IBM

IBM Pledges To Make Xen More Secure 134

An anonymous reader writes "In the latest posting on the Xen developer list, IBM pledges to make Xen more secure by porting its secure hypervisor (sHype) architecture to it. In their posting, IBM discusses an SELinux like access control frame work, resource control and monitoring and trusted computing support for Xen. It appears that a lot is happening on the Xen front (for example, the announcement of XenSource Inc. and Intel's code drop in the xeno-unstable.bk tree for their super secret VT CPU)."
GNU is Not Unix

LSB Submitted To ISO/IEEE 207

mcneil@freestandards says: "The LSB has been submitted to ISO/IEEE for an ISO imprimatur. While this is not really new news, it is important that every Linux user get involved to make sure their country votes YES for Linux ISO standardization! With Linux achieving international standards recognition it will be that much easier for governments and other risk adverse organizations to include Linux in their procurement policies. This of course will further the normalization of free and open source software, lessen the world's reliance on sucky legacy platforms, etc. etc."
Linux

Linux Live Gaming Project 491

Fabio writes "The mission of LLGP (Linux Live Game Project) is show to Wintendo users that also Linux can be used to game. And now a new version is out. Features: KDE 3.3 with Plastik theme and Nuvola icons, kernel 2.6.10, Nvidia drivers, TORCS, Wesnoth, SuperTux, TuxRacer and much more! It's based on Knoppix, but contains deep changes in the startup scripts. Now the hardware probing is completely based on hotplug and udev; kudzu was removed. Challenge your friends on LLGP, and convert them to Linux!"
Debian

Point-and-klik Linux Software Installation? 212

bfree writes "While you may have come across klik before, you might not be aware of some of the major changes which have been taking place over the last few months. If you visit the old klik site you will see a link to the Next Generation klik, which aims to provide a web interface to install the entire collection of Debian packages, letting you grab any package from sid (and its dependencies) and 'install' it into its own location, similar to the system outlined in this recent slashdot story." See below for more on klik.
Announcements

Linux.conf.au 2005 Registrations Open 11

Semi Anonymous Coward writes "Linux.conf.au 2005 registrations opened recently and they are offering substantial discounts to people who register before 1st of February 2005. Linux.conf.au is Australia's national Linux conference. LCA 2005 will be held at the Australian National University from Monday April 18 to Saturday April 23, 2005. Everyone should come along, the conference is insanely cheap and a load of fun. I had so much fun at Linux.conf.au 2004 that I'm giving a talk this year!"
Debian

Overclockix 3.7 Released 148

prostoalex writes "Overclockix 3.7 is released, available via bittorrent. It's a live Linux CD with a bunch of utilities for 'torturing' the PC hardware, hence the name. The authors seem to take a reasonable approach on graphical desktop, cutting out what they consider unnecessary eye candy, but leaving in the tools essential for effective GUI. 'Some new package highlights such as knoppix firewall, vlc, superkaramba, KDE 3.3.1, newer 2.6.7 kernel, NX client, and many more', the site says."
Security

Torvalds on the Linux Security Process 280

darthcamaro writes "Linus Torvalds thinks that Linux kernel security disclsoure should be completely open and he really doesn't like the vendor-security model of having a time embargo on security disclosure. 'I think kernel bugs should be fixed as soon as humanly possible, and any delay is basically just about making excuses,' Torvalds wrote. 'And that means that as many people as possible should know about the problem as early as possible, because any closed list (or even just anybody sending a message to me personally) just increases the risk of the thing getting lost and delayed for the wrong reasons.'"
Operating Systems

Mike Hall on Choosing Embedded Linux over Windows 75

prostoalex writes "Mike Hall from Microsoft asks the audience why they would choose Linux over Microsoft for embedded projects. He provides a point-by-point description of benefits of Microsoft's products (Windows CE and Windows XP Embedded) and points out that starting out on Windows-based embedded platform might save development and testing time."
Linux Business

Mandrakesoft Profitable in 2004 24

wikinerd writes "Mandrake Linux seems to make good money for Mandrakesoft! According to its financial data it made more than 5 million Euro in revenue with the ending of the 2004 financial year. The financial result for 2004 was close to 1.4 million Euro, while in 2003 it was about -2 million. This means that Mandrakesoft is now back to profitability. Those who are interested enough can read the Mandrakesoft announcement."
GNU is Not Unix

