Slashdot Mirror

For those who want to try it themselves rather than just looking at screenshots, I've put up RPMs of a recent snapshot on http://people.redhat.com/bero/experimen tal/.
There will be a new snapshot today.

The packages install to /opt/kde2, so they won't overwrite a KDE 1.x installation.

They're made for Red Hat Linux 6.1, but should run without problems on similar distributions.

http://stor e.redhat.com/commerce/store.cgi?page=/more_rhl_sta ndard.html

----

Anyone have any more information on the rumours of senior RedHat people leaving?
It'll be interesting to see what happens to this quote on About RedHat:

Red Hat shares all of its software innovations freely with the open source community under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

Anyone have any more information on the rumours of senior RedHat people leaving?
It'll be interesting to see what happens to this quote on About RedHat:

Red Hat shares all of its software innovations freely with the open source community under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

I am surprised so many people haven't realised there is no such thing as a non-biased benchmark, and that, shock, horror, Linux is perfect (yet).

Benchmarks must reduce the scope of tests and make assumptions, which are not always true, so as to be possible. They also need to be done at a point in time, and not wait 'for the next version, which is so much better'. Doug Ledford of RedHat was there for the tests and has his spin on the tests, where he talks about the difficulty of getting a meaningful benchmark. The Tranaction Processing Council are continually revising their benchmarks to remain meaningful. The big guns, IBM, Sun, HP, Oracle, Sybase, Compaq and Microsoft all use different TPC benchmarks to try and gain ammunition for sales staff. At some point Linux people will need to do the same.

The Mindcraft benchmarks look to be as fair as any I've seen. The reaction to the benchmarks is far more informative than the results themselves.

Linux can still be improved, it isn't as strong as other operating systems in some areas. The fact there is development occuring proves this point.

If you don't like the results, find a benchmark and configuration that gets the results you do like! Where there is a real deficiency lend a hand and be part of the solution.

I am surprised so many people haven't realised there is no such thing as a non-biased benchmark, and that, shock, horror, Linux is perfect (yet).

Benchmarks must reduce the scope of tests and make assumptions, which are not always true, so as to be possible. They also need to be done at a point in time, and not wait 'for the next version, which is so much better'. Doug Ledford of RedHat was there for the tests and has his spin on the tests, where he talks about the difficulty of getting a meaningful benchmark. The Tranaction Processing Council are continually revising their benchmarks to remain meaningful. The big guns, IBM, Sun, HP, Oracle, Sybase, Compaq and Microsoft all use different TPC benchmarks to try and gain ammunition for sales staff. At some point Linux people will need to do the same.

The Mindcraft benchmarks look to be as fair as any I've seen. The reaction to the benchmarks is far more informative than the results themselves.

Linux can still be improved, it isn't as strong as other operating systems in some areas. The fact there is development occuring proves this point.

If you don't like the results, find a benchmark and configuration that gets the results you do like! Where there is a real deficiency lend a hand and be part of the solution.

If Miguel sells his apps, he's not going to let you pass your copy on to other people. If he makes his money from sales, he can't let you do that - it ultimately destroys his revenue stream.

Uh-oh... somebody better tell RedHat to get out of the Linux game quick! It seems that they're selling something that other people are giving away *for free*! *gasp* I don't get it... somehow they manage to make money even though they're selling a freely available product, and indeed giving it away for free themselves! (Check ftp.redhat.com if you don't believe me)

The key component to forward compatibility is the Linux software used on Beowulf. With the maturity and robustness of Linux, GNU software and the "standardization" of message passing via PVM and MPI, programmers now have a guarantee that the programs they write will run on future Beowulf clusters---regardless of who makes the processors or the networks. A natural consequence of coupling the Linux system software with vendor hardware is that the system software must be developed and refined only slightly ahead of the application software. The Linux model adopted for Beowulf system software makes all these wonders possible.

this has been linked from Redhat's news page since September.

An' the Gobble-uns'll git you --Ef you Don't Watch Out!

