Linux

There are rare occasions in IT when a particular architecture reaches a point where it stops being purely IT driven and takes on a life of its own. The last year has seen the open source movement reach such a cult status and at the vanguard of open source fashion can be found the Linux operating system. Whilst the platform appeals at several levels for potential users, some of a philosophical nature and others far more concrete, it is noticeable that a couple of its qualities have recently been called into question.

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Novell Inc. CEO Jack Messman delivered a Linux valentine to CIOs at the opening keynote at LinuxWorld here on Tuesday, taking pains to emphasize that Linux is business-ready in terms of security, certification, indemnification, and being able to run in entire hardware and software stacks, including on the desktop.

This article discusses detailed similarities and differences between booting Linux on an x86-based platform (typically a PC-compatible SBC) and a custom embedded platform based around PowerPC, ARM, and others. It discusses suggested hardware and software designs and highlights the tradeoffs of each. It also describes important design pitfalls and best practices.

Bill Gates has sent an email to all Microsoft's corporate customers warning that those in search of technological interoperability shouldn't look towards open source software.

Hello, my name is Benjamin Thomas and I am with Guardian Digital, Inc, the primary sponsor of LinuxSecurity.com Welcome to the first of the "Getting to know Linux Security" series tutorials that will be featured on our site. Today's topic is file permissions. This lesson is primarly intended for those users who are just getting started, and other wishing to brush up old skills. The examples I show you today are from a typical Linux command line. Today, I'll be using EnGarde Secure Linux.

During the disclosure of some recent vulnerabilities in the Linux kernel, I learned some things about Linux kernel security that was truly shocking. The way security in the Linux kernel is handled is broken, and it needs to be fixed right now.

Linux creator Linus Torvalds defended the open source movement against critics who say that the so-called "community of communities" should band together or risk ending up like Unix.

"One of the big strengths of open source is that you have little coupling between these projects," Torvalds said during an Open Source Development Labs-sponsored Enterprise Linux Summit here this week.

"If you try to keep everything at the same level -- especially with communicating the changes -- that takes energy. What I see as a strength of open source is that you have competing projects."

The Czech postal service has moved a mission-critical application used by 3,400 post offices across the country to Linux.

Czech Post, the company that runs the postal service in the Czech Republic, has installed Novell's SuSE Linux on 4,000 servers and 12,000 client terminals. The number of client PCs is set to increase to 15,000 in the near future, according to a Novell spokesman.

The Linux servers are running APOST, a system that handles all postal operations and is used by 20,000 Czech Post employees.

Novell is making an evaluation version of SuSE Linux Professional 9.2 available as a free download. The company says the free offering is intended to allow Linux users to test drive its latest SuSE open source desktop, server, and application functionality. In contrast to the LiveDVD version that boots directly from the DVD without modifying the hard disk, the free trial version is described by Novell as "a fully installable version [that] is not time limited."

A senior Microsoft executive, speaking exclusively to vnunet.com, has dismissed Linux's reputation as a secure platform as a "myth", claiming that the open source development process creates fundamental security problems.

Nick McGrath, head of platform strategy for Microsoft in the UK, said that the myths surrounding the open source operating system are rapidly being exploded, and that customers are dismissing Linux as too immature to cope with mission-critical computing.