Security

Security Holes Draw Linux Developers' Ire 477

Posted by timothy from the quick-draw-me-an-ire dept.
jd writes "In what looks to be a split that could potentially undermine efforts to assure people that Linux is secure and stable, the developers of the GRSecurity kit and RSBAC are getting increasingly angry over security holes in Linux and the design of the Linux Security Modules. LWN has published a short article by Brad Spengler, the guy behind GRSecurity and it has stoked up a fierce storm, with claims of critical patches being ignored, good security practices being ignored for political reasons, etc. Regardless of the merits of the case by either side, this needs to be aired and examined before it becomes more of a problem. Especially in light of the recent kernel vulnerability debated on Slashdot."
Programming

Tuning The Kernel With A Genetic Algorithm 251

Posted by michael from the self-modifying-code dept.
fsck! writes "Jake Moilanen provided a series of four patches against the 2.6.9 Linux kernel that introduce a simple genetic algorithm used for automatic tuning. The patches update the anticipatory IO scheduler and the zaphod CPU scheduler to both use the new in-kernel library, theoretically allowing them to automatically tune themselves for the best possible performance for any given workload. Jake says, 'using these patches, there are small gains (1-3%) in Unixbench & SpecJBB. I am hoping a scheduler guru will able to rework them to give higher gains.'"
Security

Local Root Exploit in Linux 2.4 and 2.6 795

Posted by michael from the without-users-this-wouldn't-be-a-problem dept.
Anonymous Coattails writes "Summary from the advisory: 'Locally exploitable flaws have been found in the Linux binary format loaders' uselib() functions that allow local users to gain root privileges.'"
Linux

Looking at Linux Netwosix 4

Posted by michael from the up-and-coming dept.
linuxsecurity.com writes " This brief article outlines the history and story behind Linux Netwosix, a security-focused distribution that is still in early stages of development. Vincenzo Ciaglia, its Italian founder, gives the Linux community an update on how the project has progressed after 11 months."
Wireless Networking

Linux Powers Wireless Mesh Music System 109

Posted by michael from the your-demo-won't-crash dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A startup has created a unique Linux-based home music distribution system based on secure peer-to-peer wireless mesh networking technology. The system can route the same or different songs, sourced from any connected computer, to as many as 30 audio output devices simultaneously. Sonos is showcasing its technology this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas."
Media

Hewlett-Packard To Offer Linux-based Media Hub 184

Posted by timothy from the it-should-have-an-iPod-dock dept.
Sammy at Palm Addict writes "According to the New York Times, Hewlett-Packard is to offer a new digital media hub based on Linux," excerpting "Hewlett-Packard will introduce a new device this fall meant to record and play back television as well as organize digital media, including photos, music and video, the company said yesterday. Hewlett already offers similar devices based on Microsoft's Windows Media Center Edition. The device, called the HP Media Hub, will be based on the Linux operating system." Since HP also sells self-branded iPods, it would be great if they'd make such a box iPod friendly.
Hardware

Moving An Embedded Project From x86 to PowerPC 16

Posted by timothy from the migration-nation dept.
An anonymous reader writes "This series on embedded development shows you how to migrate a project prototype from x86 to PowerPC. This initial installment explains the realities and rationale of the project: it introduces the robotic submarines that were the start of the project (and where they came from), and describes the Linux/GCC development environment and the bare-bones Kuro Box PowerPC development board."
Security

Linux+Windows Single Sign-on 40

Posted by timothy from the what-a-concept dept.
musichead writes "Bill Boswell (writing for redmondmag.com) has posted an interesting article on configuring Linux clients to utilize a single sign-on and play nicely in a Microsoft Active Directory network. The article focuses on Fedora Core 2 (and the Core 3 beta), but he has examples and instructions for SuSE Linux 9.1 Professional, Mandrake 10.1 and Xandros Desktop 2.5 on his website."
Mandriva

Mandrakelinux Releases New Corporate Line 29

Posted by timothy from the more-than-hanging-on dept.
joestar writes "Mandrakelinux' line of products has just been updated with two new products which are dedicated to the corporate world: Mandrakelinux Corporate Server and Mandrakelinux Corporate Desktop for x86 and x86-64 architectures. According to Mandrakesoft, these products focus on reliability and security, and will be maintained for five years. In my opinion, this release really says much about new Mandrakesoft's strategy and business. Press release here."
Debian

Interview with Debian Project Leader 287

Posted by michael from the do-you-hurd-what-i-hurd dept.
brunotorres writes "I've interviewed Martin Michlmayr, Debian project leader. In this interview we talked about the upcoming Debian release, Sarge. An excerpt: 'We heard for years that Debian is hard to install and the old installer wasn't very easy to maintain or advance, so we we decided to throw the installer away and start from scratch. The new installer is much more modular, which makes it easier to maintain and extend.'" Reader ron_ivi points out that new Debian/Hurd CDs are available. Newsforge and Slashdot are both part of OSTG.
Linux Business

