December 2001

Linux Kernel 2.2.21-pre1 Patch Available Posted Sunday, December 30, 2001 @ 6:15 PM by mayhem
You can download the 2.2.21-pre1 patch in either gz or bz2, changlog:
o	Fix potential corruption with vmalloc on	(Ralf Baechle)
virtually cached boxes
o Small PPC build fixups (Tom Rini)
o zImage booting fix (Kalev Soikonen)
o EIO on NFS read fixup (Trond Myklebust)
o Update 3ware raid driver (Adam Radford)
o page_alloc race fix (Andrea Arcangeli)
o Update USB maintainers (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
o bttv clipcount=0 fix (Solar Designer)
o Fix multiple eepro driver bugs (Aris)
o Sym53c8xx queue handling fix (Gerard Roudier)
o Update SubmittingDrivers document (Michal Svec)
o 8139too performance tune (Jens David)
o procfs follow link return fix (Solar Designer)
o Backport SEM_UNDO overflow fix from 2.4 (Leonid Igolnik)
o VM86 fixes (Manfred Spraul)
o Fix alpha build (Kim Heino)
 
Slashdot: A Newbie's Guide To A Lo-Fat Linux Desktop Posted Sunday, December 30, 2001 @ 3:33 AM by mayhem
"This article is what I needed a few years ago, when I first started playing with Linux. It's about building a fast and usable desktop using software that doesn't need a squillion horsepower." Good article if you are putting together an older machine to run as a dedicated box, or what to cobble together a terminal with spare parts.
 
PHP 4.1.1 Released! Posted Sunday, December 30, 2001 @ 3:30 AM by mayhem
"Due to a few bugs in PHP 4.1.0, we decided to release PHP 4.1.1. The bugs that were fixed are not major ones but minor ones, which could be annoying if you get bitten by them.

Our recommendation is that people who already upgraded to PHP 4.1.0 do not need to upgrade to PHP 4.1.1 unless they're experiencing one of the described bugs. Read the full release announcement. Windows binaries will be available later." - www.php.net.
 
10 Linux predictions for 2002 Posted Friday, December 28, 2001 @ 3:34 PM by mayhem
Once again Joe Barr has released his 10 Linux predictions for next year (2002). In short form they are as follows:
  1. Linux business sector will emerge from slump
  2. Linux desktop will appear in public places
  3. Linux preloads will follow suit
  4. Landmark antitrust case will drag on
  5. U.S. spy-secrets will be revealed
  6. Microsoft will be expelled, Linux will be installed
  7. Linux in prime time slot
  8. You have (secure) mail
  9. Darker Image PR firm to debut
  10. The revolution will continue as scheduled
For full information please visit this article.
 
ROCK Linux 1.5.12 (Development) Released Posted Friday, December 28, 2001 @ 3:24 PM by mayhem
ROCK Linux announces the release of version 1.5.12 (DEV). This release is based on the Linux Kernel 2.4.14, glibc 2.2.4, binutils 2.11.92.0.10 and gcc 2.95.3. A list of download sites is available at http://www.rocklinux.org/getting.html. Changelogs are at http://www.rocklinux.org/changelog/. For documentation and information about ROCK Linux, please visit the ROCK website http://www.rocklinux.org/.
 
Slashdot: Interview With Kernel Hacker Dave Jones Posted Friday, December 28, 2001 @ 1:04 PM by mayhem
Kerneltrap has recently interviewed Dave Jones who currently lives in London, employed by SuSE as a Linux kernel hacker. In the past six months since he graduated from the University of Glamorgan he has gotten involved in an impressive range of kernel related projects, including Powertweak, x86info, OProfile and the Kernel Janitors Project. Additionally, he maintains a -dj patch for the 2.5 development kernel, helping to sync it with the stable 2.4 kernel as well as offering increased stability.
 
Linux Kernel 2.5.2-pre3 Patch Available Posted Friday, December 28, 2001 @ 12:56 PM by mayhem
You can download the 2.5.2-pre3 Kernel patch from here, changelog:
pre3:
- Christoph Hellwig: scsi_register_module cleanup
- Mikael Pettersson: apic.c LVTERR fixes
- Russell King: ARM update (including bio update for icside)
- Jens Axboe: more bio updates
- Al Viro: make ready to switch bread away from kdev_t..
- Davide Libenzi: scheduler cleanups
- Anders Gustafsson: LVM fixes for bio
- Richard Gooch: devfs update
 
Window Maker 0.80 Released Posted Friday, December 28, 2001 @ 12:53 AM by mayhem
Window Maker 0.80.0 has been released. Along with the usual bug fixes, which were enough by themselves to guarantee a new release, this release brings lots of new features. The most important and visible one is the ability to share appicons between applications of the same class, which is better implemented now than anytime in the past. Another new feature is the ability of the Dock/Clip to steal appicons of applications started by other means (main menu, terminal) and attach them, if there is a similar appicon docked and not running. All this functionality as well as the other features not described here for brevity's sake are described in detail in the NEWS file.
 
