| Linux Kernel 3.0? Posted Monday, September 30, 2002 @ 9:38 AM by mayhem |
 A discussion on the Linux kernel mailing list between Linux creator Linus Torvalds, Linux guru Ingo Molnar, and a few others debated the name of the upcoming stable kernel release. The choices: 2.6 or 3.0. Evidently there's been enough improvements, most notably the VM, that they're leaning towards calling it 3.0... (Source: Slashdot) |
| IBM releases JFS for Linux v1.0.23 today Posted Sunday, September 29, 2002 @ 11:45 PM by mayhem |
 JFS for Linux version 1.0.23 has been released. It's IBM's journaled file system technology, currently used in IBM enterprise servers, and is designed for high-throughput server environments. IBM has contributed this technology to the Linux open source community with the hope that some or all of it will be useful in bringing the best of journaling capabilities to the Linux operating system. (Source: NewsForge) |
| Happy Anniversary: Linux Today Turns Four Posted Sunday, September 29, 2002 @ 11:42 PM by mayhem |
 Anniversaries on the Internet take a whole new meaning than those out in the real world. The constant flux of sites going and coming on a monthly basis is too large to effectively track. Then there is the phenomenon of "Internet years," which, like dog years, tend to skew perceived time. A year on the Internet is something like eight anywhere else. Thus I am very happy to announce the fourth anniversary here at Linux Today. Full press release is available here. (Source: Linux Today) |
| Distributed.net Forum IRC Logs Posted Sunday, September 29, 2002 @ 11:39 PM by mayhem |
 The distributed.net forum held up in SlashNET today has just finished! Lots of questions regarding stats, future projects and other subjects were answered. A log of the conversation is available here. Thanks to everybody who participated! (Source: Slashdot) |
| Windows 2000 Runs On Xbox Under Linux Posted Sunday, September 29, 2002 @ 1:11 AM by mayhem |
 Everybody's favorite Xbox hackers have got Linux running for roughly six weeks, and now it runs well enough to announce that Windows has been run inside Linux with common PC virtualization software. They even have a little video of it playing a MPEG 4 of The Matrix fullscreen! (Source: AusPCWorld) |
| China launches Linux "dragon chip", challenges Intel Posted Sunday, September 29, 2002 @ 1:08 AM by mayhem |
| The people's daily reports that China has built its first server chip which uses a localised form of Linux, and which it dubs the "Dragon Chip". The CPU was built and developed by the Computer Institution of the Chinese Academy of Science, and is part of its "Soaring Dragon" project to take advantage of the fact that it will be the second biggest semiconductor market in the world by 2010. The Dragon Chip, according to the report, is stable, reliable and a good performer for servers and for websites using servers. According to the article, the "Dragon Chip" is possibly faced with problems over intellectual property, although the newspaper claims that this doesn't necessarily follow. It cites Taiwanese company Via as able to make Intel compatible CPUs without breaching Intel's monopoly. But actually, this argument doesn't necessarily follow for the "Dragon Chip". By acquiring Cyrix intellectual property and patents, Via has X86 compatibility and during the 1990s, the battles over whether these chips infringed Intel's property rights were fought and won by the then Richardson-based company According to sources close to China's plans, its military requirements specifically avoid Microsoft software, which the generals believe to be a flawed system in a battle zone. Other sources tell us that China has also successfully built clones of the DEC, now Intel Alpha microprocessor. Full information is available here. (Source: AusPCWorld) |
| Linux Kernel 2.5.39 Now Available For Download Posted Sunday, September 29, 2002 @ 1:04 AM by mayhem |
| You can now download the 2.5.39 Linux Kernel from here, or any of the www.kernel.org mirrors here, full changelog information is available here. |
| AMD to deliver new Athlons on October 1st Posted Friday, September 27, 2002 @ 1:00 AM by mayhem |
 AMD IS SET launch some new-flavour Athlons on October 1st. The chipmaker will unveil its long-awaited 333MHz frontside bus in the 2700+ and 2800+ Athlon XPs, on that date, our sources tell us, pointing to a revival of the chip wars between AMD and Intel in the run-up to the pre-Christmas buying binge.And the buying binge this year is crucial to both companies as the past two years have been sorry ones for technology companies weeping at the feet of their bank managers. We expect also expect AMD to cut the price of its lower-grade Athlons following the launch of its new babies, possibly making the newly-introduced 2600+ the bargain chip to slip into Christmas stockings. OEMs may not have samples of the chip until a clear week after the "launch" date, which coincides with the launch of the Nforce 2 "chipset". We also expect a whole new round of battling over benchmarkers as thr chip companies each try to persuade a speed-obsessed public that theirs is the faster chip. Full information available here. (Source: AusPCWorld) |
| Linux Kernel 2.4.20-pre8 Now Available For Download Posted Friday, September 27, 2002 @ 12:56 AM by mayhem |
| You can now download the 2.4.20-pre8 Linux Kernel from here, or any of the www.kernel.org mirrors here, full changelog information is available here. |
