Rubbersoul writes "On August 16th, the Debian Project will celebrate its 10th birthday. Check debCONF for the birthday party nearest you!"

securitas writes "Debian founder Ian Murdock says that Linux is a process, not a product. He also says that the product mentality 'misses the entire point of Linux and the open-source development model.' Because Linux is made up of many different components developed on independent timeframes, Murdock posits, to refer to Linux as a product is to strip it of its dynamism and closes its inherently open nature. Instead, he says that Linux should be viewed as a shared platform and infrastructure technology, and that business models should reflect that or else Linux risks becoming proprietary, closed and just another cookie-cutter piece of software."

Charles McColm writes "As one of the flock of Linux desktop users I have always taken it for granted that Linux is inherently more secure than Microsoft Windows. The truth is, I've never really paid much attention to Linux security, even on the Linux router I had running for a year. I always knew I should be concerned about security, but I never found a good starting point until I decided to review O'Reilly's Linux Security Cookbook (LSC)." Read on below for Charles' review.

suso asks: "I've been working on a set of programs called num-utils that I would eventually like to be considered for inclusion in some of the many free Un*x distributions (on the install CDs, etc). So my question is, how does one put their applications on the track to be included in the main distribution of Red Hat, Debian, SuSE, *BSD, and so on? Is this just something that is up to the maintainers or are there submission forms of some kind?"

jjaimon writes "There is a document on different package formats used in Linux/Unix systems. Worth reading." Another reader sends in this guide to creating Debian packages which seems apropos here.

There's an article in this month's LinMagAu that asks a question about how the rise of Linux will impact Debian and what that could mean. Good article, especially interesting if you have been a fan of Debian.

[vmlinuz] writes "SitePoint has an article that I wrote that introduces Debian and has guidelines on installing it. This could be usefull for managers, new users and other people that may be interested in using Debian." And honestly, who among us isn't interested in using the obviously superior Linux Distribution against which there can be no other contenders? (Oh dear god don't flame me! It's a joke people!)

steman writes "On the 10th of July 2003 LinuxTag begins, the largest Linux event in Europe. It will be held in Karlsruhe, Germany. Four days will be packed with up to 20,000 visitors, over 120 exhibitors (including more than 30 Free Software orientated projects such as FFII, BSD, KDE and Debian), coding marathon and many conferences (including specialist business and government conferences). Best of all, in the spirit of the Free Software Movement, it will be largely free (entrance, and many conferences are free)."

Elvii asks: "My mouse wheel doesn't want to work through my KVM. It doesn't work in X11 under Linux (Debian 3.0, kernel 2.4.20), but it works in Windows on same machine, through same KVM, so that tells me it's a protocol or driver issue , which is beyond me. I have no other OS's to test on, although I read online that FreeBSD can handle the mouse wheel in this type of setup. When I set the mouse type to IMPS/2, it just twitches in corner and randomly clicks. Anyone know if it's a kernel issue or an X11 issue? I've googled and found nothing of real use there - just that some KVMs work and some don't. Plain PS/2 works but I want my wheel too." The kicker is that when the mouse is plugged directly to the machine, the mouse wheel works just fine! Has anyone else experienced the problem? What did you do to fix it?

Ant writes "KnoppixMAME is a bootable arcade machine emulator with hardware detection and autoconfiguration. It works automatically on all modern and not-so-modern hardware, including gameports and joysticks. It is powered by Knoppix Debian GNU/Linux, X-MAME, and gxmame." Update: 06/19 23:18 GMT by S : Although there are earlier versions in the release directory, looks like V1.0 hasn't made it onto the FTP just yet. Meanwhile, Jim points out the AdvanceCD image, which is "..also a bootable ISO image of a minimal Linux distribution containing MAME, but weighing in at 16 MB rather than 200 MB so there is more room for ROMs."

Slashback tonight brings updates and followups on several recent Slashdot postings. Among other things, Linksys says they're not violating the GPL, and Tiger Direct says that Michael Robertson's claims about Microsoft targeting Lindows buyers are way off base. Speaking of which, Microsoft has decided it makes more sense to embrace schools than to alienate them with hard-nosed licensing policies on donated PCs. Also, a torrent file for the Red Hat 9 version of Ximian's latest desktop, and more. Read on for the details.

