org/

No problem... let them snoop. Now I'll just be twiddling the "Encrypt and sign all outgoing email" box on my MUA, and finally start using GPG full-time for all of my incoming and outgoing email, instead of with just my friends and close colleagues.

There are plugins for Evolution, pine, mutt, Thunderbird and just about every other Mail User Agent you can find out there.

Another great benefit, is that I can automatically block/quarantine/delete any and all email that does not contain a gpg-signed component (i.e. 99.999% of all email out there, mostly spam). dspam does an amazing job, but being able to just reject it at the MTA level would be great.

And for those that wish to converse with me, please make sure to use my GPG key to do so (also available here with detailed instructions).

That's an interesting issue, and one I didn't know about. Thanks. There's some misinformation in the article (the main posts), partially cleared up in the comments. It looks like a recurrence of the window scaling issue from a couple of years earlier. See http://lwn.net/Articles/92727/ for that one. In both cases this is about non-Linux systems not doing scaling correctly, and some philosophical points about working around other people's problems. Which, unfortunately, can be an issue with any community-developed OS.

OTOH, I've had problems with a TCP/IP stack on a commercial Unix, and Windows XP also had a window scaling issue. But none of this is an excuse for Red Hat not getting on the ball quickly for a client with a service contract, if they failed to do so. It looks as if there were options they could have taken, including adjusting tunables, which worked in some cases.

I'll have to look at the current implementation next week, on the theory that a problem that's recurred once might recur twice. Bummer. I did *not* need more stuff to do. But, seriously, thanks again for bringing this up.

If you're a GNU/Linux user, I'd recommend you go take a look at Linux Weekly News (LWN). They're very much like Slashdot, in that they steer very clear from the corporate greed. They've been around for about as long, and have remained independent, with minimal ads. Their articles are very well-written and well-edited. (I.e. they're also very different from Slashdot!) I read Slashdot several times a day, but I actually consider LWN to be my number 1 site. I pay for both sites, even though though the subscriptions don't offer all that much feature-wise.