| Bero Quits Red Hat Over Treatment of KDE Posted Thursday, September 26, 2002 @ 10:45 AM by mayhem |
 In an article on leaked release notes on Redhat 8.0 CNet also revealed that Bernhard Rosenkraenzer, known here on Slashdot as berorh, has quit over objections he has on what Redhat is doing to KDE in the new release. Bero says that the new version of KDE in Redhat 8.0 is going to be crippleware. I know I always found Bero's comments here on Slashdot helpful and insightful. His worries about what Redhat is doing to KDE for 8.0 have me rather concerned and thinking of switching distributions. (Source: Slashdot) |
| Mandrake 9.0 (Dolphin) Is Available Posted Thursday, September 26, 2002 @ 10:42 AM by mayhem |
 What else to say? I've tested the RCs and they were great... There are two very interesting links: the Press Release, and a very nice presentation. From the presentation: 'Affirming its leading position in the Linux desktop arena, Mandrake Linux 9.0 introduces many newly redesigned graphical desktops and configuration utilities. The famous "Mandrake touch" is evident throughout the many clean, attractive and friendly desktops to make everyday tasks easier for all users of a Mandrake system.' And apparently it's already LSB-1.2 certified! (Source: Slashdot) |
| FSF Issues GNU/Linux Name FAQ Posted Thursday, September 26, 2002 @ 2:22 AM by mayhem |
| The FSF has issued a FAQ about why they believe you should say "GNU/Linux". Surprisingly long. (Source: Slashdot) |
| New Linux Worm Found in the Wild Posted Thursday, September 26, 2002 @ 2:19 AM by mayhem |
 The worms, Slapper.B and Slapper.C, which exploits a known buffer overrun vulnerability in the Secure Sockets Layer 2.0 (SSLv2) handshake process has infected thousands of Web servers worldwide, according to Helsinki-based F-Secure Corp., a computer and network security company. (Source: Slashdot) |
| Radeon 9500 information leaked Posted Wednesday, September 25, 2002 @ 2:29 PM by mayhem |
 A few days back, someone suggested to me that the Radeon 9500 will be a DirectX 8.1 card and urged me to write a story about that. They've been digging up the street round here which disrupted my communications, but now is a better time to write about it as more information has leaked out of the pipes in the road. Mistakenly, Power Color, one of ATI's strongest partners, posted early information about the card that will be on the shelves for Christmas – the Radeon 9500, already pre-announced at the Radeon 9700 Pro launch. Of course, since it's based on the same R300 core, Radeon 9500 will have full support for DirectX 9. I just don't understand how people figured that this board will only support DirectX 8.1 Even we were expecting that ATI would cripple the number of pipelines from eight to four. But this will not happen, as someone decided that the core will be the same. So this card will have eight pipelines and the chip will be no different than the current Radeon 9700 Pro. Full information available here. (Source: AusPCWorld) |
| Professional PHP4 XML Posted Wednesday, September 25, 2002 @ 9:28 AM by mayhem |
 Looking across the XML bookshelf today, it's easy to see many books discussing XML in a generic manner, or more commonly how to utilize XML within Java, .NET and Perl. Moreover, despite the broad based support that PHP has for XML, there has been no book that tackled the complexities and best practices, and at the same time offered a comprehensive resource to the XML-based APIs -- at least not until now. Read on for more about the best selling Professional PHP4 XML.Full review is available here. (Source: Slashdot) |
| XBox Design Changes, Bad News For Mod Chips Posted Tuesday, September 24, 2002 @ 4:16 PM by mayhem |
| Microsoft has made small changes to its Xbox hardware in an effort to "increase security and reduce overall costs". The new configuration was first noticed here in Australia by Xbox hackers who found changes were preventing the popular mod chips from working. Gamespot reported "An Australian hobbyist posting on the Xbox Hacker site said he tried all currently available mod chips on the new Xbox configuration and none worked". Spokeswoman for Microsoft Xbox, Molly O'Donnell, has confirmed the changes and said "They (Microsoft's Xbox hardware team) know the hacker stuff that's out there, and they're always trying to increase security". Apparently the Xbox manafacturing plant in China is using the new design, with the plant in Mexico making the change soon. On a side note, this could have major affects on the XBox Linux Project. |
| Linux Firewall on out of date hardware: kernel 2.2 or 2.4? Posted Tuesday, September 24, 2002 @ 9:16 AM by mayhem |
| bogus writes "An old PC can be the ideal platform to realize a network firewall based on Linux. The system configuration needs a bit of attention but it's not a difficult task to fulfill. The only doubt concerns which kernel version better suits our needs. The 2.2 version is said to be less memory consuming, but has a less solid filesystem and lacks other recent features. What's the right choice then? Article: http://www.portazero.info/modules.php?name=Sections&sop=viewarticle&artid=41" |
| Mandrake Linux 9.0 Release Candidate 3 Available Posted Friday, September 20, 2002 @ 1:26 AM by mayhem |
