November 2006

Slackware 11.0 is released! Posted Saturday, November 25, 2006 @ 6:11 PM by mayhem

"We are proud to announce that Slackware Linux version 11.0 has been finally released; it took some time but is well worth the wait. You can read the official announcement at this link. Slackware 11.0 contains the 2.4.33.3 Linux kernel, 2.6.17.13 in /extra and 2.6.18 in the /testing directory; the default boot option is the dependable 2.4.33.3 kernel, but this time we included more choices and support for 2.6.x kernels. This Slackware version is by far the most cutting edge ever released, it includes KDE version 3.5.4 (including the Amarok media player), XFCE 4.2.3.2, the latest versions of Firefox and Thunderbird, plus SeaMonkey 1.0.5 (replacing the Mozilla suite). It also includes glibc-2.3.6, gcc-3.4.6, X11R6.9.0 from X.Org, and more! Due to the overwhelming number of changes in this release, we have added a CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT file which contains information on the evolution of slackware-current. This should prove useful for users upgrading to slackware-11.0. To order your copy of Slackware Linux (available on CD-ROMs and DVD this time) or some other Slackware goodies visit our store. You'll be helping to support the continued efforts of the the Slackware Linux Project. As always, ISO images are available through BitTorrent but you can also download them from any official Slackware Mirror or from these other mirror sites. Thanks to everyone who helped to make this new release of Slackware possible, the mirror administrators, and to a fine group of friends on irc.oftc.net for their help with Slackware development, this site, and the BitTorrents! Have fun! Pat, and the Slackware team"

Build a Web Spider on Linux Posted Thursday, November 16, 2006 @ 12:25 AM by mayhem

Web spiders are software agents that traverse the Internet gathering, filtering, and potentially aggregating information for a user. This article shows you how to build spiders and scrapers for Linux to crawl a Web site and gather information, stock data, in this case. Using common scripting languages and their collection of Web modules, you can easily develop Web spiders.

The War Is Over, and Linux Has Won Posted Sunday, November 12, 2006 @ 10:31 AM by mayhem

Dana Blankenhorn bluntly states a reality that many have known: 'The war is over and Linux won'. With Oracle and Microsoft putting Linux in the spotlight and positioning themselves to grow with Linux. 'A new report shows that 83% of companies expect to support new workloads on Linux against 23% for Windows. ... Over two-thirds of the respondents said they will increase their use of Linux in the next year, and almost no one said the opposite.' (Source: Slashdot)

Bastille-Linux Posted Sunday, November 5, 2006 @ 4:17 PM by mayhem

The Bastille Hardening program "locks down" an operating system, proactively configuring the system for increased security and decreasing its susceptibility to compromise. Bastille can also assess a system's current state of hardening, granularly reporting on each of the security settings with which it works. Bastille currently supports the Red Hat (Fedora Core, Enterprise, and Numbered/Classic), SUSE, Debian, Gentoo, and Mandrake distributions, along with HP-UX. Full Mac OS X is in beta, ready for download today. Bastille's focuses on letting the system's user/administrator choose exactly how to harden the operating system. In its default hardening mode, it interactively asks the user questions, explains the topics of those questions, and builds a policy based on the user's answers. It then applies the policy to the system. In its assessment mode, it builds a report intended to teach the user about available security settings as well as inform the user as to which settings have been tightened. More information available at the bastille-linux website, or the sourceforge project page.