Linux Kernel Patch 2.4.18-pre1 Available Posted Thursday, December 27, 2001 @ 1:40 PM by mayhem
You can download the 2.4.18-pre1 Kernel patch from here, changelog:
pre1:

- S390 merge (IBM)
- SuperH merge (SuperH team)
- PPC merge (Benjamin Herrenschmidt)
- PCI DMA update (David S. Miller)
- radeonfb update (Ani Joshi)
- aty128fb update (Ani Joshi)
- Add nVidia GeForce3 support to rivafb (Ani Joshi)
- Add PM support to opl3sa2 (Zwane Mwaikambo)
- Basic ethtool support for 3com, starfire
and pcmcia net drivers (Jeff Garzik)
- Add MII ethtool interface (Jeff Garzik)
- starfire,sundance,dl2k,sis900,8139{too,cp},
natsemi driver updates (Jeff Garzik)
- ufs/minix: mark inodes as bad in case of read
failure (Christoph Hellwig)
- ReiserFS fixes (Oleg Drokin)
- sonypi update (Stelian Pop)
- n_hdlc update (Paul Fulghum)
- Fix compile error on aty_base.c (Tobias Ringstrom)
- Document cpu_to_xxxx() on kernel-hacking doc (Rusty Russell)
- USB update (Greg KH)
- Fix sysctl console loglevel bug on
IA64 (and possibly other archs) (Jesper Juhl)
- Update Athlon/VIA PCI quirks (Calin A. Culianu)
- blkmtd update (Simon Evans)
- boot protocol update (makes the highest
possible initrd address available to the
bootloader) (H. Peter Anvin)
- NFS fixes (Trond Myklebust)
 
Linux Kernel 2.5.2-pre2 Available Posted Wednesday, December 26, 2001 @ 5:11 PM by mayhem
You can download 2.5.2-pre2 from here, changelog:
pre2:
- Al Viro: task-private namespaces, more cleanups
 
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR Posted Sunday, December 23, 2001 @ 5:36 PM by mayhem
Both Ben and Myself (Martin) would like to take this chance to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, take it easy and have a great time this holiday season. We will both be rather busy over this next week (or so) with family commitments, New Years celebrations, Ben's 18th birthday and my 21st birthday.

We should be back early in 2002 and you can look forward to some more great product reviews and updated content.
 
Newsforge: Roaming With Your Linux Laptop: Using QuickSwitch Posted Sunday, December 23, 2001 @ 5:24 PM by mayhem
- By Mohit Muthanna -
Most Linux laptop users don't leave home without their trusted sword. They use it at home, at work, at client sites and on the bus. A problem while moving around with these laptops is profile management; having to change IP addresses, DNS addresses, gateways, proxy servers, etc., every time one changes his location is simply a pain. Most people a trouble remembering what files to edit, or just typing in the new addresses all the time. I had this problem, and most of the utilities available on the net were incomplete, limited, or just did not do what I want.

More information available here.
 
Net-Security: Starting Points Of A Secure Linux System Posted Sunday, December 23, 2001 @ 5:20 PM by mayhem
www.net-security.org have an article on securing your Linux machine which can be found here. It details everything from partitioning to logging and encryption and is definately recommended for anyone looking at tightening the security on their Linux client/server.
 
Mozilla 0.9.7 Released Posted Sunday, December 23, 2001 @ 5:13 PM by mayhem
The latest version of the Mozilla browser has just been released, 0.9.7, with many updates and fixes, including:

  • A great deal more Mac OS version features.
  • Save page now also saves images, stylesheets, objects and applets that are included in the page.
  • Support for Favicons and custom page icons in bookmarks etc.
  • Advanced Java controls for pop-ups etc.
  • Support for digest access authentication.

    More information available on the Mozilla 0.9.7 release page here.
  •  
    Linux Kernel 2.4.17 Released Posted Saturday, December 22, 2001 @ 12:51 PM by mayhem
    You can download 2.4.17 from here, changelog:
    final:

    - Fix more loopback deadlocks (Andrea Arcangeli)
    - Make Alpha with Nautilus chipset and
    Irongate chipset configuration compile
    correctly (Michal Jaegermann)
     
    Is Distributed Computing A Crime? Posted Friday, December 21, 2001 @ 6:36 PM by mayhem
    A computer network administrator faces multiple felony charges and years in a Georgia prison for allegedly installing Distributed.net clients without permission. Prosecutors say its justice, others aren't so sure.. more information at securityfocus.com.