| MandrakeSoft is making public a third Release Candidate of the upcoming Mandrake Linux 9.0. This RC3 is likely to hardly differ from the final version and should be considered as an ultimate try before the definitive adoption of your next operating system... More information can be found here. (Source: Linux Today) |
| Unified Linux desktop: good, bad or ugly? Posted Friday, September 20, 2002 @ 1:23 AM by mayhem |
| Red Hat has decided to configure both desktop environments - KDE and GNOME - which it ships with the next version of its Linux distribution to look and behave in similar fashion. While the company has its own logic for doing this - argued at length by desktop team member Owen Taylor - the decision may annoy those users who long ago settled for one of the two desktops as a default. Variety has long been one of the things which Linux users like and this trend towards homogeneity could backfire. Full article can be found here. (Source: NewsForge) |
| Is Linux coming to a desktop near you? Posted Friday, September 20, 2002 @ 1:22 AM by mayhem |
| This week the rumour mills are overflowing with open source stories. Whether it be news of Red Hat's latest software release, information on Sun's plans to grab desktop share with Linux or details of IBM's latest tie up to offer Linux across its server platforms, Open Source is certainly in the news. Full article can be found here. (Source: NewsForge) |
| Linux Kernel 2.5.36 Now Available For Download Posted Wednesday, September 18, 2002 @ 10:07 PM by mayhem |
| You can now download the 2.5.36 Linux Kernel from here, or any of the www.kernel.org mirrors here, full changelog information is available here. |
| LindowsOS 2.0 Now Available Posted Wednesday, September 18, 2002 @ 8:18 PM by mayhem |
 The best version of LindowsOS ever has just been released to our Insiders, LindowsOS Version 2.0, and we couldn't be more excited!Over the last year, we've been working with hundreds of our Insiders to find out all the items that have been preventing Linux from gaining widespread adoption on the desktop. Much of this valuable input has gone into 2.0, and it shows. LindowsOS 2.0 offers a whole new interface and user experience with a tremendous amount of optimized functionality. LindowsOS is designed to work better in every business and home. (If you don't have LindowsOS yet, sign up as an Insider and you'll be able to immediately download it from our high-speed servers or order it on CD. If you’re already a member, check your “my.lindows” account for the latest version.) New Features and Improvements: - New Interface - Printing support - Laptop support - Improved Networking - Better Mail, Better Browser - Desktop Controls - Click-N-Run Click to downloading your copy today. |
| New SuSE Linux 8.1 Available on October 7th Posted Wednesday, September 18, 2002 @ 10:32 AM by mayhem |
 Today, SuSE Linux has announced the availability of the latest version of SuSE Linux for October 7th. Blending operating system and applications, SuSE's system assistant, YaST2 (Yet another Setup Tool), is the core element and administration center of this comprehensive package for first-time and experienced Linux users. YaST2 now provides a module for the configuration of special hardware components such as joysticks. Even output devices such as touch screens, vertical LCDs, 3D solutions, and multi-head systems can be configured easily with SaX2 (SuSE advanced X configuration). Full press release is available here. (Source: Linux Today) |
| Red Hat 8.0 to launch this month with enhanced Linux desktop Posted Wednesday, September 18, 2002 @ 10:27 AM by mayhem |
| As Sun Microsystems prepares to debut its next Sun ONE Desktop on Linux later this week, the leading Linux company will show a more aggressive desktop bid with Red Hat Linux 8.0. Red Hat 8.0, which is code-named Limbo, will offer a spruced-up graphical user interface based on GNOME 2.0 with themes, improved buttons, scroll bars and menus, and updated applications including enhanced versions of the Mozilla 1.1 browser, Nautilus file manager, Open Office office suite and a new Evolution e-mail client. Full information is available here. (Source: NewsForge) |
| MandrakeSoft announces world's densest 1U rack server Posted Wednesday, September 18, 2002 @ 10:25 AM by mayhem |
| Storever and MandrakeSoft announced today a new world record of density for 1U rack servers. The Storever OpenChassis allows to host 7 (seven) x86 compatible OpenBrick micro-servers in 1U. Thanks to OpenChassis, the raw cost of dedicated hosting of a professional dynamic site on a broadband 100 Mbps connection is now less than 7 EUR per month and even less in USD. Full information is available here. (Source: NewsForge) |
| XFS merged in Linux 2.5 Posted Wednesday, September 18, 2002 @ 10:20 AM by mayhem |
| According to this notice, the XFS journaling file system has been merged into Linus bitkeeper tree, to show up in 2.5.36. (Source: Slashdot) |
| ATI Radeon 9700 Dissected Posted Tuesday, September 17, 2002 @ 6:55 PM by mayhem |
| The guys who laid out the future of real-time graphics a while back have now dissected ATI's Radeon 9700 chip. Their analysis breaks down performance into multiple components--fill rate, occlusion detection, pixel shaders, vertex shaders, antialiasing--and tests each one synthetically before moving on to the usual application tests like SPECviewperf and UT 2003. You can see exactly how this chip advances the state of the art in graphics, piece by piece. Interesting stuff. (Source: Slashdot) |
