pryan writes "rootprompt.org has some interesting articles on locking down a Linux box on a hostile network (read: Internet) and cloaking a Debian box so script kiddies don't find it. Check out fortress building, part 1, and part 2. For you Debian freaks (I'm wearing a Debian swirl t-shirt as I type this), check out cloaking Debian. Of course, the cloaking article is easily adaptable to other distributions. Let's lock down those boxes! "

A singular node from the Anonymous Coward Collective asks: "Several months ago when the storm first blew up about the cracked DVD code enabling Linux users to view DVDs on their chosen platform, Intervideo rode a wave of publicity drawing geeks worldwide to their site by announcing their upcoming 'legal' DVD player for Linux to be available in the second quarter 2000. June came and went and I contacted their sales people who informed me that it would be available at the end of July. It wasn't. I contacted their PR people and was told that it would be available at the end of August. No show. In the meantime, thousands of geeks have gone to their site to be entertained by the wonderful awards they have won for their Windows software. No mention of Linux. The press release has disappeared from their home page as well. Did this software really exist, or was it all just a pathetic publicity stunt? Does anyone out there know the answer?" I'd think quite a few uf us would like to know the answer to this one. What happened, Intervideo?

Well, in my digging through our book review bin, I found this review of The Linux Problem Solver, which somehow slipped through the cracks. Thanks to PotPieMan for doing the review and let's see what he thinks of the book.

Snocone writes: "Here is the first real world application (researching drug effects on the brain, ironically enough) of Terra Soft's 8-way Black Lab Linux cluster. Even if they didn't deserve mad props for standing up proudly against the Lintel hegemony, there's just something fundamentally hilarious about selling an $18K supercomputer made out of iMacs." So - eight Imacs. You could get the different colors, and call it a Lifesavers Candy Cluster?

bitFliper writes: "This site has more information about IBM's Linux wristwatch, including a whole page of pictures here. Linux 2.2 OS with 8MB Flash memory and 8MB DRAM memory. It weigh's in at 44 gms (approximately 1.5 ounces), has a touch sensitive display, IrDA, radio frequency wireless connectivity, and a rechargeable lithium-polymer battery. Pretty cool."

mholve points to this LinuxPlanet feature titled "A Sneak Peek at Nautilus from Eazel." Despite that title, it's not just a collection of bulleted feature lists and screen shots. Instead, it's a nicely balanced, in-depth look at the thought process behind the creation of Nautilus as well as a description and critique of the current preview. The article raises some interesting points about the complications that Eazel has found in trying to make Nautilus distribution-neutral: "In the future, I think we're going to have to look for a way to abstract the package system much in the same way we've abstracted the file system," [Darin Adler, Eazel software engineering honcho] allows. In addition, he notes that the diversity found in other areas of Linux distributions presents a daily challenge: "We try to get weirdnesses out of our code as much as possible, when we discover we've accidentally done something distribution-specific, we try to 'unweird it.'"

A couple people wrote with a link to an article about MontaVista. They've introduced "a fully preempetable Linux". It's based on kernel 2.4, but the timing is interesting, considering 2.4 isn't completed yet - and if this had come out earlier, perhaps some of this could have been included. The article's a bit press releasely, but has some good info.

RatzMilk asks: "The firm I work for has several clients who are still running Novell 4.11 which Novell is stopping support for in early 2001. As such they will require expensive upgrades to the latest version to be able to continue their support with Novell. I have suggested to one of the clients that they could replace their Novell with Linux which would have the added advantage of being able to utilize their existing hardware. The Novell upgrade would also require a hardware upgrade has well. They have agreed but their only concern was stability as the Novell boxen has been very reliable and Linux is an unknown to them. My company's policy is to provide the best possible support to our clients. My question to Slashdotters is, do you think I have made the right recommendation? Should I just do the switch with one client and see how it goes, or go the hole hog and recommend it to all?" Would Linux be the ideal solution in this case? Would BSD be any better or worse in this situation? And is holding on to the outdated hardware a good idea? As it is, systems can't go on forever, and depending on age of this system, maybe a full upgrade is a good idea.

jhughes wrote to us with the report that Debian will be including KDE2 within Woody, and according to the article, backtracking it into Potato. Of course, you've been able to get the packages by editing your sources.list ^[?] , but apparently this will mean including it in the "official" list.

nontrivial writes "Linux Medical News has a decent review of Win4Lin, a MS Windows emulator. The article and submissions also touch on other solutions for having to run Windows applications. I use Win4Lin daily, and I must say it is rather spooky how well it works. The review doesn't spell it out, but Win4Lin 2.0 does include sound and serial and parallel support, and so far I've had no problems with the beta. It runs Windows in a SDI type interface, comes with DOS emulation, and can be run in many odd resolutions if you don't like running it in it's own virtual console. The bad news is that it technically requires a licensed copy of Windows (95, 98, etc, not NT), it is intended for business applications (so no DirectX support for example), and only TCP/IP networking is supported within the emulation. But overall it's stable (no more crashes than MS causes, and it doesn't take the whole box down when you see blue), it's fast (native speed), and it's cheap ($35). IMHO it's the best transition software I've used."