    Speaking from experience some of you may remember a virus not so long ago that spread a distributed.net client around, my old work (internet cafe) was struck by this virus and from that I would say that without permission in some circumstances it is most definately a crime. Have your say in our forums.
     
    Slashdot: Microsoft Starts Legal Fight Over Lindows Name Posted Friday, December 21, 2001 @ 3:00 PM by mayhem
    Whether or not Lindows is real, this article on CNET News.com indicates that Microsoft intends to sue them into oblivion. Looks like supression remains the best way to promote innovation. Some of you may remember that MS originally had great difficulty obtaining a trademark for the generic term 'Windows' but was eventually able to pay off those who had filed letters of protest to the granting of the mark including Sun, Oracle, and Borland. As a trademark lawyer I (unhappily) have to admit that Lindows probably has a weak case. Of course it's never too late to bring a cancellation action based on genericide ;-)
     
    The LWN 2001 Linux Timeline Posted Friday, December 21, 2001 @ 2:58 PM by mayhem
    2001 was yet another interesting year for the Linux community. The bubble economy was long past, and reality caught up with most Linux companies. Some did not survive, and most of the rest are smaller and far more careful. But Linux is stronger than ever, and continues to grow.
    One again, LWN has put together an annual timeline listing the highlights of the year. This is the alpha version of the 2001 timeline. There are certainly important things we have missed; if you notice one of them, please drop us a note at timeline@lwn.net so we can get it in.

    More information available at www.lwn.net.
     
    Linux Kernel 2.5.2-pre1 Available Posted Friday, December 21, 2001 @ 8:43 AM by mayhem
    You can download 2.5.2-pre1 from here, changelog:
    pre1:
    - me: revert the "kill(-1..)" change. POSIX isn't that clear on the
    issue anyway, and the new behaviour breaks things.
    - Jens Axboe: more bio updates
    - Al Viro: rd_load cleanups. hpfs mount fix, mount cleanups
    - Ingo Molnar: more raid updates
    - Jakub Jelinek: fix Linux/x86 confusion about arg passing of "save_v86_state" and "do_signal"
    - Trond Myklebust: fix NFS client race conditions
     
    Slashdot: IBM Builds A Limited Quantum Computer Posted Thursday, December 20, 2001 @ 7:09 PM by mayhem
    IBM has announced and Yahoo has noted that the first working implementation of Shor's factoring algorithm. Using NMR techniques they built a seven-qubit quantum computer and factored the number 15 into the factors 3 and 5. This is by far the most complicated quantum computation ever done. It's quite an amazing feat--many people thought quantum computing was just a theoretical curiosity and Shor's algorithm could never be implemented in practice.
     
    Linuxnews: Enabling NTFS in Redhat 7.2 Posted Thursday, December 20, 2001 @ 7:07 PM by mayhem
    As many RedHatters know NTFS support does not come default in the RH distro. As well as setting up support for NTFS can be very tricky and time consuming. We have a step by step tutorial on how to get you up and going. Check it out at...

    http://www.getlinuxonline.com/omp/distro/RedHat/ompntfs.htm

    Remember if you have any questions you can join the forums for free and ask the author himself! :)
     
    Slashdot: Tom's Hardware: Win, Lose or Ti - 21 GeForce Titan Tests Posted Thursday, December 20, 2001 @ 1:37 AM by mayhem
    Got a huge wad of cash burning a hole in your pocket? Why not spend it on a fancy new video card... Uncle Tom has reviewed 21 different cards so you can make a well educated decision. This is by far the most best Geforce comparison out there. A definate read for all you hardcore graphics guys.
     
    Newsforge: Mandrake 8.1 easier than Win-XP Posted Thursday, December 20, 2001 @ 12:03 AM by mayhem
    - By Thomas C. Greene of The Register -
    Windows addicts curious to see how the other half lives but wary of the installation challenges Linux is supposed to present will find Mandrake 8.1 considerably easier to install and configure than Win-XP. It's quite nearly Harry Homeowner-proof.
    Ready for some cultural tourism? No need to hesitate; the Pro package sells for a mere $70.00, compared with XP's $300, so it's hardly a major investment even if you should run home to Redmond in the end.

    More information available here.
     
    Submit News Features Fixed Posted Wednesday, December 19, 2001 @ 3:44 PM by mayhem
    Finally the Submit News feature is working again, it may require a little tweaking to get it the way we want it but at least we can now receive any submitted news. Sorry those people who submitted news recently, we only received empty posts due to the error, please feel free to submit your news again for posting.

    You can now include your email address in submissions, this could also be a URL to your own website if you prefer.
     