| chkrootkit 0.37 is now available! Posted Tuesday, September 17, 2002 @ 6:52 PM by mayhem |
| For those Linux/BSD sysadmins who have been too lazy to patch their Apache servers via security updates available months ago ("BAD Admin!" -- rubs admin's nose in it), help is at hand. The new version of chkrootk detects Scalper (FreeBSD/Apache chunked encoding worm) and Slapper (Apache/mod_ssl Worm). (Source: NewsForge) |
| Linux Kernel 2.2.22 Now Available For Download Posted Tuesday, September 17, 2002 @ 6:48 PM by mayhem |
| You can now download the 2.2.22 Linux Kernel from here, or any of the www.kernel.org mirrors here, full changelog information is available here. |
| Red Hat Explains Stance on KDE/Gnome Desktop Changes Posted Tuesday, September 17, 2002 @ 2:48 PM by mayhem |
| A lot of people are angry over the changes RedHat has done to KDE and Gnome in their latest beta, code-named Null. They have basically "nullified" all the default themes and settings with which each desktop attempts to posture for more users. Instead, there is now a beautiful unified look. To explain RedHat's stance, Owen Taylor writes this piece here. I hope that RedHat successfully forces both Gnome and KDE to become compatible with one another which would result in the creation of a single desktop. This would be the greatest gift to the Linux world. (Source: Slashdot) |
| ATi acknowledges Radeon 9700 AGP 8x problem Posted Tuesday, September 17, 2002 @ 10:38 AM by mayhem |
| One of our readers sent me a link to the Rage3D forums where they say that ATi are fully aware of the Radeon 9700’s AGP 8x problem and has a solution for those of you experiencing problems with their new graphics cards after what we reported on the problem yesterday a couple of posts below. According to ATI, they are now receiving and testing these 8X AGP boards. They are ALSO finding the 9700 does not work at all or works intermittently at best on these boards. Engineering indicated most of the boards already shipped have this problem. Solution: A new BIOS and some board revisions are now available that fix this problem. Call ATI Customer Service for help with the issue. At present, they will ship a replacement board that WILL work in SiS and VIA 8X, but they are also considering a BIOS flash solution for problem boards. Customer Service and Engineering deserve a 10-1/2 for their wonderful handling of this issue. They are very concerned that it be corrected quickly. They also shared that most of their 8X validation testing was done with Intel's unreleased 8X chipset and that they are just now receiving shipping versions of the SiS and VIA 8X chipsets. More information at the Rage3D Forums. (Source: TweakTown) |
| Linux Kernel 2.5.35 Now Available For Download Posted Monday, September 16, 2002 @ 11:01 PM by mayhem |
| You can now download the 2.5.35 Linux Kernel from here, or any of the www.kernel.org mirrors here, full changelog information is available here. |
| Red Hat, IBM Expand Linux Deal Posted Monday, September 16, 2002 @ 11:00 PM by mayhem |
| From ZDNet "Red Hat and IBM have expanded a partnership, with Red Hat bringing its top-end version of Linux to all four of IBM's server lines and with IBM's services and software divisions supporting Red Hat's software." The NYTimes also has a version of the story, as does the News-Observer. (Source: Slashdot) |
| GNOME 2.0.2 Desktop and Developer Platform Released Posted Monday, September 16, 2002 @ 12:14 PM by mayhem |
 The GNOME Project is pleased to announce the immediate availability of theGNOME 2.0.2 Desktop and Developer Platform! The GNOME 2.0.x Desktop and Developer Platform releases are devoted to bugfixes, translations, user interface consistency, and general polish of our major 2.0 release. In GNOME 2.0.2, you'll see the results of continued performance and stability work, plus plenty of bug fixes: * 318 total GNOME2 bugs marked fixed More information is available here. (Source: Linux Today) |
| Linux Worm Creating "Attack Network" Posted Monday, September 16, 2002 @ 9:37 AM by mayhem |
| In what could be a case of the free pot calling the expensive kettle black, C|Net is reporting that a new Linux worm is "creating a rogue peer-to-peer network that has been used to attack other computers with a flood of data" and has already infected at least 3,500 servers. Seems it is true...the security of your web server depends on how effective you are at keeping up to date on patches, no matter if you are running Windows or Linux. (Source: Slashdot) |
| Linux Kernel 2.4.20-pre7 Now Available For Download Posted Sunday, September 15, 2002 @ 2:01 PM by mayhem |
| You can now download the 2.4.20-pre7 Linux Kernel from here, or any of the www.kernel.org mirrors here, full changelog information is available here. |
| Linux Kernel 2.2.22-rc3 Now Available For Download Posted Sunday, September 15, 2002 @ 1:59 PM by mayhem |
| You can now download the 2.2.22-rc3 Linux Kernel from here, or any of the www.kernel.org mirrors here, full changelog information is un-available at the moment. |
| AMD Makes 10-Nanometer Transistor Posted Thursday, September 12, 2002 @ 11:23 AM by mayhem |
| Reuters is reporting that AMD are about to reveal their smallest double-gate transistor to date. From the article: 'The gate of the transistor, across which electrical current flows to turn the switch on, measures 10 nanometers, or 10 billionths of a meter.' The article goes on to suggest that this may lead to a 1 billion transistor chip. (Source: Slashdot) |
