October 2001

Poll Updated Posted Wednesday, October 31, 2001 @ 12:14 PM by mayhem
Well I finally managed to get the poll working properly again (hopefully it won't break again), so there is now a new poll. The following is the results from the previous poll entitled "What is your favourite?":
39.7% - PHP (148)
18.9% - HTML (70)
12.9% - FLASH (48)
12.4% - PERL (46)
10.5% - ASP (40)
3.2% - SHTML (12)
2.1% - CGI (8)
TOTAL VOTES: 372
As you can see from the above results, the overall favourite is PHP, and its not surprising as PHP combined with MySQL is becoming the Internet Language of today.
 
Newsforge: Intel Trims Pentium Prices Posted Wednesday, October 31, 2001 @ 12:00 PM by mayhem
PCWorld: "Intel has cut the prices of its three fastest Pentium 4 processors and of some of its 0.13-micron Pentium III Processor-M chips. The cuts could bring down the price of Intel-based business and consumer PCs between now and the U.S. holiday season. The price drops took effect on Sunday, according to Intel. The price of the fastest Pentium 4 processor, the 2-GHz version, was cut 29 percent to $401 in 1,000-unit quantities, a standard measurement in chip sales. The 1.9-GHz version of the chip was reduced 27 percent, from $375 to $273, while the 1.8-GHz version had its price cut by 12 percent, from $256 to $225."
 
TheRegister: Win-XP vs. Red Hat 7.2 Posted Wednesday, October 31, 2001 @ 12:12 AM by mayhem
The Register compares Windows XP and Red Hat 7.2, and apparently doesn't like either one of them. On Red Hat: "Repeated three more times. No joy. This OS is nowhere near ready to compete with XP. And that really is a pity, since it outclasses it by a mile. Fit-and-finish. If these OS's were cars, XP would be the Warner Brothers Special Edition minivan, and 7.2 would be a Yugo well on its way to becoming a KIA."
 
What happened to pre4? Posted Wednesday, October 31, 2001 @ 12:05 AM by mayhem
Well the Linux Kernel 2.4.14-pre5 patch is now available for download here, changelog follows.
pre5:
 - Andrew Morton: remove stale UnlockPage
 - me: swap cache page locking update

pre4:
 - Mikael Pettersson: fix P4 boot with APIC enabled
 - me: fix device queuing thinko, clean up VM locking
 
KernelTrap: BeOS clone with Linux 2.4 Kernel: BlueOS Posted Sunday, October 28, 2001 @ 11:46 PM by mayhem
Earlier we mentioned the OpenBeOS project. BeOS fans will be excited to learn that it's not the only such attempt to bring BeOS back into the world of development. OSNews is running an interesting interview with Guillaume Maillard of the BlueOS project.
 
Slashdot Interviews: Kernel Hacker Keith Owens On kbuild 2.5, XFS, More Posted Sunday, October 28, 2001 @ 11:34 PM by mayhem
Kerneltrap interviews Keith Owens this week, an experienced kernel hacker who has long contributed to the Linux kernel. His contributions include updating ksymoops and modutils, both of which he maintains. He also works on kbuild 2.5. Earlier, he built the original Integrated Kernel Debugging patch. He's also working on kdb and XFS. Check out the interview." Lots of good information in here about things to expect in 2.5.
 
Newsforge: Windows XP Anti-Piracy Features Cracked Posted Sunday, October 28, 2001 @ 11:27 PM by mayhem
"Nottingham, UK 26, October 2001 - The anti-theft features incorporated in WindowsXP that Microsoft claimed would put an end to software theft were broken within hours of the product being launched on 25 October 2001." We all knew it was only a matter of time, right? More info is at SourceWire.com. NOTE: NewsForge and Linux@Home does not advocate unauthorized use of proprietary software. We suggest switching to Linux instead of using Microsoft products illegally.
 
LinuxProgramming: New release of GTK+ libraries (1.3.10) Posted Sunday, October 28, 2001 @ 6:46 AM by mayhem
A new release of the development versions of GTK+ and associated
libraries (GLib, Pango, Atk) is available at:

ftp://ftp.gtk.org/pub/gtk/v1.3/
Overview of Changes in GLib 1.3.10:
===================================

* Many Win32 fixes and improvements [Tor Lillqvist]
* Documentation improvements [Matthias Clasen]
* g_string_printfa() renamed to g_string_append_printf()
* Use libcharset from libiconv to implement charset detection
  more portably. [Owen Taylor, Hidetoshi Tajima]
* Add 64 bit type support to GObject [Joshua Pritikin, Mathieu Lacage, Owen]
* Make support for 64 bit integers a requirement [Joshua]
* GPattern improvements [Tim Janik, Matthias]
* Locale independent g_ascii_strtod / g_ascii_dtostr [Alex Larsson]
* Many bug fixes and minor tweaks.