I don't see the problem with the Linux documentation that so many people seem to be complaining about.

openbsd% find /usr/share/man/cat4 -type f -print | wc -l
371

Second, there's simple correctness and completeness. A virgin Redhat installation is so full of crap in the manpages that you want to pop somebody one. They've got catpages installed alongside the manpages (e.g. /usr/man/man1/mailq.1) They've got missing .so links -- try getting a manpage for getnetbyaddr(3); it doesn't work, and if you look, you'll realize why. They've got hundreds of broken SEE ALSO links, as well as thousands (well, around 1700) of missing manpages. They've got a few dozen or so that are simply wrong, all thanks to the Fearless Leaders from you-know-where. It's really completely incoherent.

If you go to bugzilla, look up bug numbers 6043, 6044, 6046, 6049, 6255, and 6315. Redhat has been very responsive to these bug reports. I've even given them a bunch of programs to help with this, but the current situation is pretty darned embarrassing to anyone used to a proper Unix release. (Anyone interested in noman(8), cfman(8), or scatman(8) can pull them from bugzilla or send me mail.)

First I must warn all that I have long since dropped out of my business analysis train of thought as I steadily receded back into loving electronics and OS's - *NIX being my favorite.

Businesses and managers are very impressionable folks. In that I mean they truly believe in commercialism. I have worked with government and commercial sector and I have seen the way salesmen can appeal to these goons. With the government it is - well kinda perverse in a way but it works, with business it's easy -- we offer you this and get that.

So let's break off and follow that last statement for a second, we offer this and we are saying you get that.

Now let's apply the late 80's early 90's MS edition of that very same statement:

If you want that you must buy this in order to survive and have that, oh yeah we forgot to mention you have to also buy this other pile of sh*t as well but we can get inot that later . . .

Now come back to the present.

Joe Blow IT Manager, the very same schmuck whose light up when the dancing paperclip "finally does voice recognition" (f*n idiot) sees this. He now says - sh*t, maybe sinking all of that $$$$ into M$ could kick back - - QUICK, what do the other InfoWorld Ad say? Who should I turn to?

Yes this will happen. Even some delusional idiots will actually turn to Apple to solve their "hi end needs". This will be the first fallout.

But hey, all society advancement comes at great pains and cost, this will be one of them. By the same token just as many smart IT Managers will sit back and "see where things are going" and probably apt for a conservative UNIX Company or quite possibly FreeBSD or Slakware (despite it's "freeness" Slakware still boasts the best uptime and stability in distro - not neccessarily kernel).

IT Managers, believe it or not, think very short term as within 2-3 years or so. They are not forward thinkers (well not most of them I am sure the gang at Red Hat might take me up on that) so many saw NT as a good thing for the next year or maybe 2 years. This makes sense when the byline of your job is "keep from gettin' fired".

So, first, businesses will begin to lose confidence in MS, some will stick with them but many (as is already happening) will turn to companies like VALINUX and Sun.

The home computing market gradually lags anyway due to out of pocket expense limits so breaching the MS infiltration will take several years, but I believe as more becomes available and usable, more home users will seek alternatives. They may or may not turn to Linux, that is hard to tell (but I can say, the time is ripe for FreeBSD to make it's move).

Ultimately home users will not change their hbits for a long long time, I think everyone already sees this. I expect a shift to take place in 2-3 years (given the current buying trends).

I mention them in the same context here because I mean the same thing - both GNU / Linux and OSI now will see something that has been slowly and quietly happening for a long time.

Converts

Developers and geeks alike will also lose confidence in the almighty M$. We now will be given an opportunity to bring in and cultivate untapped talent that simply "didn't know any better" but have now awoken. This will most likely happen (in large numbers) after a ruling which is pretty sure to go against M$. It is already happening, as a matter of fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Linuxnewbie.org's mailing list jumps a little next week.

This isn't much different from other breakups as far as business is concerned. Geeks, however, will reap great reward which as all /. readers know is what matters.

• The "ever paranoid" Debian folks, who have been rather paranoid about RPM because RHAT wouldn't assure them that it would never be released in proprietary form have commented on Corel's participation, at Strategic Alliance Between Corel, KDE and Debian , with the comment:

  "I am very happy to see Corel taking this step into the Open Source world and cooperating with non-commercial organizations such as Debian and KDE," said Wichert Akkerman, Debian's project leader. "By combining Debian's strengths, which include having a large number of developers, a very open development model and a public bug tracking system, with the experience Corel has with making office and desktop products, I think we will be able to produce an outstanding system with the best of both worlds."