| Inhouse ATi Radeon 9700 Pro Mini Review Posted Thursday, September 12, 2002 @ 9:53 AM by mayhem |
| We had a chance yesterday to review ATi's latest and greatest creation the Radeon 9700 Pro graphics card, within minutes of receiving delivery of the cards we had a system benchmarking like crazy. Overall the card scored nicely in a Pentium 4 2.4 @ 2.72, an AMD Athlon XP1800+ @ 1.6GHz and although still having a bottleneck, scored nicely in a Dual AMD XP1700+ System. Our little mini review can be found here: http://www.linuxathome.net/reviews/ati_radeon_9700_pro.php |
| The Linux Test Project (LTP) ltp-20020910 released Posted Wednesday, September 11, 2002 @ 11:53 AM by mayhem |
| The Linux Test Project test suite LTP-20020910.tgz has been released. Visit our website (http://ltp.sourceforge.net) to download the latest version of the testsuite, and for information on test results on pre-releases, release candidates & stable releases of the kernel. There is also a list of test cases that are expected to fail, please find the list at http://ltp.sourceforge.net/expected-errors.php. More information is available here. (Source: NewsForge) |
| Inside Ximian Posted Wednesday, September 11, 2002 @ 11:51 AM by mayhem |
 Linux and Main is running a story of a visit to Ximian headquarters and a talk with Nat Friedman, Miguel de Icaza, and Jon Perr about GNOME2, Ximian 2, and getting Linux onto the corporate desktop. Interesting and funny, with lots of details about the place and the guys. (Source: Slashdot) |
| Mandrake Linux 9.0 RC2 Posted Wednesday, September 11, 2002 @ 11:48 AM by mayhem |
| The Mandrake Group has released Linux RC2 to the public RC-2 Change Log: here Download CD-1: here - Download CD-2: here - Download CD-3: here FTP-Download: ftp://mirrors.secsup.org/pub/linux/mandrake/Mandrake-iso/i586/ (Source: AusPCWorld) |
| Linux Kernel 2.5.34 Now Available For Download Posted Wednesday, September 11, 2002 @ 12:13 AM by mayhem |
| You can now download the 2.5.34 Linux Kernel from here, or any of the www.kernel.org mirrors here, full changelog information is available here. |
| TransGaming WineX 2.1 Posted Tuesday, September 10, 2002 @ 4:54 PM by mayhem |
 Whenever the discussion of Linux vs. Microsoft surfaces, one of the historical arguments is about working with Word and Excel format documents. Packages like StarOffice and its freeware sibling, OpenOffice, have pretty much ended that argument. Bit by bit, the reasons for sticking with Microsoft are evaporating. One of the disadvantages of Linux, however, is still its inability to play many favorite games. This isn't to say that there aren't tons of games available under Linux; albeit most are non-commercial. The hot new games--the Warcrafts and Diablos of the world that use DirectX--have been problematic. However, TransGaming Technologies Inc. of Ottawa, Ontario has created a solution called WineX. Its portability product makes it possible for popular Windows games to run under Linux, but they aren't just doing it for the gamers. TransGaming is working with game developers to speed cross-platform deployment of hot new titles by providing the magic necessary to run under Linux without spending the months or years required to create such a game. To get your copy of WineX, start by visiting www.transgaming.com and registering. TransGaming offers its pre-compiled WineX packages by subscription. The cost is $5.00 per month with a minimum of three months. In exchange, you get access to a pre-packaged product, technical support, and participation on the company forums. Furthermore, you are granted a vote that can help influence the direction of the company. I got out my credit card, signed on, and a few minutes later, I had my WineX binaries... Complete story is available here. (Source: Linux Today) |
| Linux Outpacing Macintosh On Desktops Posted Tuesday, September 10, 2002 @ 4:51 PM by mayhem |
| An anonymous reader points out this article in the International Herald Tribune about corporate acceptance of computers running GNU/Linux, which includes this snippet: "Linux is already outpacing Macintosh on desktops: "Dan Kusnetzky, an analyst for International Data Corp., said Linux had a 3.9 percent share of desktops worldwide, outpacing Macintosh's 3.1 percent." The article does not specify from where Kuznetsky draws either figure, but can it be true that Linux systems currently outnumber Macintoshes? (Source: Slashdot) |
| SGI Demos 64-Proc Linux Box Posted Tuesday, September 10, 2002 @ 12:23 PM by mayhem |
| Details are scarce, but SGI announced this morning that their prototype Itanium 2 system has demonstrated more than 120 GB/s to and from main memory on the STREAM TRIAD benchmark, which is the fourth best result in the world. For comparison, the Cray C90 sustains 105 GB/s, while an even larger Sun Fire 15K clocks a measly 55 GB/s. The interesting part? The system wasn't running IRIX, SGI's proprietary version of UNIX. It was running Linux. More information on STREAM TRIAD, including results from other systems, is available here. The system, incidentally, was an Origin 3800 straight out of manufacturing equipped with Itanium 2 processor modules. SGI will start selling the systems early next year. (Source: Slashdot) |
| Libranet 2.7 Released Posted Tuesday, September 10, 2002 @ 12:51 AM by mayhem |