Other Contributors: Darin Adler, Jakub Jelinek, James Antill, Andrew Taylor,
  Ben Gertzfield, Elliot Lee, Manish Singh, Abel Cheung, Laszlo Peter,
  Sven Neumann, George Lebl, Raja Harinath, Sebastian Wilhelmi,
  Jacob Berkman
Complete story is available here.
 
Linux 2.4.14-pre3 Released Posted Sunday, October 28, 2001 @ 6:40 AM by mayhem
You can now download the 2.4.14-pre3 kernel patch (here), changelog below.
pre3:
 - Ren・Scharfe: random bugfix
 - me: block device queuing low-water-marks, VM mapped tweaking.
 
Server Uptime 2 Script Finally Finished Posted Sunday, October 28, 2001 @ 6:34 AM by mayhem
Well after sitting around for the last 6 months, my Server Uptime 2 script is finally fully finished thanks to some help from Blacknight. With the use of the "cut" command the output of uptime is now cropped and displayed the way I wanted it to.

The updated script can be downloaded from here or in the files section.
 
Linux 2.4.14-pre2 Now Available Posted Saturday, October 27, 2001 @ 7:46 AM by mayhem
The 2.4.14-pre2 kernel patch is now available here, below is the changelog information:
pre2:
 - Alan Cox: more merging
 - Alexander Viro: block device module race fixes
 - Richard Henderson: mmap for 32-bit alpha personality
 - Jeff Garzik: 8139 and natsemi update

pre1:
 - Michael Warfield: computone serial driver update
 - Alexander Viro: cdrom module race fixes
 - David Miller: Acenic driver fix
 - Andrew Grover: ACPI update
 - Kai Germaschewski: ISDN update
 - Tim Waugh: parport update
 - David Woodhouse: JFFS garbage collect sleep
 
Linux 2.4.14-pre1 Released Posted Friday, October 26, 2001 @ 2:30 PM by mayhem
Well the latest kernel has been started, you can download the patch from here.

The folllowing is the out of the ordinary changelog:
Oops. 

Don't use pre1 without removing the "DEBUG_LRU_PAGE()" line
in mm/swap.c: __del_cache_del() - I uploaded an old diff, and 
since it's 4:30 AM I'm too tired to generate the correct one.

(Not removing the line will cause a nice oops very early on, 
nothing bad will happen).

	Linus "off to sleep" Torvalds
 
3D Prophet Kryo Series WinXP Drivers Posted Friday, October 26, 2001 @ 2:24 PM by mayhem
New drivers for 3D Prophet KYRO Series, release 9.031, will be put on-line on the Hercules website. These drivers are optimised for Windows XP.
Release 9.031 for Windows XP.
Release 9.015 for Windows 2000, ME, 98 and 95.
 
Optus@Home Goes Dynamic Posted Friday, October 26, 2001 @ 8:32 AM by mayhem
Well they finally did it to us, Optus@Home now gives you a new hostname and IP address everytime you log onto the network. It is yet to be 100% confirmed, but this afternoon I have gone through about 6 IP addresses on my machine... will keep you informed.
 
Optus@Home Hostname Changes Posted Friday, October 26, 2001 @ 5:05 AM by mayhem
Well recently the Optus@Home networks have had a major overhall while they have been setting up new servers to take over from the old Excite@Home ones.

The main changes are that you no longer need to provide your hostname when requesting your IP via DHCP, this means for all those people using Windows you will no longer need to use the supplied Optus@Home hostname as your computer name.

Another big thing you might notice is when you do a nslookup on your IP address the entire hostname and domain have completely changed and those people who had their IP address's changed not so long ago will be on newly created domains.

For example:
203.164.13.xxx with co3xxxxxx-a.belrs1.nsw.optushome.com.au is now 203.164.13.xxx with cxxx.belrs1.nsw.optusnet.com.au.