    Red Hat Reports Fiscal Third Quarter Results Posted Wednesday, December 19, 2001 @ 2:53 PM by mayhem
    Press Release -- RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.--Dec. 18, 2001-- Red Hat, Inc. (NASDAQ:RHAT) , the global leader in Linux and open source solutions, today reported an adjusted net income of $1,300,000, or $0.01 per share, excluding amortization of goodwill and stock based compensation and restructuring charges, for the third quarter of fiscal 2002, compared to an adjusted net loss of $100,000, or break even per share, for the second quarter of fiscal 2002.

    The company reported revenue of $21.5 million for the third quarter ended November 30, 2001, an increase of 2% over the second quarter of fiscal 2002.

    More information available in this story.
     
    Linux Kernel 2.4.17-rc2 Available Posted Wednesday, December 19, 2001 @ 2:46 PM by mayhem
    You can now download 2.4.17-rc2 in gz format here or in bz2 format here, changelog:
    rc2: 

    - Fix potential oops with via-rhine (Andrew Morton)
    - sysvfs: mark inodes as bad in case of read
    failure (Christoph Hellwig)
    - NTFS bugfixes (Anton Altaparmakov)
    - Fix Netfilter oops (Edward Killips)
    - Direct IO error handling fix (Masaroni Goto)
    - Fix loop device deadlock (Andrea Arcangeli)
    - Make some erroneously global spinlocks
    static (David C. Hansen)
    - Avoid i810 driver from oopsing with 830ME (Robert Love)
    - Reiserfs fixes (Oleg Drokin/Chris Mason)
    - Fix VM "not-swapping" issue with lowmem
    machines (Rik van Riel)
    - Make kernel try a bit harder to shrink caches
    instead swapping out (me)
    - Make NCR5380 compile builtin (Erik Andersen)
    - More __devexit_p fixes (Daniel T. Chen)
    - devfs bugfixes (Richard Gooch)
     
    Slashdot: Intel Releases Open-Source Stereoscopic Software Posted Wednesday, December 19, 2001 @ 12:49 PM by mayhem
    Intel has released a software library that allows computers to "see" in 3D. The library is available for Windows and Linux, under a BSDish license. Possible early applications include lipreading input. Check out the CNN Story, Intel Press Release, and project home page.
     
    Slashdot: Perception of Linux Among IT Undergrads Posted Wednesday, December 19, 2001 @ 12:47 PM by mayhem
    The Linux Journal has a story on IT students and their perception of Linux. One of the funnier myths perceived to be true is that 'Microsoft's technical support is the best in the industry and is superior to that offered by the Linux community.' It just goes to show how little real world experience students have. It's a bit disturbing considering they will be the next generation of technology workers.
     
    Kernel.org Temporarily Down Posted Wednesday, December 19, 2001 @ 12:39 PM by mayhem
    Anyone trying to download from www.kernel.org will notice that it is currently down due to some hardware failure, you can still access the content from one of the many mirrors that are available.
     
    Slashdot: KOffice 1.1.1 Ships Posted Tuesday, December 18, 2001 @ 11:24 PM by mayhem
    The KOffice team has announced the release of KOffice 1.1.1. It's mainly a performance, printing fixes (particularly in KWord) and stability release, but see the ChangeLog for the full scoop. Lots of binary packages are listed in the announcement this time. The dot is suggesting this might be the last KOffice release before KDE 3.0, which is almost on track for a late-February stable release (the first beta is being released this week).
     
    Linux Development Kernel 2.5.1 Released Posted Monday, December 17, 2001 @ 1:27 PM by mayhem
    You can now download the 2.5.1 Development Kernel from here (tarball), changelog:
    final:
    - Al Viro: floppy_eject cleanup, mount cleanups
    - Jens Axboe: bio updates
    - Ingo Molnar: mempool fixes
    - GOTO Masanori: Fix O_DIRECT error handling
     
    Slashdot: What's up with Lindows? Posted Sunday, December 16, 2001 @ 3:39 AM by mayhem
    In this editorial at DesktopLinux.com, commentator Malcolm Dean questions whether Lindows is any sort of linux at all, and suggests that the world might actually be better off without yet another proprietary/commercial Windows wannabe (that runs Windows apps, no less). Dean asks how it is possible that, as Lindows.com founder Michael Robertson manages to claims in his latest newsletter, Lindows' ten million lines of code include a Windows Compatibility Module that somehow works better than anything else available today. "Has Mr. Robertson's team accomplished in a few months what took WINE years?" Where is the substance to back the hype? Besides, what if Lindows does succeed: do we really want to perpetuate the use of Windows software on a linux platform?
     