Bundled Applications for GNU/Linux? 148

munehiro asks: "As an addicted GNU/Linux and Mac OS X user I recently tried to install binaries and libraries on a Linux box using an approximation of the elegant and clean approach known as the Mac OS X bundle (everything about each app or lib under a different directory) as opposed to the Linux standard approach 'everything under a common prefix' (normally /usr or /usr/local) with applications and libraries mixed in the standard subdirs bin, lib, share and so on, and found administration life much easier. What do other, more experienced readers think about the problems and improvements related to dropping the current Linux approach for a 'bundle-like' one in Linux distributions?"
Linux

Linux Weekly News 2004 Timeline 46

Ridgelift writes "Linux Weekly News has made their annual 2004 Timeline available free to the general public. " Much happens in the Linux world over the course of a year. 2004 saw ongoing legal and political fights, new distributions, big releases of major applications, a new mode for kernel development, and more. This timeline is our attempt to separate out the most significant developments of the year and present them in a concise and enjoyable format. It continues an annual LWN tradition; it is the seventh in the series.""
Data Storage

Backing Up is Hard to Do? 299

Joe Barr writes "NewsForge is running a story this morning on a personal hardware/software backup solution for your Linux desktop (NewsForge is owned by Slashdot's parent OSTG). The solution doesn't require a SCSI controller, or tape drive, or the ability to grok a scripting language or archiving tool to work, either. It's based on point-and-click free software. Plus it includes a dead-parrot joke by Linus Torvalds."
Red Hat Software

Red Hat Trying to Make Fedora More Open? 216

Chillybott writes "CNET reports that Red Hat is trying to bolster more support for the Fedora project by giving the users more control over and input into the development process. The article states that they have made their CVS repositories visible and hints that soon members of the Fedora community will be able to act as distribution maintainers. Seems like a good idea to me, although their choice of acronyms for their conference leaves something to be desired."
Software

Bluefish 1.0 Released 33

datadriven writes "Bluefish 1.0 was released this week. I've been using it for about a year and a half and find it to be about the closest thing I've found to Homesite, which I used before switching to Linux. According to the website the new version features 'A new, very extended manual, better gnome and kde integration, much improved bookmarks, many performance improvements.'"
Handhelds

Inexpensive Handhelds for Linux? 50

Dr. Manhattan asks: "My PDA was stolen on a business trip, and I'm looking for a replacement. I've enjoyed Palms for their simplicity and long battery life, but I'm not afraid to program and I'm considering something that can run Linux. However, my budget is rather limited; $150 is all I can spend. Relatively obsolete tech is fine, but I'm looking for: good battery life (my old Palm could run for weeks on a charge; I'm hoping for double-digit hours), dual expansion slots, all of the onboard hardware solidly supported by Linux. Does such a beast exist in my price range?"
Television

Linux Looms Large in DVRs, PVRs 168

An anonymous reader writes "According to an article at LinuxDevices there's a new fanless digital entertainment center reference design based on Linux and the MythTV open source DVR (digital video recorder) software. The 'Royal Linux Media Center' runs ESG's Royal Linux OS on a Transmeta development board based on its Efficeon chip. Linux has been increasingly popular in DVRs and PVRs, with examples including TiVo (of course), HP's recently unveiled Linux media hub, i3's Mood box, Interact-TV's Telly, Siemens' Speedstream, VWB's MediaReady 4000, Amino's AmiNet500, Sharp's Galileo, Dream-Multimedia-Tv's Dreambox, NEC's AX10, and Sony's CoCoon, to name a few."
Red Hat Software

Practical Guide to Red Hat Linux, 2nd Edition 86

norburym (Mary Norbury-Glaser) writes "If you own the first edition of this book, then it's probably dog-eared and well thumbed-through, so now's a good time to upgrade to this extensive volume, Practical Guide to Red Hat Linux: Fedora Core and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, second edition. This book covers Fedora Core 2 (2.6 kernel) and Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 3 (2.4 fork version with 2.6 kernel features) and includes Fedora Core on four CDs, which comprises the complete release. Mark G. Sobell accomplishes what many fail at: he has successfully crammed a huge amount of information into one volume in a compact, perfectly readable manner. This second edition serves two audiences, the end user and the administrator, and consequently combines two topics that easily could have filled separate books: Fedora Core and Enterprise Linux." Read on for the rest of Norbury-Glaser's review.
Hardware Hacking

True Stories of Knoppix Rescues 335

Omniscientist writes "We've all been there: Our system is on the edge of death and we need to either fix it or retrieve important data that still remains hidden away in its dying clutches. LinuxDevCenter has a funny article on a heroic tale of a sysadmin relying on Knoppix to save the day. I for one, always make a boot disk in case of problems, but Knoppix can turn a bad day into a good one for just about anyone. Perhaps every administrator should have a Knoppix CD on reserve."

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