Linux

Microsoft is taking the Linux threat seriously. So seriously, in fact, that open-source software comes in at the No. 2 spot on the company's top five list of risks.
In a teleconference to go over the Redmond, Wash.-based developer's fourth quarter and fiscal 2003 results on Thursday, CFO John Connors detailed the five biggest risks to his company's business.

"The general economic environment is risk and driver No. 1," he said. "Linux and non-commercial software is risk No. 2."

There's nothing quite like command-line tools for handling large batches of tasks, and image manipulations are no exception. Web developers and administrators will appreciate the ability to handle large numbers of files easily, either at the command line or in scripts. This article presents the ImageMagick suite, a Linux toolkit for sizing, rotating, converting, and otherwise manipulating images, in a huge number of formats, whether one or a hundred at a time.

Life seems to be getting even better for Linus Torvalds. Having just taken a leave from his "day job'' at chip designer Transmeta, Torvalds is about to begin a new one at the Open Source Development Lab (OSDL) where he will be able to focus even more on completing the upcoming 2.6 version of the Linux kernel.

Most people, when creating a Linux firewall, concentrate soley on manipulating kernel network filters: the rulesets you create using userspace tools such as iptables (2.4 kernels,) ipchains (2.2 kernels,) or even ipfwadm (2.0 kernels).
However there are kernel variables -- independent of any kernel filtering rules -- that affect how the kernel handles network packets. This article will discuss these variables and the effect they have on the network security of your Linux host or firewall.

Although it seems like only yesterday that we were booting up our first Linux 2.4 systems, time has ticked by and the kernel development team is nearing the completion of the v2.6 kernel. This document will attempt to describe many of the new features of the 2.6 kernel (with a heavy bias toward the i386 port of Linux.) Unlike the prerelease announcements of closed-source software, all of the features described here are available now (some more bug-free than others) in the Linux 2.5 development kernel.

You'll undoubtedly want to use ssh to work on your servers from remote sites, but it takes an assortment of tricks to keep progress rolling smoothly. While the ability to work remotely has always been one of the Linux advantages system programmers and administrators have most enjoyed, setting up for remote access takes more than one simple recipe. This article shows you, with the proper use of ssh, neither distance nor firewalls need keep you from your servers.

WE MISSED THIS ANNOUNCEMENT last week but what the heck – maybe you did too.
Lindows.com said it will offer the LindowsCD for $30.

The firm said it allows you to boot Lindows OS 4.0 from a CD drive by a simple restart. The cut down OS includes hardware detection, plug and play, multimedia support and real video.

The firm said one CD holds not only the Lindows OS, but Openoffice too.

And when you don't want to try out Lindows anymore, you remove the bootable CD and you're back to Vole 2000, or whatever operating system you're running.

In this new tutorial, Daniel Robbins, President/CEO, Gentoo Technologies begins preparing you to take the Linux Professional Institute's Exam 101 Release 2. In this first in a series of four tutorials, Daniel introduces you to bash (the standard Linux shell), shows you how to take full advantage of standard Linux commands such as ls, cp, and mv, explains inodes and hard and symbolic links, and much more.

Source: Linux World

Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, has announced via e-mail that the Linux kernel 2.6, due for release in the fourth quarter of this year, will include a variety of features for enterprise applications.

There will be what he terms "the usual scalability stuff” – in other words, much better behavior across a lot of loads over lots of CPUs and huge amounts of memory. There will also be support for new hardware architectures, including the latest AMD 64-bit Opteron CPUs and PowerPC 64 CPUs.

Source: The Register

The pre-installed OEM Linux desktop is about to become a reality under a deal announced by HP on Thursday.

The product of this marriage will be the HP Compaq Business Desktop d220 Microtower, available with Mandrake Linux 9.1 or that other OS, and targeting small to medium business (SMB) customers.