    Linux Kernel 2.4.17-rc1 Available Posted Friday, December 14, 2001 @ 12:46 PM by mayhem
    The first Release Candidate code for 2.4.17 is now available for download from here, changlog:
    rc1: 

    - Finish MODULE_LICENSE fixups for fs/nls (Mark Hymers)
    - Console race fix (Andrew Morton/Robert Love)
    - Configure.help update (Eric S. Raymond)
    - Correctly fix Direct IO bug (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
    - Turn off aacraid debugging (Alan Cox)
    - Added missing spinlocking in do_loopback() (Alexander Viro)
    - Added missing __devexit_p() in i82092
    pcmcia driver (Keith Owens)
    - ns83820 zerocopy bugfix (Benjamin LaHaise)
    - Fix VM problems where cache/buffers didn't get
    freed (me)
     
    Linux Kernel 2.5.1-pre11 Released Posted Friday, December 14, 2001 @ 12:29 AM by mayhem
    You can download 2.5.1-pre11 from here, changelog:
    pre11:
    - Jeff Garzik: no longer support old cards in tulip driver
    (see separate driver for old tulip chips)
    - Pat Mochel: driverfs/device model documentation
    - Ballabio Dario: update eata driver to new IO locking
    - Ingo Molnar: raid resync with new bio structures (much more efficient)
    and mempool_resize()
    - Jens Axboe: bio queue locking
     
    Slashdot: Athlon MP Reviewed Posted Thursday, December 13, 2001 @ 12:37 AM by mayhem
    At The Tech Report, there's a review of AMD's latest multiprocessor chip, the Athlon MP 1900+. Watching this thing smoke through Linux kernel complies is a beautiful thing. Combined with AMD's new 760MPX chipset, these chips could help usher in a new era of cheap dual-processor desktop systems.
     
    KDE.NEWS: Free Software Magazine Launches Posted Wednesday, December 12, 2001 @ 11:09 PM by mayhem
    Hong Feng, apparently a former chief editor with O'Reilly & Associates in Beijing, is preparing the first issue of the Free Software Magazine, a periodical intended to be by and for free software hackers. He is looking for some contributors to the inaugural issue (slated for January 2002) who can write on KDE development and/or Qt/Embedded development (hmmm, an article about Konqueror Embedded or KDevelop with its new cross-compiling support sounds like a sweet fit). A number of articles appear to be in the queue already, and a preface by RMS is already online. Guidelines are available here. Noteworthy are that you can base a submission on something previously published, so long as you (or someone submitting with you) retain the copyright, and that the submission should be under some Open Publication license. The deadline for submissions is December 20, so now's the time to get involved.
     
    LinuxToday Community: Linux Charity Christmas Party Posted Wednesday, December 12, 2001 @ 10:58 PM by mayhem
    There will be a Linux charity Christmas Party next week in Toronto, Canada.

    Location: Swiss Chalet, Front Street, Toronto (a short walk west of Union Station)
    Date: Monday, December 17, 2001
    Time: 6:30-9:00
    Charity: CHUM-CITY Christmas Wish

    Details are at: http://www.vaxxine.com/pegasoft/xmas.html

    Give a kid a Christmas!
     
    Linux Kernel 2.5.1-pre10 Released Posted Wednesday, December 12, 2001 @ 10:40 PM by mayhem
    You can download 2.5.1-pre10 from here, changelog:
    pre10:
    - Jens Axboe: more bio stuff
    - Ingo Molnar: mempool for bio
    - Niibe Yutaka: Super-H update
     
    LinuxSecurity: New Vulnerability in OpenSSH Posted Tuesday, December 11, 2001 @ 10:53 PM by mayhem
    O'Reilly Network
    Posted By: Dave Wreski
    12/10/2001 20:54

    A new vulnerability in OpenSSH can, under some circumstances, be exploited by a local attacker to execute arbitrary code with the permissions of the root user. Exploiting this vulnerability requires that the "UseLogin" option be enabled, which most systems do not configure in the default installation. The vulnerability affects OpenSSH versions earlier than 3.0.2.

    Users should upgrade their OpenSSH packages to version 3.0.2 or newer as soon as possible. Systems configured with the "UseLogin" option enabled should disable this option until OpenSSH has been upgraded.

    Click here to go to this article.
     