• If you were not previously aware, Corel HAS been involved with development efforts on Linux for quite some time.

  See: Corel's Contributions to the Wine Project

From snooping around:
nylon66@milton --> telnet www.linuxone.net
Trying 216.101.248.91...
Connected to rinoa.LinuxOne.NET.
Escape character is '^]'.

Welcome to LinuxOne! This is rinoa.
Red Hat Linux release 6.0 (Hedwig)
Kernel 2.2.5-15 on an i686
login:

A great development effort that is so unlike Red Hat, it nonetheless uses Red Hat's distro.
Seamonster says "cheese."

DURHAM, N.C. - November 1, 1999 - Red Hat, Inc. (NASDAQ:RHAT) announced today the formation of a new non-profit organization, the Red Hat Center for Open Source (RHCOS), that will sponsor, support, promote and engage in a wide range of scientific and educational projects intended to advance the social principles of open source for the greater good of the general public.

"The open source software movement has been successful because it has provided unprecedented control and quality to users, and at the same time enabled a model for cooperative development of technology that leveraged the expertise of the global community," said Ewing. "The implications of this model when applied outside of software development are enormous, and the benefits to society will be huge. Advancing this global cooperative model for the development of technologies and ideas is what RHCOS is all about."

I guess this means that Red Hat is going to try and focus now on getting all those windows (l)users to at least try Linux. Mostly they want them to try Red Hat, of course, but this move is meant to make sure that whatever they come up with can benefit everyone.

Frankly, I don't know if they really needed to do this. It might be a PR move rather than any kind of a technical move. (I know that sounds kind of obvious.) A lot of people, especially around here have been bashing Red Hat for "selling out." This could be the first part of their answer to those critics.

The only other problem I've had is that Redhat initscripts require build-specific System.map and module-info files. The stock release doesn't create those, so you have to bodge around it. Maybe this is documented properly somewhere now - if so, I haven't found it yet. Again, a pain only to Redhat users.

If your site is a commercial site in the US, then there is no way around it--you must license the RSA algorithm from RSA (unless you want to challenge the RSA patent in court!). If you call up RSA they will give you a price quote in the thousands (I tried this once). A far cheaper way to get an RSA license is to buy RedHat Secure Web Server (now repackaged as RedHat Linux Professional).

IANAL, but I have read the "Advanced Cryptography License" that comes with Secure Web Server and I believe that the license does in fact allow you to legally run an implementation RSA using any SSL server software you want on your site. That means you can buy Secure Web Server and then legally run mod_ssl on your web site. That's what I would do if I were in your position, since mod_ssl is a quality free software product.

>NeoMagic: completely closed, installed on all our
> laptops, a thorn in our side.

Neomagic are not closed. See this (It's a press release by Redhat about the opensourcing of an XFree driver for Neomagic chips)

So what OS do you develop for? You certainly wouldn't want to pump up the price of RHAT any more than AAOL, right?

Sorry to hear about your problems, AC, but I don't understand, why, if you're new at linux, you decieded to download it off of the net.

Please, if you're new at linux, don't download it off the net. You will run into no end of problems and aggravation, even if the download completes successfuly. It's far better to pay anywhere from $50-$100USD for an official boxed set of your favirate distrubition than to have to put up with a lot of headaces and not to have the manual and support there to help you.

I recomend Red Hat, but that's the distrobution that I did the most research on. Really, there are no major diffrences between distros, just pick one that you're comfortable with, or just pick one. The diffrences that are there are minor, and the boxed distros have the OS, manual, some form of support, and a truckload of applications and other useful software, so they're really the best choice for newbies.

RedHat 5.2 is ancient, apache 1.3.3 is buggy (insecure? quite possibly)... so thanks for the information!

Just an idea... I wouldn't have let loose what it was running on, myself - but then again, it would be interesting to see if they have crack-attempt logs in the manner of antionline, and so on...

RedHat has named Mainsoft as an ISV partner. I am wondering which game Mainsoft is playing, as they have ties to both MS and RH. Any suggestions? http://www.redhat.com/part ners/press_partner_mainsoft.html -bob

Also, Redhat has signed a ISV relationship with mainsoft. Which side are these guys on? http://www.redhat.com/part ners/press_partner_mainsoft.html just found that interesting. -bob

I want to thank both Redhat and RMS for this excellent thing they offer.

