beagle asks: "I just signed up for Time Warner's Road Runner service, and I'm concerned for security on my home machine now. As I started to crack down on my box over the weekend, I noticed that GNOME has about ten ports open in the range of 1030-1040, for such things as gpilotd, tasklist (sp?), and other similar apps. I shut off inetd, named, sendmail, and all other basic services except httpd. Of course, ssh is the only remote login method I support. However, I run Helix GNOME at home (I don't at work; I only ssh into the work machine - no console) and I don't want to stop using GNOME."

drift factor asks: "I work for a small company with about 200 Linux desktops, all identical aside from hostname and IP information running Redhat from a kickstart install. Currently, when something needs to be changed on all of them (say, the default gateway) we either have to ssh into all of them and do it manually, or write a Perl script to do so for us. Is there a good remote configuration system that will also allow some level of automation, i.e., I tell it what IP I want the default gateway to be on each machine and it updates them for me?" If you manage a large server farm and have used or written utilities that do this, please share your experiences.

allanj writes "Have you seen the Clinux stuff running of the uCsimm modules? They are pretty little machines with a version of Linux that, with kernel and the entire filesystem needed to boot, comes in at only 900 Kb. The whole thing took 30 minutes from initial power-up to first boot. Some (quite basic) assembly of hardware required though. The best part? The entire computer fits in a 30 pin RAM socket, with 8 Megs RAM, 2 Megs Flash ROM and an ethernet controller chip. It's powered by a Motorola DragonBall, so it's not for too processor-intensive tasks, but most things run just fine. Oh, and it has a gcc cross-compiler pre-packaged to run off your host system, so development can start immediately."

Spasemunki writes: "The NYTimes has a piece today on an agreement reached among I.B.M., Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems and several other developers to create the Gnome Foundation, a developer consortium that will undertake, among other things, the creation of a standardized desktop interface for Linux, and a suite of productivity programs designed to compete with MS office. As the name might imply, their efforts will center around the Gnome desktop manager, with Sun moving to adopt Gnome as the GUI for Solaris. Looks like some big names are getting interested in putting Linux on the desktop."

esimp writes: "In the August issue of CFO magazine, their tech report on servers goes on to say, "Linux has a passionate following among the tech-savvy, and mainstream support from such hardware and application vendors as IBM,Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, SAP, and others. But not everyone is a fan. Meta Group Inc. analyst Peter Firstbrook goes so far as to say that 'Linux should be shunned. It should not be a part of the business process.' Firstbrook objects to the very feature that most tout as Linux's number one asset--the fact that anyone can tweak the code--because it creates a situation in which an IT staffer may make changes that no one else knows about, and that probably go undocumented." That's right, because if someone you hired doesn't have proper documentation skills, it's all Linux's fault.

wishus writes: "The Compaq iPAQ is Compaq's PocketPC offering, with a 206 MHz Intel StrongARM. Microsoft beware, though, because there are now 2 different ways to put Linux on it - Compaq's own is at handhelds.org and the second, announced yesterday, is from Century Software. They are actually two very different means to the same end - Linux and X running on the iPAQ, complete with handwriting recognition." If only it had 802.11 wireless support, I'd be there.

Andreas Krennmair asks: "I'm planning to build my new Linux system from scratch, similar to Linux From Scratch. I'm currently collecting all source packages, and I wonder how common it still is to use a self-built Linux system, although graphical (or pseudo-graphical, curses-based) installation programs with automatic hardware component detection and great software package management systems are used in almost every modern Linux distribution. And are there any people left who still use Jurix or Yggdrasil?"

Deven Phillips, CISSP asks: "Recently, the company that I work for bought some VA Linux servers for our network and Web site. I was the one who recommended VA, due to the idea that they would give good technical support. When we purchased the servers, we were a bit dismayed by the fact that VA would not install Mandrake on our servers. Never to be daunted, we ordered the servers, and installed Mandrake ourselves. One of the servers (our file server to be) wouldn't load, wouldn't boot, and wouldn't even give us a good error indication. This is exactly why we chose VA, customer support. We returned the server and requested an immediate replacement. We were told 'No problem'. After the 7th day, still not being built. At two and a half weeks we got our server. The server came back to us missing parts, and still suffering from the same problem we were having before!"

alee writes "Here's what everyone's been waiting to see: screenshots of the Compaq iPAQ (PocketPC) running Linux. No, you're not going to see it running a plain-jane shell -- you're going to actually see it running X! This project is a lot more mature than I expected. Here is Photos of iPAQ being opened, and running X and Screen captures of the iPAQ running X." Ummmm.... wow.