    Linux Kernel 2.5.1-pre9 Released Posted Tuesday, December 11, 2001 @ 10:46 PM by mayhem
    You can download 2.5.1-pre9 from here, changelog:
    pre9:
    - Jeff Garzik: separate out handling of older tulip chips
    - Jens Axboe: more bio stuff
    - Anton Altaparmakov: NTFS 1.1.21 update
     
    Linux Kernel 2.4.17-pre8 Released Posted Tuesday, December 11, 2001 @ 2:49 PM by mayhem
    You can download the 2.4.17-pre8 patch from here, changelog:
    pre8:

    - ext3 quota fix (Neil Brown)
    - Add __devexit_p() to ISDN driver (Kai Germaschewski)
    - Declare missing function on fdomain.h (Eyal Lebedinsky)
    - Add Sony Vaio PCG-Z600NE to broken APM
    reporting blacklist (Kai Germaschewski)
    - ns83820 driver update (Benjamin LaHaise)
    - pas16 driver cleanup (Alan Cox)
    - disable console flush on secondary CPUs on
    IA64 (Andrew Morton)
    - fix typo on parport's ChangeLog (Tim Waugh)
    - fix use count for multiple queued requests on
    closed fd (Douglas Gilbert)
    - Check return value of get_user() on
    set_vesa_blanking (Jeff Garzik)
    - Remove asm/segment.h include from nbd (Jeff Garzik)
    - Guard sysrq.h against multiple inclusion (Jeff Garzik)
    - Minor PCI skeleton changes (Jeff Garzik)
    - Add via rhine MMIO to Configure.help (Jeff Garzik)
    - Jeff Garzik is not the via82cxxx driver
    maintainer anymore: "No time, no hardware". (Jeff Garzik)
    - Remove old tulip documentation (Jeff Garzik)
    - Avoid direct IO's "misunderstanding" of which
    block device it should use (Masanori Goto)
    - Remove mcheck_init() call from processor
    dependant code and put it in unified codepath (Dave Jones)
    - Netfilter bugfixes (Harald Welte)
     
    Linux Kernel Updates Posted Monday, December 10, 2001 @ 1:28 PM by mayhem
    You can download the 2.4.17-pre7 patch from here, changelog:
    pre7:

    - More USB updates (Greg KH)
    - Add missing checks on shmat() (Christoph Rohland)
    - ymfpci update (Pete Zaitcev)
    - Add aacraid driver (Alan Cox)
    - Actually apply some of the Alan's changes
    which were on pre6 changelog. (silly me)
    - Clean up t128 SCSI driver (Alan Cox)
    - Clean up dtc SCSI driver (Alan Cox)
    - Undo lcall patch from -pre6 (me)
    - More ISDN updates (Kai Germaschewski)
    You can download the 2.5.1-pre8 patch from here, changelog:
    pre8:
    - Greg KH: USB updates
    - Jens Axboe: more bio updates
    - Christoph Rohland: fix up proper shmat semantics
     
    Linux Kernel Updates Posted Saturday, December 8, 2001 @ 6:56 PM by mayhem
    You can download the 2.4.17-pre6 patch from here, changelog:
    pre6:

    - ISDN fixes (Kai Germaschewski)
    - Eicon driver updates (Kai Germaschewski)
    - ymfpci update (Pete Zaitcev)
    - Fix multithread coredump deadlock (Manfred Spraul)
    - Support /dev/kmem access to vmalloc space (Marc Boucher)
    - ext3 fixes/enhancements (Andrew Morton)
    - Add IT8172G driver to Config.in/Makefile (Giacomo Catenazzi)
    - Configure.help update (Eric S. Raymond)
    - Create __devexit_p() function and use that on
    drivers which need it to make it possible to
    use newer binutils (Keith Owens)
    - Make PCMCIA compile without PCI support (Paul Mackerras)
    - Use copy_user_highpage instead copy_highpage
    on COW path. (David S. Miller)
    - Cacheline align some more performance
    critical spinlocks (Anton Blanchard)
    - sonypi driver update (Michael C.B. Ashley/Bob Donnelly)
    - direct render for some SiS cards (Torsten Duwe/Alan Cox)
    - full handling of the NFSv3 'jukebox' feature (Trond Myklebust)
    - NFS performance improvements (Trond Myklebust)
    - More parport fixes (Tim Waugh)
    - Fix lots of core NCR5380 bugs (Alan Cox)
    - NCR5380/PAS driver update (Alan Cox)
    - Add aacraid to the SCSI list (Alan Cox)
    - fdomain driver fixes (Alan Cox)
    You can download the 2.5.1-pre7 patch from here, changelog:
    pre7:
    - Jens Axboe: more bio fixes/cleanups/breakage ;)
    - Al Viro: superblock cleanups, boot/root mounting.
     
    Linux Kernel 2.5.1-pre6 Released Posted Friday, December 7, 2001 @ 5:34 PM by mayhem
    Download from here, changelog:
    pre6:
    - Jens Axboe: more bio stuff
    - Coda compile fixes
    - Nathan Laredo: stradis driver update

    pre5:
    - Patrick Mochel: driver model infrastructure, part 1
    - Jens Axboe: more bio fixes, cleanups
    - Andrew Morton: release locking fixes
    - Al Viro: superblock/mount handling
    - Kai Germaschewski: AVM Fritz!Card ISDN driver
    - Christoph Hellwig: make cramfs SMP-safe.
     