Recently I downloaded the entire Redhat 6.1 binaries and source CDs over my cable modem from a local university's mirror site - see

http://www.redhat.com/download/mirror.ht ml

for a mirror site near you. To make it totally easy to burn CD copies, the mirror site had these as ISO disc images!

Do you know if Redhat intends to make the RMS distro available for free downloading? Of course the FSF would not get that dollar, but I at least would be willing to send a check off direct to the FSF. I'll tell you for sure, the RMS all-free distro is the one I want on my home computer.

Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net

I set out to buy a RH6.1 from them and clicked on the package of the box on the front page and then on one of the buy buttons on the next page. Now, this selects a US/Canada version and on check out, the system complained that it can't send a US/Canada version to Japan, because of the $%#% export restrictions.

So, I started searching for an international version, which made me click on the small "Red Hat Linux" hyperlink on the left of the menu bar on top of the https://store.redhat.com/commerce/ page and (voila!) I had found my intl. version...and then, the "RMS Linux" link on the button of that page caught my attention :-)

You wanted to know...

Chilli

PS: And what do we learn from this? Stupid export restrictions, can be useful ;-)

How in the world did you manage to stumble over RMS Linux? Yes, the direct URL worked, but I couldn't find a way to get there from starting at the main page.

Did I miss something?

Eliot:
people.redhat.com/sopwith/og/
The real press releases:
people.redhat.com/sopwith/og-old/

Eliot:
people.redhat.com/sopwith/og/
The real press releases:
people.redhat.com/sopwith/og-old/

http://people.redhat.com/sopwith/og/.

For File and Print services, according to independent tests conducted by PC Week Labs, yadda yadda yadda...

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't said test result in an immediate identification of the TCP/IP stack bottleneck, and a fix in the current development kernel?

First: Windows NT 4.0 Outperforms Linux On Common Customer Workloads

Then, in a bullet point: Linux performance and scalability is architecturally limited in the 2.2 Kernel. Linux only supports 2 gigabytes (GB) of RAM on the x86 architecture,1 compared to 4 GB for Windows NT 4.0. The largest file size Linux supports is 2 GB versus 16 terabytes (TB) for Windows NT 4.0. The Linux SWAP file is limited to 128 MB RAM.

Ok.... I have a couple of problems with this. First off, if you talk about common customer workloads and then talk about 2GB ram limits and 2GB file size limits, you are speaking once from your mouth and once from your ass. I work for a major entertainment company in the online division. We have web servers up the wazoo, mostly solaris admittedly, but I have yet to see anything break the 1GB barrier, much less two. In my mind, for the average small business, you're going to be able to get by on much less.

Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 has been proven in demanding customer environments to be a reliable operating system. Customers such as Barnes and Noble, The Boeing Company, Chicago Stock Exchange, Dell Computer, First Union Capital Markets, Nasdaq and many others run mission critical applications on Windows NT 4.0.

OK... lets see some screenshots of the uptime counts of the machines at these places.

The Linux community likes to talk about Linux as a stable and reliable operating system, yet there is no real world data or metrics and very limited customer evidence to back up these claims.

FUD, pure and simple. "Here, look at this operating system that is just hitting the big time. There isn't much existing data on it, so it must suck. Of course when NT was brand new, it didn't suck even though there was an equal dearth of hard data on it."

Linux lacks a commercial quality Journaling File System. This means that in the event of a system failure, such as a power outage, data loss or corruption is possible.

Well, I'll grant them that. On the other hand I've watched NT servers lose data without a system failure or a power loss.

There are no OEMs that provide uptime guarantees for Linux, unlike Windows NT where Compaq, Data General, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Unisys provide 99.9 percent system-level uptime guarantees for Windows NT-based servers.

Again, this is basically saying that because Linux ISN'T a well established OS, that it SHOULDN'T be. That's bullshit.

The very definition of Linux as an Open Software effort means that commercial companies like Red Hat will make money by charging for services. Therefore, commercial support services for Linux will be fee-based and will likely be priced at a premium. These costs have to be factored into the total cost model.

Yes, but on the other hand, the lack of a single authoritative source of data, there is now room for real competetion between people providing support for your OS. Don't like the quality or cost of MS support? Too bad. Don't like the quality or cost of Linux support, well it if becomes lucrative enough there will be plenty of places for you to go to.