203.164.248.xxx (the new IP ranges for some people on the belrose exchange) with co3xxxxxx-a.belrs1.nsw.optushome.com.au is now 203.164.248.xxx with cxxx.belrs2.nsw.optusnet.com.au.

I am yet to confirm if this will require people using mail.belrs1.nsw.optushome.com.au (news or http for that matter) will need to change settings to the new mail.belrs1.nsw.optusnet.com.au, check back later tonight for an update on that.
 
Linux 2.4.13 Kernel Is Out Posted Thursday, October 25, 2001 @ 5:50 AM by mayhem
You can download the 2.4.13 kernel from here, below is the final changelog:
final:
 - page write-out throttling
 - Pete Zaitcev: ymfpci sound driver update (make Civ:CTP happy with it)
 - Alan Cox: i2o sync-up
 - Andrea Arcangeli: revert broken x86 smp_call_function patch
 - me: handle VM write load more gracefully. Merge parts of -aa VM

pre6:
 - Stephen Rothwell: APM idle time handling fixes, docbook update, cleanup
 - Jeff Garzik: network driver updates
 - Greg KH: USB updates
 - Al Viro: UFS update, binfmt_misc rewrite.
 - Andreas Dilger: /dev/random fixes
 - David Miller: network/sparc updates

pre5:
 - Greg KH: usbnet fix
 - Johannes Erdfelt: uhci.c bulk queueing fixes

pre4:
 - Al Viro: mnt_list init
 - Jeff Garzik: network driver update (license tags, tulip driver)
 - David Miller: sparc, net updates
 - Ben Collins: firewire update
 - Gerd Knorr: btaudio/bttv update
 - Tim Hockin: MD cleanups
 - Greg KH, Petko Manolov: USB updates
 - Leonard Zubkoff: DAC960 driver update

pre3:
 - Jens Axboe: clean up duplicate unused request list
 - Jeff Mahoney: reiserfs endianness finishing touches
 - Hugh Dickins: some further swapoff fixes and cleanups
 - prepare-for-Alan: move drivers/i2o into drivers/message/i2o
 - Leonard Zubkoff: 2TB disk device fixes
 - Paul Schroeder: mwave config enable
 - Urban Widmark: fix via-rhine double free..
 - Tom Rini: PPC fixes
 - NIIBE Yutaka: SuperH update

pre2:
 - Alan Cox: more merging
 - Ben Fennema: UDF module license
 - Jeff Mahoney: reiserfs endian safeness
 - Chris Mason: reiserfs O_SYNC/fsync performance improvements
 - Jean Tourrilhes: wireless extension update
 - Joerg Reuter: AX.25 updates
 - David Miller: 64-bit DMA interfaces

pre1:
 - Trond Myklebust: deadlock checking in lockd server
 - Tim Waugh: fix up parport wrong #define
 - Christoph Hellwig: i2c update, ext2 cleanup
 - Al Viro: fix partition handling sanity check.
 - Trond Myklebust: make NFS use SLAB_NOFS, and not play games with PF_MEMALLOC
 - Ben Fennema: UDF update
 - Alan Cox: continued merging
 - Chris Mason: get /proc buffer memory sizes right after buf-in-page-cache
 
Linux Drivers for nVidia Based Hercules Cards Posted Wednesday, October 24, 2001 @ 11:04 PM by mayhem
We have been informed this morning that Linux drivers (ver. 1.0-15.41) have been released for all nVidia chipset based Hercules graphics cards. This is great news for those people who run Linux on a client machine and want to use it for its full gaming capabilities.

You can find the Linux drivers in the Video card download and support section here.
 
Optus@Home Netstats Back Up Posted Wednesday, October 24, 2001 @ 5:52 AM by mayhem
Well the Netstats for Optus@Home users just came back up, you will notice that the graphics for the 14 day period have changed, personally I don't like it at all, the old version was much better, please feel free to comment in the forum.
 
Red Hat 7.2 (Enigma - 2CD) Released Everywhere Posted Tuesday, October 23, 2001 @ 12:41 PM by mayhem
Red Hat has announced the release of Red Hat Linux 7.2, it is now available in Workstation and Server versions and can be purchased or downloaded from the RH site.

"Improved device support, security and new graphical tools make Red Hat Linux 7.2 the platform of choice for your technical workstation. Red Hat services, including Red Hat Network and technical support, help you get started and keep your system secure and current."