    Linux Kernel 2.4.17-pre5 Released Posted Friday, December 7, 2001 @ 6:34 AM by mayhem
    You can download it from here, changelog:
    pre5:

    - 8139too fixes (Andreas Dilger)
    - sym53c8xx_2 update (Gerard Roudier)
    - loopback deadlock bugfix (Jan Kara)
    - Yet another devfs update (Richard Gooch)
    - Enable K7 SSE (John Clemens)
    - Make grab_cache_page return NULL instead
    ERR_PTR: callers expect NULL on failure (Christoph Hellwig)
    - Make ide-{disk-floppy} compile without
    PROCFS support (Robert Love)
    - Another ymfpci update (Pete Zaitcev)
    - indent NCR5380.{c,h}, g_NCR5380.{c,h}, plus
    NCR5380 fix (Alan Cox)
    - SPARC32/64 update (David S. Miller)
    - Fix atyfb warnings (David S. Miller)
    - Make bootmem init code correctly align
    bootmem data (David S. Miller)
    - Networking updates (David S. Miller)
    - Fix scanning luns > 7 on SCSI-3 devices (Michael Clark)
    - Add sparse lun hint for Chaparral G8324
    Fibre-SCSI controller (Michael Clark)
    - Really apply sg changes (me)
    - Parport updates (Tim Waugh)
    - ReiserFS updates (Vladimir V. Saveliev)
    - Make AGP code scan all kinds of devices:
    they are not always video ones (Alan Cox)
    - EXPORT_NO_SYMBOLS in floppy.c (Alan Cox)
    - Pentium IV Hyperthreading support (Alan Cox)
     
    Linux Kernel 2.4.17-pre4 Released Posted Thursday, December 6, 2001 @ 4:06 PM by mayhem
    You can download it from here, changelog follows:
    pre4:

    - Added missing tcp_diag.c and tcp_diag.h (me)

    pre3:

    - Enable ppro errata workaround (Dave Jones)
    - Update tmpfs documentation (Christoph Rohland)
    - Fritz!PCIv2 ISDN card support (Kai Germaschewski)
    - Really apply ymfpci changes (Pete Zaitcev)
    - USB update (Greg KH)
    - Adds detection of more eepro100 cards (Troy A. Griffitts)
    - Make ftruncate64() compliant with SuS (Andrew Morton)
    - ATI64 fb driver update (Geert Uytterhoeven)
    - Coda fixes (Jan Harkes)
    - devfs update (Richard Gooch)
    - Fix ad1848 breakage in -pre2 (Alan Cox)
    - Network updates (David S. Miller)
    - Add cramfs locking (Christoph Hellwig)
    - Move locking of page_table_lock on expand_stack
    before accessing any vma field (Manfred Spraul)
    - Make time monotonous with gettimeofday (Andi Kleen)
    - Add MODULE_LICENSE(GPL) to ide-tape.c (Mikael Pettersson)
    - Minor cs46xx ioctl fix (Thomas Woller)
     
    Unofficial OpenBSD 3.0 CD Images Posted Wednesday, December 5, 2001 @ 6:28 PM by mayhem
    For those of you that are looking for OpenBSD 3.0 CD ISO Images you can download them from http://dragon.ruuter.ee/soft/bsd/openbsd/, these are NOT the official images. There is a total of 3 CDS (Base, Packages and Packages2) to download, totalling just over 1GB.

    "ftp.fsn.hu's unofficial OpenBSD CDs:

    The images found in this directory are not the official CD images that can be ordered on www.openbsd.org/orders.html. If there's any problem with the image please mail the iso image maintainer about it, and not the OpenBSD project. Also, if you like OpenBSD please consider buying one of the official CDs which help fund the OpenBSD project.

    The OpenBSD CD images are maintained by bra@fsn.hu.
    Please mail me for any suggestions or bugreports."
     
    LinuxToday: Mandrake Linux 8.1 for IA64 Is Available Posted Tuesday, December 4, 2001 @ 7:01 PM by mayhem
    MandrakeSoft announces the immediate availability of Mandrake Linux 8.1 for Intel Itanium Architecture. The Itanium 64-bit architecture is a high-performance platform commonly used for servers and highly demanding business software, such as large database, ERM/CRM applications or advanced computing.

    More information available here.
     