IDC Proclaims Linux Is Now Mainstream 283

Posted by CmdrTaco from the well-of-course-it-is dept.
robyannetta writes "Eweek has an interesting article quoting IDC analyst Al Gillen saying "Linux is no longer a fringe player. Linux is now mainstream." He made that observation because IDC's research predicts that Linux's overall revenue for desktops, servers and packaged software running on Linux will exceed $35 billion by 2008."
Linux Business

Linus Makes Business Week's Best Managers List 168

Posted by CmdrTaco from the meow-meow-meow dept.
andhar writes "Linus Torvalds has made Business Week Magazine's 2004 list of Best Managers, where he finds himself in the company of luminaries such as Hector Ruiz (AMD), John Henry (Boston Red Sox) and Steven Spielberg (Dreamworks SKG). The article lauds the influence of Linux on the server market and drops the names of such heavyweights as IBM, Dell, HP and Intel as Linux supporters. Linus is quoted, calling all you kernel coders a herd of cats."
Handhelds

More Linux Portable Media Players On The Way 181

Posted by timothy from the promises-promises dept.
An anonymous reader writes "According to LinuxDevices.com, Taiwanese motherboard maker FIC will unveil a Linux-based portable media player (PMP) at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. FIC's 'Vassili' includes a 3.6-inch color LCD screen and a 20GB hard drive, and supports files in MPEG 1-4, MP3, WMA, WAV, ASF, AVI, and JPEG format. Speaking of Linux-based PMPs, Archos will also showcase its lastest PMP, the Pocket Media Assistant PMA400 at CES, and other Linux-based PMPs have recently been announced by iRiver, Veritouch, and Zupera."
Operating Systems

Linux On Your Tablet PC 199

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stepping-in-the-right-direction dept.
tyman writes "Michael Rolig has created a Debian-based linux package for your Tablet PC. The support for various tablet features is limited by the features on the tablet Rolig owns, such as the "half-working" pen button features. One important missing feature is the screen-swivel buttons common with most tablets. However this is a good start for the development of linux for Tablet PCs."
Debian

Debian 3.0r4 Released 194

Posted by michael from the it's-better-with-debian dept.
SeaFox writes "The Debian group has released an update to the 'Woody' distribution of the popular Linux/GNU OS. From the site: 'This is the fourth update of Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 (codename woody) which mainly adds security updates to the stable release, along with a few corrections to serious problems. Those who frequently update from security.debian.org won't have to update many packages and most updates from security.debian.org are included in this update.' But the question on everyone's mind is probably when the current Testing branch, featuring much more up-to-date packages, will be named the new stable release."
Education

Grokking Knoppix 150

Posted by michael from the learning-to-love-linux dept.
chronicon writes "Knowing Knoppix is a beginner-friendly, 134 page freely downloadable book (released under the GNU Free Documentation License in PDF format) designed to familiarize new users with the Knoppix LiveCD distribution, GNU/Linux in general, and (as listed first on the description) Windows disaster recovery using Knoppix."
Linux

Introducing the Mockup Project 78

Posted by michael from the hand-that-mocked-heart-that-fed dept.
Pier Luigi Fiorini writes "The Mockup project is a desktop operating system based on GNU/Linux. It has recently released new source code and published both screenshots and mockups. Read the announcement to know where are the source code tarballs and how to compile them. Mockup uses a new lightweight and modern graphical user interface that supports both pixel and vector based graphics. The GUI is based on bleeding edge technologies like Qt 4.0 beta, Elektra, HAL and DBUS. Elektra is a new backend for text configuration files. Instead of each program to have its own text configuration files, with a variety of formats, Elektra tries to provide a universal, hierarchical, fast and consistent namespace and infrastructure to access configuration parameters through a key-value pair mechanism. This way any software can read/save its configuration/state using a consistent API."
Operating Systems

Microsoft Compares Windows And Linux 468

Posted by timothy from the horses-for-courses dept.
Halcyon-X writes "Microsoft is hosting a discussion on Windows and Linux between its two top Linux consultants. Martin Taylor and Bill Hilf talk about the various OSS licenses, focus on the open source development model, competing implementations of administration tools, TCO, and risk assessment. Also available in offline formats, doc (which looks fine in OpenOffice.org) and wma as well."
Linux

Vidalinux Desktop OS 1.1 Screenshot Tour 30

Posted by timothy from the faster-than-downloading-it dept.
linuxbeta writes "An update to Vidalinux Desktop OS has been released. This release sports many new updates including the 2.6.9 kernel, improvements in many different areas including reiser4 support, wireless drivers, scalability, performance, and support for NPTL. Also included is the Fedora Core 3 Anaconda installer, Udev and hald for hardware autodetection, GNOME 2.8, KDE-3.3.1, and the OSX styled kicker Gdesklets 0.3.1." An interesting combination of Gentoo Linux with Red Hat's Anaconda installer; OSDir.com has a screenshot tour.

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