New features
  • Nautilus file manager for graphical file management
  • Automatic partitioning and Auto-Kickstart profiling in updated installation program
  • Network Configuration Tool for easy Internet connections
  • New User Management Tool makes user system administration faster
  • New Hardware Viewing Tool enables quick system inspection
  • 2.4 kernel Enhancements
  • ext3 Journaling File System
  • Increased device support
  • Complete Web, mail, ftp, file and print servers included.
  • Multiple programming languages: C, C++, FORTRAN, Perl, Python, Tcl and GCJ.
  • Updated development toolchain--gcc 2.96-RH, gdb 5.0, glibc 2.2.4.
  • Popular Web application development tools PHP and mod_perl.
You can download it from ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/ or from the mirror sites http://www.redhat.com/download/mirror.html.

Local AARnet mirror has the files also:
http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/redhat/releases/7.2/en/iso/i386/MD5SUM
http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/redhat/releases/7.2/en/iso/i386/enigma-SRPMS-disc1.iso
http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/redhat/releases/7.2/en/iso/i386/enigma-SRPMS-disc2.iso
http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/redhat/releases/7.2/en/iso/i386/enigma-i386-disc1.iso
http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/redhat/releases/7.2/en/iso/i386/enigma-i386-disc2.iso
 
Linux 2.4.13-pre6 Kernel Patch Available Posted Monday, October 22, 2001 @ 10:38 PM by mayhem
You can download the pre6 patch from here, and the full changelog is also available here.
pre6:
 - Stephen Rothwell: APM idle time handling fixes, docbook update, cleanup
 - Jeff Garzik: network driver updates
 - Greg KH: USB updates
 - Al Viro: UFS update, binfmt_misc rewrite.
 - Andreas Dilger: /dev/random fixes
 - David Miller: network/sparc updates
 
3D Prophet 4000XT and 4500 Comparison Review Posted Monday, October 22, 2001 @ 10:25 PM by mayhem
Recently we had the chance to compare the Hercules 3D Prophet 4000XT 32MB and the 3D Prophet 4500 64MB /w TV Out. After running them throught there paces and using numerous amounts of benchmarking software the results were quite surprising.

You can read the review here, or you can visit the Hercules website here.

Update: We have just been informed that the prices for the 3D Prophet 4000XT 32MB have just dropped down to around $100 ex GST.
 
Linux Kernel Bugs Posted Monday, October 22, 2001 @ 2:11 AM by mayhem
According to this mail from Rafal Wojtczuk and a german article on Heise Online, there's a new severe bug in all Linux Kernels, from 2.2.0 up to 2.4.10, which allows users to become root on your system. Kernel 2.4.12 fixes this problem, and RedHat, Caldera and other distributors already supply patches for their Kernels. See Bugtraq for more information." Important notes for anyone running a multi-user system.
 
Linux Kernel 2.4.13-pre5 Released Posted Saturday, October 20, 2001 @ 6:46 AM by mayhem
The patch can be downloaded form any number of the kernel.org mirrors or directly from here.
pre5:
 - Greg KH: usbnet fix
 - Johannes Erdfelt: uhci.c bulk queueing fixes
 
Linux 2.4.13-pre4 Kernel Patch Released Posted Thursday, October 18, 2001 @ 9:28 PM by mayhem
You can download the latest patch from here.
pre4:
 - Al Viro: mnt_list init
 - Jeff Garzik: network driver update (license tags, tulip driver)
 - David Miller: sparc, net updates
 - Ben Collins: firewire update
 - Gerd Knorr: btaudio/bttv update
 - Tim Hockin: MD cleanups
 - Greg KH, Petko Manolov: USB updates
 - Leonard Zubkoff: DAC960 driver update
 
ICQ 2001b Alpha Released Posted Thursday, October 18, 2001 @ 1:59 PM by mayhem
For those people out there that use ICQ, they have released the Alpha (v.5.05 build #3619) version of there upcoming 2001b. This new version has many new and interesting features:
  • Multilingual support, spell checker, Smiles and emotions !
  • Pick and Choose favorite ICQ Features!
  • Reduced client size !
  • File sharing !
These new features will bring ICQ up to speed with some of the features provided by AOL Instant Messanger, Yahoo Messanger and also MSN, but these extra features should ensure ICQ remains the most popular internet chat program available.

You can find the ICQ 2001b homepage here, unfortunately downloads are limited and you will need to be quick or alternatively sign-up and they will email you when the next wave of releases are available.