    Slashdot: U.S. Playstation 2 Linux Hits the Streets. Posted Tuesday, December 4, 2001 @ 3:04 PM by mayhem
    The U.S. version of Playstation 2 Linux is getting ready to hit the streets. Here is a review of the first public beta. It really looks sweet and comes with a lot of nice hardware. I can't wait for it to start selling -- finally I will have a legit reason to buy a PS2.
     
    BSDToday: OpenBSD 3.0 Officially Released Posted Tuesday, December 4, 2001 @ 3:03 PM by mayhem
    The OpenBSD officially announced their release of OpenBSD 3.0 on Saturday. XFree86 is now at version 4.1.0, perl is 5.6.1 and sendmail at 8.12.1. This tenth release available on CD, includes several improvements and new features, such as:

  • Improved hardware support (http://www.OpenBSD.org/plat.html)
  • New sparc64 platform for UltraSPARC hardware.
  • alpha port supports more models and now uses ELF shared libraries.
  • Support for Apple Airport cards and other wireless cards supported by the wi(4) driver on the macppc port.
  • i386 PCI BIOS support improvements.
  • Support for I2O adapters including the Adaptec 2100S and 3200S RAID devices.
  • New packet filter with NAT support ("pf").
  • Modular system of authentication methods that supports Radius, password, Kerberos, and S/Key authentication as well as authentication via ActivCard, CRYPTOCard and SNK-004 token cards.
  • ALTQ (for bandwidth rate limiting and traffic scheduling) has been integrated into the base system and network device drivers.

    More information available here.
  •  
    nVidia Releases New Linux Drivers Posted Monday, December 3, 2001 @ 12:57 AM by mayhem
    Download the latest drivers from the nVidia Linux Drivers page.
    Release Highlights for 1.0-2313:

    * nForce 220D/420/420D Integrated GPU support (see products supported list)
    * OpenGL(R) 1.3 with NVIDIA extensions
    * Support for accelerated offscreen rendering via SGIX_pbuffer and SGIX_fbconfig extensions
    * Improved Viewperf and Quake performance
    * Enhanced mobile support
    * Improved AMD support
    * Performer mulit-threaded support
     
    Red Hat 7.2 Mini How-To Posted Sunday, December 2, 2001 @ 10:04 PM by mayhem
    For those of you who want to setup Red Hat 7.2 with the new 2.4.x Kernel line then we have the how-to for you, fat tony has written a guide to cover just about every step of the process, from setting up the machine, configuring your firewall to setting up your client machines. You can view it here.
     
    Linux Kernel Updates Released Posted Saturday, December 1, 2001 @ 12:24 PM by mayhem
    Download 2.4.17-pre2 from here, changelog:
    pre2:

    - Remove userland header from bonding driver (David S. Miller)
    - Create a SLAB for page tables on i386 (Christoph Hellwig)
    - Unregister devices at shaper unload time (David S. Miller)
    - Remove several unused variables from various
    places in the kernel (David S. Miller)
    - Fix slab code to not blindly trust cc_data():
    it may be not valid on some platforms (David S. Miller)
    - Fix RTC driver bug (David S. Miller)
    - SPARC 32/64 update (David S. Miller)
    - W9966 V4L driver update (Jakob Jemi)
    - ad1848 driver fixes (Alan Cox/Daniel T. Cobra)
    - PCMCIA update (David Hinds)
    - Fix PCMCIA problem with multiple PCI busses (Paul Mackerras)
    - Correctly free per-process signal struct (Dave McCracken)
    - IA64 PAL/signal headers cleanup (Nathan Myers)
    - ymfpci driver cleanup (Pete Zaitcev)
    - Change NLS "licenses" to be "GPL/BSD" instead
    only BSD. (Robert Love)
    - Fix serial module use count (Russell King)
    - Update sg to 3.1.22 (Douglas Gilbert)
    - ieee1394 update (Ben Collins)
    - ReiserFS fixes (Nikita Danilov)
    - Update ACPI documentantion (Patrick Mochel)
    - Smarter atime update (Andrew Morton)
    - Correctly mark ext2 sb as dirty and sync it (Andrew Morton)
    - IrDA update (Jean Tourrilhes)
    - Count locked buffers at
    balance_dirty_state(): Helps interactivity under
    heavy IO workloads (Andrew Morton)
    - USB update (Greg KH)
    - ide-scsi locking fix (Christoph Hellwig)
    Download 2.5.1-pre5 from here, changelog:
    pre5:
    - Patrick Mochel: driver model infrastructure, part 1
    - Jens Axboe: more bio fixes, cleanups
    - Andrew Morton: release locking fixes
    - Al Viro: superblock/mount handling
    - Kai Germaschewski: AVM Fritz!Card ISDN driver
    - Christoph Hellwig: make cramfs SMP-safe.