Linux is a UNIX-like operating system and is therefore complex to configure and manage.

Kind of like many of the systems and features MS keeps touting to prove how much cooler NT is than Linux? Has anyone here played with ActiveDirectory? How about NT's very beta version of NAT back when it was still NT 5 and not Win@K

Linux security is all-or-nothing. Administrators cannot delegate administrative privileges: a user who needs any administrative capability must be made a full administrator, which compromises best security practices. In contrast, Windows NT allows an administrator to delegate privileges at an exceptionally fine-grained level.

First, I think that this is kind of woefully narrow minded. It also completely ignores the functionality of setuid in using administrative tools. The unix security model is far more versatile than it seems at first appearance. And the NT model is far more cumbersome.

Linux system administrators must spend huge amounts of time understanding the latest Linux bugs and determining what to do about them.

Personally I find the buffer overflow bugs a lot easier to understand than some of the stuff I've seen in HOTFIX descriptions. Personally I don't care, I just want the bug fixed, which usually means a new RPM and no reboot.

This is made complex due to the fact that there isn't a central location for security issues to be reported and fixed. In contrast Microsoft provides a single security repository for notification and fixes of security related issues.

Ahem: RedHat does a pretty nice job for me.

Configuring Linux security requires an administrator to be an expert in the intricacies of the operating system and how components interact. Misconfigure any part of the operating system and the system could be vulnerable to attack. Windows NT security is easy to set up and administer with tools such as the Security Configuration Editor.

I'm not even going to bother.

Myth: Linux can replace Windows on the desktop

I have to grant MS just about everything they say here. But again, the problem is not that linux isn't suited to the desktop, just that it hasn't reached the critical point of support and ease of use. Whose fault that is is something I leave open for others to debate. Certainly though I don't think MS is helping at all. I wonder how many engineers at MS would like to port DirectX to linux. Or certain MS apps? But that's simply not politcally possible.

I'm guessing that the first time, you ended up installing modules in the same directory (/lib/modules/2.2.12-20/) as the existing modules, but that you left some old modules in place because you did not rebuild them with your new configuration. Your changed configuration changed some signature information, so you ended up with a mix of inconsistent modules. When you downloaded a kernel tarball, you moved to a unique directory (/lib/modules/2.2.12/, I presume) which did not have old modules in it and so you did not have the same problem.

Now that you have provided a good report, I'd like to reiterate that this is not new to Red Hat Linux 6.1 -- it's just the first time that this particular gotcha, well, gotcha.

So this is clearly not a bug. I'd like to take a moment, however, to point you and everyone else reading this thread to our Bugzilla bug tracking database. If you use it to report bugs, we can do a much better job of keeping track of things and letting you know if/when we are able to fix the bug. Even when it turns out to be a feature rather than a bug, it's there for the next person who searches the bug database for the problem they are having. Which, of course, brings me to another point: before entering your bug, use bugzilla's search facilities to see if someone else has already reported a similar problem.

...have probably never tried installing Win95! Now that is an operating system that will cause your blood to boil and your hair to thin. Getting it installed involves several reboots. Then, once installed, you invariably find several devices improperly detected and/or misconfigured [ gotta like those Question Mark devices :-) ]. Ten to twenty reboots later, you have all your devices configured, Netscape installed (you have to reboot after installing Netscape? HUH?), etc. Win98 is better but still not as easy as Linux is to install.

After futzing around with installing Japanese Win95 on an IntelliStation for most of the day, I then installed Linux on an identical system. From start to finish, I was done in 30 minutes -- which involved only one reboot, at the end of the installation process.

By the way, Jon, if you want to see how simple a Linux installation can be, I highly recommend you grab a copy of Red Hat 6.1. Their graphical installation process is sweet -- full help text for just about every option -- but you're not locked into the GUI if you're trying to install on older hardware. Try THAT with MacOS or Blows.

Finally, let me throw in a plug for my LAME Guide which I believe successfully covers a lot of ground.