ICQ Lite Alpha, which is a web-based (Java) version of ICQ, is also out and can be found on the ICQ Website: http://www.icq.com/icqwebbie/.
 
Linux 2.4.13-pre3 Patch Released Posted Thursday, October 18, 2001 @ 10:23 AM by mayhem
You can download the patch from here.
pre3:
 - Jens Axboe: clean up duplicate unused request list
 - Jeff Mahoney: reiserfs endianness finishing touches
 - Hugh Dickins: some further swapoff fixes and cleanups
 - prepare-for-Alan: move drivers/i2o into drivers/message/i2o
 - Leonard Zubkoff: 2TB disk device fixes
 - Paul Schroeder: mwave config enable
 - Urban Widmark: fix via-rhine double free..
 - Tom Rini: PPC fixes
 - NIIBE Yutaka: SuperH update
 
Linux Humor at ShaneCollinge.com Posted Sunday, October 14, 2001 @ 6:12 AM by mayhem
 
Linux 2.4.13-pre2 Released Posted Sunday, October 14, 2001 @ 12:53 AM by mayhem
As usual you can download the pratch from kernel.org here.

pre2:
 - Alan Cox: more merging
 - Ben Fennema: UDF module license
 - Jeff Mahoney: reiserfs endian safeness
 - Chris Mason: reiserfs O_SYNC/fsync performance improvements
 - Jean Tourrilhes: wireless extension update
 - Joerg Reuter: AX.25 updates
 - David Miller: 64-bit DMA interfaces
 
ProFTPd Setup Information Update Posted Sunday, October 14, 2001 @ 12:39 AM by mayhem
We have just added new information on how to setup ProFTPd on your server, in this new information it will tell you how you can:

- Allow FTP to FTP transfers (FXP)
- Allow upload resuming
- Allow download resuming
- Remove anonymous access
- Prevent people from leaving their home directory.

You can find the updated information in the Programs Section of the site.

UPDATE: There is now information on having exceptions to the default root rule (Thanks redlander).
 
Hercules Graphics Card Price Drop Posted Saturday, October 13, 2001 @ 8:03 AM by mayhem
Hercules Australia has just announced a price drop on the new Titanium series of graphics cards, here are the new prices, I don't know about you but I would love one of these in a new Athlon XP system with 1GB DDR Memeory [drool]... note that prices are in $AUS.

- 3D Prophet II Titanium at $399 RRP
- 3D Prophet III Ti200 at $499 RRP
- 3D Prophet III Ti500 $999 RRP
 
Linux: 2.4.13-pre1 Released Posted Friday, October 12, 2001 @ 11:38 PM by mayhem
You can download the patch here.
pre1:
 - Trond Myklebust: deadlock checking in lockd server
 - Tim Waugh: fix up parport wrong #define
 - Christoph Hellwig: i2c update, ext2 cleanup
 - Al Viro: fix partition handling sanity check.
 - Trond Myklebust: make NFS use SLAB_NOFS, and not play games with PF_MEMALLOC
 - Ben Fennema: UDF update
 - Alan Cox: continued merging
 - Chris Mason: get /proc buffer memory sizes right after buf-in-page-cache
 
DoS SymLink problem with 2.4.11 Kernel Posted Friday, October 12, 2001 @ 2:37 PM by mayhem
Apparantly there is a major DoS problem in symlink in the 2.4.11 kernel, this has quickly prompted the released of the 2.4.12 kernel which can be found here.
Uhhuh.. 2.4.12
Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2001 01:04:49 -0700 (PDT)
From: Linus Torvalds 
To: Kernel Mailing List 


2.4.11 had a fix for a symlink DoS attack, but sadly that fix broke the
creation of files through a dangling symlink rather badly (it caused the
inode to be created in the very same inode as the symlink, with unhappy
end results).

Happily nobody uses that particular horror - or _almost_ nobody does. It
looks like at least the SuSE installer (yast2) does, which causes a nasty
unkillable inode as /dev/mouse if you use yast2 on 2.4.11.

("debugfs -w rootdev" + "rm /dev/mouse" will remove it, although I suspect
there are other less drastic methods too if your fsck doesn't seem to
notice anything wrong with it. Only one report of this actually happening
so far).

So I made a 2.4.12, and renamed away the sorry excuse for a kernel that
2.4.11 was.