| Libranet is based on Debian's stable woody release with upgrades to major packages like KDE and the addition of Libranet's custom installer, Libranet Adminmenu, desktop configuration and the excellent OpenOffice suite. Libranet 2.7 has improved hardware detection and disk setup which makes setting up most hardware transparent. Following the install the user will find a fully operational system which needs little attention. The system is fast and stable and can be used with confidence in either a home or professional environment. The OpenOffice suite helps make using Libranet as a commercial desktop a viable alternative. The 2 CD set includes a large quantity of useful applications software like Galeon and GIMP. Libranet's Adminmenu helps users perform system tasks easily. Included is the 2.4.19 Linux Kernel, KDE 3, GNOME 2 and XFree86 4.2. Users will find excellent and up to date software and window managers installed automatically on their desktop. The full press release is available here. (Source: Linux Today) |
| Mandrake Linux 9.0 Release Candidate 2 Has Arrived Posted Tuesday, September 10, 2002 @ 12:49 AM by mayhem |
| MandrakeSoft is pleased to announce the immediate availability of the second Release Candidate of the upcoming Mandrake Linux 9.0. This RC2 is the last chance to influence 9.0's development by contributing your reports and suggestions. For this final testing session, the development team requests that beta testers focus on recent improvements to the installation "Upgrade" mode. More information and links are available here. (Source: Linux Today) |
| UT 2003 Client For Linux? Posted Tuesday, September 10, 2002 @ 12:44 AM by mayhem |
| Although not officially supported, there is a very interesting post here from Mark Rein (VP of Marketing for Epic Games) that says UT 2003 client *already* runs on linux, and that it *might* be released close after the windows client. Let's all support Epic on this... Background: Back in April, on an IRC chat, Mark Rein stated that a linux server will happen, but the chance of linux and mac clients were a qualified "likely". He stated something similar in a chat in August. All the chat logs are interesting reads... (Source: Slashdot) |
| Ogg beats MP3 And The Rest In Listening Test Posted Monday, September 9, 2002 @ 11:02 PM by mayhem |
 The Ogg Vorbis format came out far ahead of MP3, MP3Pro, RealAudio Surround, and Windows Media 9 Beta in a comparison of different audio formats by Germany's respected computer magazine c't. More than 6,000 people took part in the test. Heise says Ogg's dominance was most pronounced with 64 kBit/sec samples; the full magazine article (out on Monday) mentions that in pre-tests, some people actually mistook the 128 kBit/sec Ogg samples for the uncoded version. Let's hear it for those strangely named open source file formats! (Source: Slashdot) |
| Php 4.2.3 Download Posted Monday, September 9, 2002 @ 10:53 PM by mayhem |
| Some New PHP Updates. Download: PHP 4.2.3 zip package Download: PHP 4.2.3 installer They urge everybody to Upgrade. Reason "MANY BUG FIXES" Version number: 4.2.3 Operating Systems: Windows 2000, Windows 9x, Windows NT, Windows XP Download: http://nl.php.net/downloads.php (Source: AusPCWorld) |
| FreeBSD Upcoming 4.7 Release Posted Monday, September 9, 2002 @ 4:17 PM by mayhem |
 Murray Stokely, the FreeBSD release manager, announced that the -stable tree has been frozen in preparation for the upcoming release of FreeBSD 4.7, scheduled to be available on October 1st. He provided a link to "a small testing guide that highlights some of the recent changes. This guide is only a starting point, and the full release notes provide a better overall picture of whats new in this release".4.7 includes quite a few improvements to PPP, updates to the 'ahc' and 'ahd' Adaptec SCSI device drivers, and several ATA fixes. Packages that have been updated included IPFilter (v3.4.29), Sendmail (v8.12.6) and XFree86 (4.2.1). (Source: KernelTrap) |
| The GNU Privacy Handbook Posted Monday, September 9, 2002 @ 11:41 AM by mayhem |
| GnuPG uses public-key cryptography so that users may communicate securely. In a public-key system, each user has a pair of keys consisting of a private key and a public key. A user's private key is kept secret; it need never be revealed. The public key may be given to anyone with whom the user wants to communicate. GnuPG uses a somewhat more sophisticated scheme in which a user has a primary keypair and then zero or more additional subordinate keypairs. The primary and subordinate keypairs are bundled to facilitate key management and the bundle can often be considered simply as one keypair. Article is available here. (Source: Linux.com) |
| Netscape 7.0 Brings Mozilla to the Masses Posted Monday, September 9, 2002 @ 11:38 AM by mayhem |
 All but the Netscape name has taken a giant leap forward in Version 7.0. Just released as a free download, Netscape 7.0 packages the open-source, developer-oriented Mozilla browser into a consumer-friendly package, complete with shopping links, Net2Phone, Web radio, and integrated AIM with an option to display your AIM buddy list in the browser. Fortunately, you can turn off the shopping links, bookmarks, and other clutter and turn Netscape into a sleek, fast, friendly browser that may make you consider switching from Microsoft Internet Explorer as your default browsing tool. Complete story is available here. (Source: Linux Today) |