James Cownie asks: "The Linux kernel development is an open process, we all know that, but, as an unknown in the community it seems impossible to attract the attention of anyone on the kernel list. I'm not trying to reimplement huge kernel subsystems or do anything major, but I found a genuine kernel bug, documented it and submitted a patch on the kernel mail list; to be met with complete and utter silence. Just as if no-one had read my mail at all. I can stand and react to abuse, or requests to fix my patch, or whatever, but what can I do in response to silence?" UPDATED

Paul Weaver was among the hoardes to note that Linux 2.2.17 has been officialy released at the usual places. So take some time out from trying to compile 2.4 test releases and update the boxes that need stable kernels.

dclatfel writes "Just wanted to let everyone know that the latest beta of Mandrake for Intel is up - 7.2 Beta - and it's called Ulysses. (Now where is that Golden Fleece?)" They've got notes regarding it as well - KDE 2 Beta 4, and Gnome 1.2, as well as XFree86 4.01 as the default X server.

Mixhaus asks: "I'm trying to promote the Linux culture in my company. I want to migrate or at least start all new web projects on a Linux/Apache setup. Currently all the development is done on IIS/ASP with MSSQL 7.0. Has anybody done this kind of migration before? Any suggestions?"

okie_rhce asks: "With cheap Unix-based server clusters becoming all the rage, what are people using to replicate content to server farms? Networked File Systems can be a single point of failure and tools like rsync are not real time."

One of the Infinite Number of Anonymous Coward asks: "Our company threw Linux to the curb because management decided that Linux would never be able to pass an SAS70 security audit. I do not think they even checked to see if this is really true. Does anyone know of or have experiance with SAS70 certified operations using linux? Is it possible?" What's involved with SAS70 certification where Linux (and other Unixen for that matter) may fall short?

satch89450 asks: "I am one of the authors of the book Linux IP Stacks Commentary published by Coriolis Press. This book comments the TCP/IP code in Linux kernel 2.0.34. The history of the book is described here in detail, including our reasons for 'leapfrogging' the 2.2 releases and going right to 2.4. Yes, it's long past time to update the book, especially as kernel 2.4.0 has many, many changes in the TCP/IP code and is in test release as you read this. Our problem is how to fund the effort. Coriolis appears not to be interested in another round at this time. Heather and I are both professional writers, and that's how we make our living. Given the amount of work, donating the effort is out of the question -- it wouldn't keep kibble in the kitty bowls and have the material available in a timely fashion. We're looking for ideas." One of the largest complaints about Linux is that there is a lack of high-profile documentation. It would be sad if this publication were not made simply because of the lack of funds (which some people would see as a lack of interest) necessary to complete it.

On Aug. 30 several folks who have written Linux drivers and apps relating to the free barcode scanner mentioned here a few days ago were sent cease and desist orders demanding that they stop distributing the code. [updated by timothy 20:00 GMT: Please note that what flyingbuttmonkeys received is not officially a "cease and desist" letter; instead, it merely says that the longer the drivers are available, the "longer damages will accrue," citing "intellectual property rights owned by Digital Convergence." ] The barcode scanner is called a CueCat (with some lame marketroid colons that I'm not using because it irritates me when people name things like that). The code included a device driver written by Pierre-Philippe Coupard and a reader/decrypter written by Michael Rothwell. The code is afaik unavailable, but hopefully folks who downloaded it will have mirrors soon. I asked Michael to describe to me what his decoder did, and a few other questions.

swestbrook asks: "I would like to know if there are any efforts out there to submit a Linux distribution or the kernel at large for U.S. governmental testing to see if it will be certified to be Defense Information Infrastructure Common Operating Environment (DII/COE) compliant. I am a program manager for a very small program in the U.S. Air Force and would like to be able to use Linux as a possible platform for my standard systems. However, I cannot because regulations require me to use only operating systems that are DII/COE compliant. Information on DII/COE compliance can be found at here. Until it is officially certified I can not rehost applications on a Linux platform. Any information would be greatly appreciated."

Spyky writes: "A fairly new product from HP, the Jet Direct 4000 Printing Appliance includes a 266 MHz PC processor, a 5.2 GB HD, 64 MB of RAM and runs the Linux operating system. However, it fails to recognize Linux, or any non-Microsoft operating system as a valid client. In essence HP recognizes Linux as an operating system powerful and stable enough to trust their Printing Server Appliance to, yet are unwilling to commit to supporting that very same operating system as a client."