                 Linus

-----
final:
 - Greg KH: USB update (fix UHCI timeouts, serial unplug)
 - Christoph Rohland: shmem locking fixes
 - Al Viro: more mount cleanup
 - me: fix bad interaction with link_count handling
 - David Miller: Sparc updates, net cleanup
 - Tim Waugh: parport update
 - Jeff Garzik: net driver updates
 
MySQL database to get revamped (ZDNet) Posted Thursday, October 11, 2001 @ 1:38 PM by mayhem
MySQL AB plans to make major changes to its namesake open-source database technology by year's end, including support for SSL and nested queries.

The company will launch Version 4.0 this month and upgrade it to Version 4.1 in December, according to CEO MÅrten Mickos.

With Oracle Corp., IBM and Microsoft Corp.--the so-called Big Three of the relational database industry--battling over features, market share and price, some users are turning to the open-source world for database technology. This is where MySQL hopes to make its mark.

"The database business is about much more than bells and whistles. Some people do that, but that's not our business," said Mickos, in Uppsala, Sweden. When scalability leader Oracle created a MySQL-to-Oracle conversion kit, "we took that as an award," he said.

More information is available at ZDNet.
 
Linux Box Upgrade Posted Thursday, October 11, 2001 @ 4:09 AM by xtracable
Well my trusty old linuxbox got a nice little upgrade last nite, thanks to the local council clean up!. I am now running a 200MMX, 64mb ram, 3.2gb HDD and a 100mb network card on the local lan side.
 
[SLUG] Top Ten Reasons Why There Will Never Be "Linux - The Movie" Posted Thursday, October 11, 2001 @ 3:41 AM by mayhem
Thought some people might like this, found it on my weekly visit to the SLUG site :).

10) No one will ever agree to a script format, except that it absolutely, positively NOT be done in Microsoft Word.
9) Sean Connery is too bald, too old, and too Sschottisch to play Alan Cox.
8) Harry Shearer's Bill Gates voice sounds exactly like Mr. Burns.
7) Bruce Perens keeps leaving the set before his scene is filmed.
6) 'Weird' Al Yankovic as Larry Wall, Kirsten Dunst as Heidi Wall. You do the math.
5) Hans Reiser wants to play himself, but he's always being upstaged by his stuntman.
4) Christian Slater only wanted to play an "edgy" Linus Torvalds.
3) William H. Macy's moustache fell out, so he couldn't play Rusty with all the pizazz and girl-magnetism required for the role.
2) Dave Miller wants to call it "Dude, where's my kernel?"
1) Everyone wants to see it, but no one's willing to pay for the ticket.
 
Athlon XP Released Posted Thursday, October 11, 2001 @ 2:39 AM by mayhem
Well the Athlon XP processor line has been released, this is based on the "Palomino" core that reduces power usage and increases the performance of the chip.

You can find information and reviews about the Athlon XP from these sites: Toms Hardware, Linux Hardware and Anandtech.
 
Linux 2.4.11 Kernel Released Posted Thursday, October 11, 2001 @ 12:28 AM by mayhem
Well that was quick wasn't it, the 2.4.11 kernel is now finished and you can download it from here, I wonder how long till 2.4.12 is underway, probably as I type this...
final:
 - Jeff Garzik: net driver updates
 - me: symlink attach fix
 - Greg KH: USB update
 - Rui Sousa: emu10k driver update
 
Pre6 Patch for 2.4.11 Kernel Posted Wednesday, October 10, 2001 @ 1:21 PM by mayhem
Patch is available here.
pre6:
 - various: fix some module exports uncovered by stricter error checking
 - Urban Widmark: make smbfs use same error define names as samba and win32
 - Greg KH: USB update
 - Tom Rini: MPC8xx ppc update
 - Matthew Wilcox: rd.c page cache flushing fix
 - Richard Gooch: devfs race fix: rwsem for symlinks
 - Bjn Wesen: Cris arch update
 - Nikita Danilov: reiserfs cleanup
 - Tim Waugh: parport update
 - Peter Rival: update alpha SMP bootup to match wait_init_idle fixes
 - Trond Myklebust: lockd/grace period fix
 
AutoView 400 Review Posted Tuesday, October 9, 2001 @ 7:49 AM by xtracable
We Just finished reviewing a Cybex AutoView 400 KVM, you can read all about how it did in the Review section.
 