Eugene Cabanopscotch writes: "I run a Web-hosting company that is seriously looking at managed co-location in the U.S. as a means to get content to overseas clients without the delays of using NZ's congested international links. I clicked through from the popular Slashdot banner ad Rackspace.com and also checked out digitalNATION and saw that they offer managed RedHat boxen. Now, not wanting to start any sort of holy flame war or anything (moderators, start your engines) I thought "that's great and all, but I want a Debian GNU/Linux box" so I quickly fired off a couple of e-mails to the listed e-mail addresses asking whether they would be willing to install and manage a Debian box. I got back flat refusals to manage Debian machines. Does anyone know of a managed co-location provider that is willing to work with Debian?" I find it odd that places will restrict co-locations to specific distributions of Linux. It's not that hard to manage a Red Hat and a Debian box, is it?

spizkapa writes: "IDC has predicted that Linux will grow steadily along with Microsoft in the near future in the home PC (client) market, as well as including numbers that prove Linux's acceptance rate is fantastic. " The numbers look nice, especially in the server area, but it's too bad that things weren't broken down more. I'm also wondering where *BSD fits in -- I assume under UNIX, but it's unfortunate that they weren't broken out separately.

b0nk3d asks: "Hi, I work at a computer lab and would like to set up a remote login cluster. I have 4 Pentium Pro and I'm running Storm Linux on them. Do you think it'd be efficient to do a load balancing schema or a process sharing cluster? Also are there any recommended distributed file systems that would work well with small 2-6 gig drives that these machines have so that I could create a virtual volume?"

Gareth writes "CNET has more information on IBM's wrist watch running Linux, including an interview with the vice president of research." A lot meatier than we had yesterday. It looks legit, but it's still looks pretty impractical (despite scoring many points on the old cool-o-meter).

Phexro writes: "According to this story at newsalert, Debian has been awarded the $25,000 IDG/Linus Torvalds Community Award. It will be presented during the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo on Tuesday, Aug. 15. Go Debian!" Congratulations to the Debian crew for this. Non-Debian users benefit from the pressure that Debian puts on other distros -- just by existing -- to mind their P's and Q's when it comes to Free software, and for proving that elegant upgrade systems don't have to be glitzy or labyrinthine.

Yet another of the numerous Anonymous Coward asks: "A group of us are hoping to convince a big UK based defence organisation to break away from Microsoft's stranglehold on the workplace and to try out Linux. I am preparing a Q&A style document to be e-mailed to the company which will answer people's worries. What I am trying to do is convince people, either at work or at home that there is a cheaper, more stable alternative to M$. So, I am writing for a general audience." A document describing the advantages of Linux to corporations and small companies can't be a bad thing. I should know: the Ask Slashdot bin is full of them!

Henrik pointed us to the Linux in a Box project, which is a bitchin' little project to create an inexpensive little Linux box: it boots a 2.0.36 kernel from a ramdisk, and it's pingable and Telenetable, as well as being usable as a Web server. Only for the brave of heart and willing to hack.

stuyman asks: "I'm amazed that I haven't been able to find a good source of information on this sort of subject, but it seems that all anyone ever says is that it needs to be determined based on "certain factors" on an individual basis. No one ever says how to evaluate those factors. I need to set up a whole bunch of new Linux servers. How big should the partitions be? Anyone have any formulas or ideas? I'm open to superstitions, too (heads, root is 300, tails it's 60). Some quick details about the setup: We've got a 20.5 gig HD and we want to have separate partitions for /, /var, /usr, /usr/local (maybe), /home, /opt, and /tmp, as well as a sufficient amount of swap. The servers will run RedHat 6.2 with Apache stronghold, and will also need X installed. We're currently leaning towards having huge /usr and /usr/local, with about 2 gigs for var. Also, how much /var would one suggest for a syslogd server that'd be serving logs for 50+ boxen? (running mostly RH or SunOS) Awaiting this thread eagerly..."

Kris Warkentin writes: "This question is not entirely intended to start a debate about the pros and cons of microkernels vs. monolithic ones. What I would really like to know, however, is how _feasible_ it would be to convert the Linux kernel to a microkernel. I was looking at how the QNX kernel offers only core services like threading, IPC, process creation, memory management, initial interrupt handling, etc. Everything else functions as a process within its own memory space. Linux can be configured so that it is much like this with other things (filesystems, etc.) compiled as modules. The key difference is that all the modules are operating in kernel space. So, the question is, how difficult do you think it would be to devise a communication protocol to let modules function outside of kernel space and merely talk to the kernel? What would be the cost and benefits? Would it be possible to have both types in the same source tree? (say, as a compile option)"

suwalski writes: "I have a question for all of the mklinux Gods out there. At work I'm forced to use HP-UX, which is all nice and good, but I prefer Linux. I went looking around and found that mklinux is supposed to run on HPPA (which is the type of CPU my HP-712/100 has). I haven't been able to find any useful information on how to go about this, and I'd be very happy to hear comments and tips from anyone who uses Linux on HP's regularly."

dhammabum asks: "I've just installed a machine with a copy of Red Hat 6.2. I thought I would use the squid RPM that comes with the distribution to save time, etc. All went well until it tried to set up delay pools as this configure option had not been set in the RPM. So I then had to stuff around for quite some time working out how the RPM differed from the distribution. It even turned out the install options they used were broken -- they had to link a directory to get it to work! This begs the question -- why not have the configure options included with the RPM, say in /usr/doc, so that when one has to change something you simply add or subtract whatever you need to change, rebuild the package and reinstall?" I've always wondered why source-handling package managers like dpkg ^[?] and RPM ^[?] haven't implemented such schemes, allowing users to pass flags to configure and preserving them for the next time the package needs to be built. Does anyone have any ideas as to how such a system would best be created? Are there package managers that already do such things?