| Xbox Linux Project Releases SuSE 8.0 Howto Posted Monday, September 9, 2002 @ 11:34 AM by mayhem |
| The Xbox Linux Project has now produced a tutorial on installing SuSE 8.0 on an Xbox, and from the look of it, although getting SuSE running is something of a triumph, the Project still has a way to go before it can be said to have turned the Xbox into a cheap, low-hassle Linux client. First you need a mod chip, the XBE bootloader and patched SuSE kernel downloaded from the Project, a SuSE nforce driver from the nVidia site, the correct USB adapter for the Xbox and (easy-peasy this bit) a USB keyboard. Oh, and a SuSE 8.0 compatible PC. Then it's musical cables. The procedure used is described here, and is a 'cross-install' involving hot-swapping IDE cables on the Xbox and the PC, fooling the right device at the right moment until you have SuSE squatting on the Xbox HD. The instructions seem pretty clear, and the issues described at the end fairly minor (YaST crashing it is a bit of a pain, although probably to be expected)... Complete story is available here. (Source: Linux Today) |
| Linux Hammer Programmers Wait for Nvidia Driver Code Posted Monday, September 9, 2002 @ 11:32 AM by mayhem |
 Conversations on the X86-64 mailing list indicate that Nvidia has yet to make 64-bit source code available for its products for the Hammer, though there's little doubt that the graphics company will release it, sooner or later. A note from Marco Ippolito, who works for Multigen, an AMD partner, also indicates that full speed, unlocked Hammers are also in the wild. Will Nvidia release the code for everyone to see? Probably not, we fear... Complete story is available here. (Source: Linux Today) |
| Opera 7 Sneak Peek Posted Monday, September 9, 2002 @ 11:30 AM by mayhem |
 The Opera Web browser client is getting an overhaul, and officials are putting the finishing touches on an upgrade that is sure to please both users and Web developers. If Opera has one knock against it, it would be the software's inability to accommodate dynamic content. That's all going to change with the latest version of Opera, according to Hakon Lie, the company's CTO, who oversaw the top-to-bottom redesign of the core code. The overhaul was extensive enough to warrant its own name: Project Presto. Scheduled for public download as a finished product by the end of the year, Opera 7 has been going through rigorous internal beta testing and will be sent out as a beta soon, possibly by the end of next month... Complete story is available here. (Source: Linux Today) |
| New Linux Kernel Configuration System Posted Monday, September 9, 2002 @ 11:26 AM by mayhem |
| When Eric S. Raymond tried to replace the Linux kernel's configuration system with "something better", he got booed off the stage. Now Roman Zippel is bravely having his own go at it. Here's an interview with Roman and a look at his new configuration system, aimed for inclusion into the 2.5 development kernel. Also, find some screenshots of his new graphical configuration frontend." (Source: Slashdot) |
| Linux Backups Made Easy Posted Sunday, September 8, 2002 @ 8:39 AM by mayhem |
| A colleague of mine has written a great tutorial on how to use rsync to create automatic "snapshot-style" backups. Nothing is required except for a simple script, although it is thus not necessarily suitable for data-center applications. Please try to be gentle on his server: it is the $80 computer that he mentions in the tutorial. Perhaps try the Google cache." (Source: Slashdot) |
| Linux Replacing Windows More Than Unix Posted Friday, September 6, 2002 @ 9:36 AM by mayhem |
| Over the past couple years, we've been hearing several Linux migration stories, but they have been mostly migration from proprietary Unix systems rather than from Windows. Well, this story on News.com indicates otherwise: of the migrations, 24% were from Unix, but 31% were from Windows. Sounds promising. (Source: Slashdot) |
| Looking At The Linux Kernel Posted Friday, September 6, 2002 @ 1:55 AM by mayhem |
| Some folks from The Boston Consulting Group with OSDN have been working on creating a visual representation of the Linux Kernel. It's been put online, complete with instructions with how to read it, and how to make sense of the information." There's also some new code checked into the Free Code Graphing Project, which enabled this to project to come together (look at CVS) - let's see if we can get people to do it with things like *BSD, Apache and some of the other great projects out there. This is a continuation with the other work being done, like the OSS demographic work. (Note: Slashdot is part of OSDN.) (Source: Slashdot) |
| New Linux-based PVR from Sony: Cocoon Posted Thursday, September 5, 2002 @ 11:46 AM by mayhem |
| Linux based set-top box being offered by Sony that has a broadband internet connection and may offer the option of being programmed from a cell phone. Japan-only for now. There's an article in Japanese with assorted photos and screenshots. (Source: Slashdot) |
| Avocent Announces New All-In-One KVM Switch Posted Thursday, September 5, 2002 @ 9:10 AM by mayhem |