HardcoreGamer writes "An Oregon amateur rocket group, the Portland State Aerospace Society, plans to launch a Linux-powered rocket weighing 12 pounds to 55,000 feet at a speed of Mach 3 in September, Wired News reports. The rocket's onboard computer is an AMD 586 processor and a Jumptec MOPS/520 PC/104+ board along with a power supply, a PCMCIA card carrier for an 802.11b card to transmit data to the ground, and a carrier board for a 128-MB CompactFlash card for long-term storage. The flight computer runs a stripped-down version of Debian Linux, with the 2.4.20 Linux kernel. The group will present a paper (HTML | PDF ) on the use of free software in rocketry at Usenix 2003. The real question is whether their network card will survive 10 seconds at 15 Gs!"

billatq writes "I love Mac OS X, but I'm also a fan of running Gentoo Linux because of its powerful package management system. A Debian-style system (fink) is already on Mac OS X, but now it seems that Gentoo's Portage is going to be available for it. Gentoo's announcement can be found on their web site. I can't wait until we see what the Gentoo team has prepared."

You asked nmap creator Fyodor many excellent questions, and his answers (below) are just as excellent. You'll want to set aside significant time to read and digest this interview, because Fyodor didn't just toss off a few words, but put some real time and energy into his answers.

leighklotz writes "Debian developer and Internet Mail Archive founder Jeff Breidenbach of PARC has made GlyphChess, a chess-playing copier using Python, GNU Chess and DataGlyphs attached to the bottom of the pieces. DataGlyphs are cool 2D barcodes made out of / and \ marks for ones and zeros that use the coding from CDs for error coding. If you don't happen to have a Xerox machine at home, it also works with SANE..."

MoreDruid asks: "Not long ago, I was asked to do some research for a blind relative from a friend of mine. I tried searching the sites of Red Hat, Debian, and some other distro's, but only SuSe came up with really useful information. I did find Blinux, but I think it's not really mature yet. Do any other Slashdotters have any experience in this field? What is a good distro to start with? This research is geared towards a blind newbie user, so are there any decent resources for vision impaired people so that he can get going with Linux?" This topic was discussed, in a more general sense, some two years ago, and there have since been questions dealing with several pieces of the puzzle. However, is there anything else out there, aside from the developing Blinux, that puts it all together in one nice package?

An anonymous reader sent us linkage to an overview of the new Mandrake 9.1. Many screenshots, as well as compliments for the latest KDE revision. Worth a glance if you're not already running Debian.

An anonymous reader asks: "My iBook is the strongest of my laptops, but it's not running my favorite OS. Knoppix and the various other live ISOs are nice for x86 machines, but (though OS X is nice, and I'm not disparaging it) it would be nice to have all the apps that come with KDE and GNOME, and to have them all available through a nice fluxbox or windowmaker desktop). I've seen smart people nearly cry trying to install Debian on their Macs, but then I've seen smart people nearly cry trying to install Debian in the first place. Knoppix has certainly made it easier to put Debian on x86 machines, but does such a thing exist for Macs? Mac OS X is a very pretty thing, and Apple has supported some great free software projects through it, it's just that on an older iBook (and older iMacs, even more so), a low-key GNU/Linux desktop moves more responsively, and has everything I need. If I could easily run a nice GNU system on them, old iMacs would be worth a lot more to me.".

JohnKFisher writes "For anyone who has ever put together a .deb package, but didn't want to bother with the hassle of setting up their own repository, or trying to get your package added to the official one, the Public Package Repository is up and running. I wonder if this means someone can finally add a version of KDE not dating from late in the Carter administration."

TheMadPenguin writes "When I heard about Libranet 2.8 containing KDE 3.1 and kernel 2.4.20 in our forums, I just about fell out of the chair I was sitting in. As you all probably already know, Libranet is a Debian-based distro aimed toward the desktop user. Until now, I had never heard of a Debian release with all the newest goodies, but my world was about to get turned upside down. Read the full review with screenshots at MadPenguin.org."