Chilli

re: RPMS
I've run into occasional RPM difficulties upgrading packages, but that is generally solved if you're running the current RedHat release (I'm not but that's a different story). As for a central repository for RPMS, you've obviously never heard of rufus (Also called RPMFIND. It's a computer with about 60GIG of RPMs for just about all RPM-based distributions. The webmaster has also written a program called rpmfind which will search rufus (or other rpmfind mirrors) for packages you specify. It will find the latest, suggest upgraded packages, even find source packages. It rocks.

re: General flakiness
You had flakeyness with RedHat 5.2? I find that odd. I had problems with all .0 releases, but the .2's have always been stable for me (I've been using RedHat since 3.0.3). But then again, I imagine if you've been having problems mixing RPM and non-RPM packages, it's conceivable.

Yes, RedHat 5.2 shipped with several buggy packages, but if you've ever been to their errata pages, you can download the latest packages to correct the problems. I still run RedHat 5.2 boxes. Now that RedHat 6.1 has come out, I may take another crack at it on my test systems.

Red Hat doens't have a 6 month product life cycle, they have a 6 month release cycle. RH supports products for 3 years from time of release. Yes, thats right, 5.0 users can still register for technical support, and 4.2 users who are registered can still submit tickets. You might want to take a good look at their support page.

Additionally, Red Hat has a beta program. From what I've heard, people who submit useful bug reports into bugzilla, as well as major application vendors, and vendors who have products on the applications CD are often asked to participate. For those not asked to participate, Rawhide, the current development version of Red Hat, is available to the general public.

Red Hat doens't have a 6 month product life cycle, they have a 6 month release cycle. RH supports products for 3 years from time of release. Yes, thats right, 5.0 users can still register for technical support, and 4.2 users who are registered can still submit tickets. You might want to take a good look at their support page.

Additionally, Red Hat has a beta program. From what I've heard, people who submit useful bug reports into bugzilla, as well as major application vendors, and vendors who have products on the applications CD are often asked to participate. For those not asked to participate, Rawhide, the current development version of Red Hat, is available to the general public.

Red Hat doens't have a 6 month product life cycle, they have a 6 month release cycle. RH supports products for 3 years from time of release. Yes, thats right, 5.0 users can still register for technical support, and 4.2 users who are registered can still submit tickets. You might want to take a good look at their support page.

Additionally, Red Hat has a beta program. From what I've heard, people who submit useful bug reports into bugzilla, as well as major application vendors, and vendors who have products on the applications CD are often asked to participate. For those not asked to participate, Rawhide, the current development version of Red Hat, is available to the general public.

I'd put auto-updating right at rank-beginner skill level; and if it's beyond anybody's ability to master this then they sure as hell shouldn't be allowed near an NT/IIS or any other webserver.

The fact that PCWeek allowed this to happen speaks only to their incompetence and/or mendacity, and not to any flaw in Linux, RedHat or the Unix way, m'kay?

The updates have been on the updates.redhat.com server since before the "contest" began. As was known to both the cracker and --who doubts this?--the crackees as well.

Mindcraft redux ---& that's the real deal.

Red Hat has an Errata page, they have 2 mailing lists, and for registered users, they have a priority access site. They seem to have the level of effort needed in their case. Now, you show me where I can get on Microsoft's e-mail lists, where their web page is listing their patches, and where they put the patches on their FTP server, and how do I get priority service? They *probably* have all that, but I looked for about 10 minutes and didn't find it. Only took me about 2 minutes to find all I needed on Red Hat's site.

Second, if Red Hat's effort *isn't* enough, then *you* tell me what it is you are looking for.

That's Microsoft license agreement, isn't it? I *knew* it looked familiar.

August 1991 0.01 Linux (first release, not bootable)
December 1993 0.99pl14 Linux (usable)
December 1993 FreeBSD 1.0 (patches to encumbered "Net/2" 4.3BSDLite)
November 1994 FreeBSD 2.0 First truly open source
(no legal challenges) version

This according to http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/histor y.html
and http://www.redhat.com/mirrors/L DP/LDP/gs/node3.html

So, no, an open source version of BSD was being developed contemperaneously with Linux but not released in unemcumbered form until a little later. The fear of legal challenges probably kept some developers away in the early days, and there was certainly not even a gratis version of BSD for x86 when Linus started developing Linux.
--

To reply to my own post (I actually did some research) there is a buffer overflow in chron. Here's the info:
Package vixie-cron

Synopsis Buffer overflow in cron daemon

Advisory ID RHSA-1999:030-02

Issue Date 1999-08-25

Updated on 1999-08-27

Keywords vixie-cron crond MAILTO

Chron buffer overflow errata page at RedHat

Red Hat has their definitions of what certified and compatible means on their Hardware Certification Program Program Overview. Also keep in mind that being Red Hat compatible doesn't mean that it doesn't work with any other distribution, just that it meets Red Hat's criteria for compatibility.