| Avocent Corporation announced AutoView1000R and 2000R, two new all-in-one keyboard, video and mouse (KVM) switches that expand Avocent's proven AutoView product line for local and remote control of multiple servers from any location. These new switches combine analog connections and Avocent's digital KVM OVER IP switching technology - all in one switch. AVWorks software is bundled with each switch at no extra charge, providing customers with an intuitive interface for secure CLICK and CONNECT (tm) access to any server. Avocent's AutoView1000R and 2000R are designed for businesses that need to consolidate control of multiple servers, and extend secure access and control to users who are outside of the data center or located in remote offices. The AutoView1000R has an estimated street price (U.S.) of $3199 and the AutoView2000R is $4199. |
| PHP 4.2.3 RC2 Released Today Posted Wednesday, September 4, 2002 @ 12:53 PM by mayhem |
| This is just an other release candidate of PHP 4.2.3, but some who are interested in testing this version for bugs, etc. MySQL 4.0.3 MySQL 4.0.3-alpha has been released today. Download PHP 4.2.3 RC2 or Download MySQL 4.0.3. (Source: AusPCWorld) |
| Global DiVX Player 1.9.9 Posted Wednesday, September 4, 2002 @ 12:52 PM by mayhem |
 Consuming less memory and CPU Cycles than Windows Media player, this player provides a better looking, familiar interface to watch movies on your Windows PC. Designed Originally for DiVX Movies, now supports VCD, MPEG, AVI, WMV, and ASF Video.Featuring Scalable video playback, fullscreen movie playback, and all the features that media player provides. Download Global DiVX Player 1.9.9. (Source: AusPCWorld) |
| Windows XP Service Pack I released Posted Wednesday, September 4, 2002 @ 2:04 AM by mayhem |
 Here are the links for the Windows XP Service Pack I from the Microsoft Servers:Download WinXP SP1 English (133MB) Download WinXP SP1 German (133MB) The link goes to the Microsoft Premier Support Site but it is not password protected so than anybody can download it officially. Just a friendly reminder to check this news post before you install, might save you some headache. (Source: AusPCWorld) |
| Linux Kernel 2.2.22-rc2 Now Available For Download Posted Wednesday, September 4, 2002 @ 1:55 AM by mayhem |
| You can now download the 2.2.22-rc2 Linux Kernel from here, or any of the www.kernel.org mirrors here, full changelog information is un-available at the moment. |
| Barton's with 512k L2 and 333mhz FSB... Confirmed! Posted Tuesday, September 3, 2002 @ 12:58 PM by mayhem |
| We're not sure that we, the dual CPU crowd, will ever see a 333mhz FSB version of the Athlon MP, but it sure is nice to think about. Even better would be a "Barton" based Athlon MP with 333mhz FSB and 512k L2 cache. As usual, the single CPU guys will get just that in the form of an all new Athlon XP. How long until we actually see them though? How about October of this year! The Inquirer has the scoop. And it gives details of the 2700+, which uses a Thoroughbred core using the 333MHz FSB and a 256K cache. While the Barton cores, at 2800+ and 3000+, will also use the 333MHz FSB and have 512K of level two cache. The 333MHz feasibility study finished on August the 19th, while there will be Thoroughbred 333MHz samples for qualification during this month. Its validation testing for motherboards also begins this month, while volume Thoroughbred 333MHz availability is slated for October. I am contacting AMD to see what/if/when we'll be seeing any of this trickle down to the 2P stuff, but other than faster MPs based on the "Barton" core, I'm not holding my breath. I can't see AMD launching a new SMP enabled chipset for the Athlon MP this close to the Hammer launch, but it's nice to dream, right? (Source: 2CPU) |
| Xbox Runs X, KDE, Gnome, StarOffice and Tuxracer Posted Tuesday, September 3, 2002 @ 10:17 AM by mayhem |
| Today in the the xbox-linux mailinglist: "I'm typing this into KMail using a USB keybaord (and a USB mouse) in front of the TV connected to the Xbox. ... and even StarOffice works quite fine. TuxRacer also runs (look at the new screenhots on the website), but only with one frame per second. Check out screenshots here." (Source: Slashdot) |
| Mandrake Linux 9.0 RC1 Posted Monday, September 2, 2002 @ 5:01 PM by mayhem |
| Update: Mandrake Linux realease 9.0 RC1, No changelog available. Direct downloads: CD1, CD2, CD3 (Source: AusPCWorld) |
| MySQL 4.0.3 beta Posted Monday, September 2, 2002 @ 9:54 AM by mayhem |
 MySQL 4.0.3-beta, the world's most popular Open Source Database, has been released and is now available in source and binary form for a number of platforms from our download pages at http://www.mysql.com/downloads/ and mirror sites. This is the first release of the current 4.0 development tree which has been labelled "beta". This means, that we will not add any new features to this code base, but rather focus on stabilizing this release. All new development efforts are now focused on the upcoming 4.1 version. Also please see http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/Which_version.html for more info about our versioning scheme. Version: 4.0.3 beta Operating Systems: AIX, FreeBSD, HPUX, Irix, Linux, Linux x86, MacOS X, Solaris, Windows 2000, Windows 9x, Windows NT, Windows XP. You can download the MySQL 4.0.3 beta from here. (Source: AusPCWorld) |
| Linux Kernel 2.5.33 Now Available For Download Posted Monday, September 2, 2002 @ 9:45 AM by mayhem |
| You can now download the 2.5.33 Linux Kernel from here, or any of the www.kernel.org mirrors here, full changelog information is available here. |