Monthly Archive:: December 2003

Andrew Brown has just committed a complete rewrite of the NetBSD kernel's sysctl infrastructure to the tree. More info here.

The Debian Team has offered this explanation of the recent server comprimise. In related news, a recent update to rsync was posted to patch a security hole that recently affected Gentoo .

This article by a technical marketing engineer in Intel's Software Solutions Group introduces Intel's Mobile Application Architecture Guide, which was created to help application developers understand the issues that are arising through the growing proliferation of wireless mobile computing devices. According to Intel, users expect the same functionality from applications running on their mobile devices whether they are offline or connected to a network.

Jonathan S. Shapiro, architect of the EROS persistant operating system announced that he would be putting the project on hold for at least a year. This followed a series of emails describing the mistakes he felt that EROS had made: 1, 2, 3, as well as an email describing what he thought it had done right.

"When I mentioned to a friend that I was going to install Debian on a system so I could learn more about Linux, he suggested I try the Gentoo distribution." Read the review at LinuxJournal.

"I consider myself part of the open-source community. The (Linux) community has to recognize that it can't have it both ways. Linux cannot be a hobbyist's toy and be the leading operating platform in the industry at the same time. Those two things are incongruent. For Linux to become a credible part of the enterprise, it has to go through the standard evolution and maturing process" and "Linux on the desktop is definitely an area where hype is ahead of reality by orders of magnitude. There's a sexiness around the idea of taking on Microsoft", vice president in charge of Hewlett-Packard's Linux strategy, Martin Fink says to News.com in a very interesting and seemingly honest interview.

In the steps of OSX's QuartzExreme, freedesktop.org's new X and Longhorn, PalmSource seems to be seeking an engineer to take on "responsibility for a new high-performance graphics system, based on OpenGL and Postscript." According to this bit of information it might be safe to assume that a future PalmOS will be basing its UI on GL.

Two weeks ago, Xandros Corporation announced the release of Xandros Desktop OS 2.0, which will be available for purchase beginning December 9. LWN has taken this opportunity to ask the recently appointed CEO of Xandros Corporation Andreas Typaldos about the product features, plans for the future and other topics of interest.

Genesi today announced a new, PowerPC-based, modular MicroATX mainboard release that brings flexibility and efficient processing power to performance-intensive applications, including desktops, workstations, servers, and communications products. Read the rest of the press release.

My husband hooked me up on Slackware almost three months ago (he used to run Slackware in the '90s). While I use a large range of OSes on a daily basis, when I am under Linux I now prefer to use Slackware. This is my mini-article with thoughts on Slackware 9.1 after using it for three months on and off. Ten screenshots are included.

This study focuses on the distinguishing traits of the Linux managing model. It introduces the concept of process to capture the idea of impermanence, dissolvability and change. Far from being a predictable flow of programming, assembling and releasing activities, it is suggested that the Linux development process displays a stream of activities that keep feeding back into each other, thus creating a complex and unpredictable outcome. Read more articles at FirstMonday's issue index.

The next official release of Gentoo Linux will adopt a new year-based versioning scheme and will be called Gentoo Linux 2004. It will be released in January 2004. It will also mark their transition to a quarterly release schedule. Elsewhere, LWN featured recently an introduction to Gentoo Linux.

"Finally I think there needs to be a public call to Red Hat to provide critical security updates for Red Hat 7.x, 8.0 and 9. While I realize that this will not create any revenue for Red Hat, quite the opposite, it will reduce short and medium term revenues as customers will continue using "free" products". Read the article at the Security-Site by Kurt Seifried.

Lindows.com today launched LindowsOS Laptop Edition, the first Linux-based operating system tailored specifically for laptops. LindowsOS Laptop Edition includes improved power management, compatibility with WiFi cards and the ability to take advantage of keyboard shortcuts to browsers & email programs.