Red Hat took the initiative to get a hardware certification program started. This is excellent on Red Hats part. But as others have mentioned, it's not enough. Another organization, perhaps the LSB, need to get a certification program started too. Then we'll be able to see "LSB Certified" hardware too. But Red Hat should be commended for their program, even though, in the future, it should be superceded, if at all possible.

From the Hardware Certification Program Program Overview we read:

Compatible
The tested hardware has passed all certification tests, but required some amount of special attention in order to be properly configured. This most commonly means that the system requires special drivers or updates to be downloaded before the system is fully useable (eg, a system that must download an update to XFree86 because the version of XFree86 on the CD does not support their video hardware). In this case, the vendor may call the system Red Hat Linux Compatible in their advertising, but may not use any Red Hat logos or badges on this system. Further, the vendor should take steps to ensure that their standard support services are prepared to answer customers questions intelligently when asked why the stock Red Hat Linux won't operate properly on their hardware (this usually means making sure that the vendor's technical support department is aware of what updates must be performed to make the machine work properly). The information about what updates are needed and any other notes on this system will also be available via the hardware compatibility list on the Red Hat web site.

As others have mentioned, I presume the marketing department "jumped the gun". I imagine that there'll be drivers for the modem, in due time.

here are some sites that I have found helpfull:
XFree86 Font Deuglification Mini HOW-TO
The Redhat White Paper explaining the font system in rh6.0

...thats all I can remember right now, the redhat page gives good instructions on getting ttf fonts setup under rh6.0
good luck

I submitted a suggestion like this as a RedHat bug (ID 134) awhile ago. The response was not exactly overwhelming.

The RedHat workstation/server difference is helpful, but not enough. We need an option to install the RPMs but not start the services. And I think *all* listening ports (except maybe telnet) should be off by default.

Hmm, you're right. So unlike Redhat's legal page, which includes such tidbits as...

Disclaimer of Warranty UNLESS OTHERWISE EXPLICITY STATED, THE MATERIALS ON THE WEBSITE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS". ALL EXPRESS OR IMPLIED CONDITIONS, REPRESENTATIONS AND WARRANTIES, INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT, ARE DISCLAIMED, EXCEPT TO THE EXTENT THAT SUCH DISCLAIMERS ARE HELD TO BE LEGALLY INVALID. RED HAT MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS, WARRANTIES, OR GUARANTIES AS TO THE QUALITY, SUITABILITY, TRUTH, ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF ANY OF THE MATERIALS CONTAINED ON THE WEBSITE. ANY QUESTIONS REGARDING THE MATERIALS SHOULD BE DIRECTED TO THE PROVIDERS OF SUCH MATERIALS.

I'm sure that I could find something similar at Caldera et alius. I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.

"Let he who is without sin, yadda yadda yadda..." - Some guy.

It's more than just piece of mind. Buying the official Red Hat set usually entitles you to support from Red Hat, and it includes non-free applications as well. Take a look at this list to see some examples of what might be included on the set. Some of these are just demos, but I remember that I went and bought RedHat 5.0 box, even though I could have downloaded it, just because it came with a full copy of Real Audio Server. If I thought I was getting these things and then they weren't on the CD, I would be pretty pissed.

Redhat has a nice article on truetype support in Redhat 6.0 at their website in their knowledge base. Here is the url http://www.redhat.com/knowledgeb ase/newfontsystem/
This is the page that helped me setup my truetype fonts.

I found it on rufus and downloaded the source RPM from RH6.0 contrib RPMS. which can be found here: ftp://contrib.redhat.com/contrib/libc6 /SRPMS (the Rufus link is incorrect, as the Redhat directory structure has changed slightly.)

If you don't want an RPM . . . use alien to convert it to a .tgz file.

--Akeru

h ttp://developer.redhat.com/certification/cert-repo rt.php3?mod_redhat_version=6.0