Linux Kernel 2.4.11-pre5 Released Posted Tuesday, October 9, 2001 @ 12:09 AM by mayhem 
pre5:
 - Keith Owens: module exporting error checking
 - Greg KH: USB update
 - Paul Mackerras: clean up wait_init_idle(), ppc prefetch macros
 - Jan Kara: quota fixes
 - Abraham vd Merwe: agpgart support for Intel 830M
 - Jakub Jelinek: ELF loader cleanups
 - Al Viro: more cleanups
 - David Miller: sparc64 fix, netfilter fixes
 - me: tweak resurrected oom handling
You can download the patch from kernel.org or one of its many mirrors.
 
Solaris 9 To Include Whiz-Bang Linux Features @ Kuro5hin.org Posted Sunday, October 7, 2001 @ 11:50 PM by mayhem
"The early Access version of Solaris 9 is now available from Sun. This in itself isn't a big deal, but...

Among the new features listed for Solaris 9 are two that look rather, well, interesting (quoting from the link):

* Linux APIs, commands, and utilties enabling most Linux applications to easily be recompiled and run Solaris 9 Operating Environment
* Linux compatibility mode which allows Linux Intel applications to run unchanged (no recompilation) on Solaris 9, Intel Platform Edition

But what does it mean? How far are they going to go to build in this Linux compatability? Are they going to reverse-engineer clone() and other Linux kernel calls, or are they just going to repackage lxrun with a few minor improvements?

And, most importantly, why in the world are they doing this? What's their real motivation behind this move?

I think their reason is that by doing this, they can:
1. Tap into the wide array of applications that don't work on anything but Linux
2. Convince developers that developing for Solaris is easy: "It's just like developing for Linux, only better!"
3. Thus protect their marketshare from the "new kid on the block"."

Information about Solaris 9 can be found on the Sun website.
 
APC Back-UPS CS 350 Review Posted Sunday, October 7, 2001 @ 2:47 AM by mayhem
Recently APC was kind enough to provide us with a small UPS for reviewing, we have put it through its fair share of work to see how it rates, the results are quite surprising. You can find the Back-UPS CS 350 review in our Review section.
 
Linux Kernel 2.4.11-pre4 Released Posted Saturday, October 6, 2001 @ 10:03 PM by mayhem 
pre4:
 - Al Viro: separate out superblocks and FS namespaces: fs/super.c fathers fs/namespace.c
 - David Woodhouse: large MTD and JFFS[2] update
 - Marcelo Tosatti: resurrect oom handling
 - Hugh Dickins: add_to_swap_cache racefix cleanup
 - Jean Tourrilhes: IrDA update
 - Martin Bligh: support clustered logical APIC for >8 CPU x86 boxes
 - Richard Henderson: alpha update
You can download the patch from here.
 
Wireless Wan! Posted Saturday, October 6, 2001 @ 12:07 AM by xtracable
What happens when you cant get cable in your area? You do what any linux Guru would and buy two wireless network card and bludge cable of a mate! Well my mate and I decided to do just that, he lives about 3.5km away (direct line of sight). The network cards arrived today and we have almost finished building the antenna's, so ill keep you posted on the progress!
 
A Beginner's Introduction to Network Security @ Linux.com Posted Friday, October 5, 2001 @ 9:56 AM by mayhem
Linux.com writers McClure and McCoy write "We hate to break it to you, but crackers don't just hack the important stuff, they hack whatever networks or boxes they can get into, just because they can." As you may already know it is as important to "lock" your computer as it is to lock your front door, especially if you live on an "always on" broadband connection. But where to start? Well, start here.
 
2.4.11-pre3 Released Posted Friday, October 5, 2001 @ 9:49 AM by mayhem 
pre3:
 - Al Viro: superblock cleanups, partition handling fixes and cleanups
 - Ben Collins: firewire update
 - Jeff Garzik: network driver updates
 - Urban Widmark: smbfs updates
 - Kai M臾isara: SCSI tape driver update
 - various: embarrassing lack of error checking in ELF loader
 - Neil Brown: md formatting cleanup.
Make sure you download the patch.
 
GNOME 2.0 Platform Alpha 1 Released Posted Thursday, October 4, 2001 @ 10:36 PM by mayhem 
From: Maciej Stachowiak 
Subject: GNOME 2.0 Platform Alpha 1
Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 22:35:42 -0700

The first pre-release of the GNOME 2 platform is now available for
your downloading and testing pleasure.

WARNING: This release does not include anything of use to end
users. It is a technology preview release of the development platform
only. It is also not yet fully parallel installable with GNOME
1.

As soon as the mirrors update, you can get the release from:

ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/pre-gnome2/releases/gnome-2.0-lib-alpha1

Pretty much everything in this release is new relative to GNOME
1.4. A few of the most notable new features are:

* Full multi-lingual text support support and use of unicode text
throughout

* Powerful new tree and text widgets

* Extensive accessibility support

* A new CORBA ORB featuring smaller stubs skeletons, support for SSL,
and and a better overall architecture

* More standards-compliant XML library

* XSLT library

* Improved package configuration scheme

* Unrelated libraries, as well as GUI and non-GUI parts of existing
libraries, have been split into their own packages

* Much cleanup and many other new features throughout the platform


Love,

The GNOME 2.0 Release Team
 
PR: SuSE Linux 7.3 available from 18th October Posted Thursday, October 4, 2001 @ 5:56 AM by mayhem
This informaion is from LinuxToday.com. For the full sorry you can find the page here.

"Borehamwood, Herts, Germany - October 2, 2001 - Today, SuSE Linux, the international technology leader and provider of Open Source solutions, announced SuSE Linux 7.3, which offers high-end enterprise and standard desktop users advantages in security, stability and a greatly improved ergonomical user interface with new image, graphics and audio features. The release of SuSE Linux 7.3 confirms SuSE Linux as one of the maturest operating systems on the market."
 
Linux -ac patchs Posted Thursday, October 4, 2001 @ 5:44 AM by mayhem
Well like many I was very interested in finding out information on the -ac patchs that keep popping up.

"The -ac patches are a set of patches, released by Alan Cox, against the official kernel series. They are frequently more experimental in nature than the official series. These patches are available in Alan's kernel directory:" - kernel.org.

If you want more information on the man behind these patches then I would recommend you read this Linux Weekly News interview with him. (Its from 1999). A list of AC changes to the Linux kernel can be found here. You would have probably noticed that ALOT of this work is being intergrated into the new Kernel releases by Linus Torvalds, just check out some of the latest changelogs (2.4.10 and 2.4.11).
 
StarOffice 6.0 Beta Posted Thursday, October 4, 2001 @ 5:39 AM by mayhem
"Sun has announced its long-awaited 6.0 Beta to the venerable StarOffice 5.2. Featuring a plethora of improvements such as much faster load times, removal of a very un-necessary desktop, XML file formats, improved Microsoft file compatibility and far better online help. We gave the software a first look and conclude that this Beta release while not without problems is the biggest threat to Microsoft's office-suite domination yet."

Full information is available here.
 
Linux 2.4.11-pre2 Kernel Patch Released Posted Wednesday, October 3, 2001 @ 4:43 AM by mayhem
You can find the patch for download here.
Date:   Mon, 1 Oct 2001 14:39:32 -0700 (PDT)
From: Linus Torvalds 
Subject: Linux 2.4.11-pre2

Available in the usual places..

                Linus

---
pre2:
 - me/Al Viro: fix bdget() oops with block device modules that don't  clean up after they exit
 - Alan Cox: continued merging (drivers, license tags)
 - David Miller: sparc update, network fixes
 - Christoph Hellwig: work around broken drivers that add a gendisk more than once
 - Jakub Jelinek: handle more ELF loading special cases
 - Trond Myklebust: NFS client and lockd reclaimer cleanups/fixes
 - Greg KH: USB updates
 - Mikael Pettersson: sparate out local APIC / IO-APIC config options
 
Linux 2.4.11-pre1 Kernel Patch Released Posted Tuesday, October 2, 2001 @ 2:49 PM by mayhem
Well its only been 7 days, but the next version of the 2.4.x kernel line has been started already, it is 2.4.11-pre1 which you can already download the patch. Here is the changelog:
pre1:
 - Chris Mason: fix ppp race conditions
 - me: buffers-in-pagecache coherency, buffer.c cleanups
 - Al Viro: block device cleanups/fixes
 - Anton Altaparmakov: NTFS 1.1.20 update
 - Andrea Arcangeli: VM tweaks
We will try and keep you posted on how it progresses.
 
Competition Update Posted Tuesday, October 2, 2001 @ 4:16 AM by mayhem
Well from some suggestions we have decided to change the contest slightly, you can now choose either to code a small SCRIPT or to design a Linux WALLPAPER. All the updated competition information is available on the Contests page. Due to this the competition time frame has been extended.