LINUX NEWS
RESOURCES & LINKS FROM BRAINBUZZ.COM
Thursday, December 21, 2000TABLE OF CONTENTS
1) Sean’s Notes
2) Linux News
Wholesaler Rolls Out Linux
SUN Completes Acquisition of Cobalt Networks
Slow Progress to the Desktop
Shell Oil to Use Linux For Exploring
Corel Sells Linux Arm3) Linux Resources
PHP + MySQL = E-Business Backend
Don't Forget Your Pants!
More on Reiserfs
Cisco's Printing Solution
Learn PERL!4) App o’ the week
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1) Sean’s Notes
The Open Source movement is a great thing. In essence, you have talented people working on a project not for monetary reward, but for a common goal. Take for example the folks developing the GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), a Photoshop quality imaging tool. Do they sell it? No. What you get though is a group of people that have a need for such a tool developing it themselves, with the freedom to make changes and implement requested features. The Internet itself is based on this philosophy, the old mantra of the IETF was “Rough consensus, and working code”. We may not have the ideal solution (TCP/IP instead of OSI, OSPF instead of IS-IS), but it is a working solution, one that can be quickly adopted and fixed. Get the code in the hands of the people and let them work with it, and submit changes and suggestions. It’s the Open Source way, and has made such great things as the GIMP and Linux itself.
Not every great coder is a great systems administrator, nor will they have a dedicated connection to host mailing lists, CVS servers, and bug tracking databases. Recognizing this, VA Linux has created SourceForge, a service that provides all this and more, so that talented programmers can open their projects to the world.
Any project under an Open Source license is allowed to host on SourceForge. This means that they’ll give you your own CVS tree to keep your code and changes, the ability to create discussion lists for announcements and discussion, a web page to display your project, and much more. Furthermore, you can post your need for developers on the main page, as there are lots of people out there that may be looking for a project to code on (of course, help isn’t limited to coding, there is formal testing, documentation, and user assistance that is critical to any project’s success). It’s really a slick system, and - surprise, surprise, is a SourceForge project of it’s own.
You don’t have to be a starving programmer to make use of this either. Later on in this newsletter, you’ll see how Cisco Systems has developed their own printing architecture based on Linux. Realizing that others may benefit (and the potential for growth) they have turned it into a public project on SourceForge. If you have some software that you use at work that you developed, this may be a good way to improve it.
As a side note, Open Source doesn’t have to mean free labor either. Many projects are released under the GPL or a like license, but have paid staff working on it in addition to people working for free (WINE, SNORT, SourceForge). Situations like this show that the industry is catching on to the usefulness of opening up their software.
I encourage everyone to look at SourceForge:
http://www.sourceforge.net
Browse around, and maybe you can find a project that can help you out at work or at home. Find it useful? Lend a hand. Submit a bug report. Add a new feature if you can code. Write some documentation if you can’t. Resolve to make a difference in that project. Open Source is more than Free software. It’s about building a community.
Speaking of communities, BrainBuzz is the place to talk about Linux and ask your questions:
http://boards.brainbuzz.com:80/boards/vbt.asp?b4
Finally, feel free to email me with your thoughts and comments!
Long live the Penguin,
Sean swalberg@brainbuzz.com
2) Linux News
Wholesaler Rolls Out Linux
300 Linux boxes rolled out over six-and-a-half weeks. The need to grow in the B2B area, and the low cost contributed to this company’s choice of Linux for their branch office business applications. Companies like this (and Home Depot) are really starting to embrace Linux for mission critical applications.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/inl/index/0%2c1008%2c536077a1896%2cFF.html
SUN Completes Acquisition of Cobalt Networks
SUN Microsystems gained a strong foothold in the network appliance market by buying out Cobalt Networks, makers of the RaQ and the Qube. Yah, you know ‘em, the 1U Linux boxes that do pretty much everything? I know SUN is going to get a lot out of this deal, but hopefully not at the cost of replacing the Linux OS with Solaris on these devices. I’ll sure be watching SUN on this one…
http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2000-12/sunflash.20001207.1.h tml
Slow Progress to the Desktop
No one said it would be easy, but Linux is slowly making inroads to the desktop. The latest release of KDE 2 (K Desktop Environment), a GUI interface for Linux, should go a long way towards making the desktop more usable. This article also has some comments from ID Software, makers of the Quake series, and some observations on why progress in this area has been less than stellar.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-4101018.html
Shell Oil to Use Linux For Exploring
Another victory in the large scale computing area for Linux. Shell is using a 1024 node Linux cluster powered by IBM servers to run seismic and other geophysical applications. This is one area where Linux is going to clean up in the next few years. Who wants to buy big iron when you can build a super cluster out of commodity hardware? When you’re done with it, you’ve got a lot of nice desktops! (Maybe not, but you can still see the advantages!)
http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/12/12/linux.shell.reut/index .html
Corel Sells Linux Arm
I really hate to see this good (Canadian!) company get pounded, but it’s recently started work on selling off its Linux arm. Corel has put together its own distribution, and has been putting a lot of resources into WINE (a Windows compatibility layer) for their office suite and for other uses. However, the buyer is Linux Global Partners, who have an interest in Helix Code, WINE, and GNUCash. Hope it’s for the best.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0%2c4586%2c2665020%2c00.html
3) Linux Resources
PHP + MySQL = E-Business Backend
I’ve given out a few links in the past on how to use PHP, but this one really stands out. Using the example of an online coffee mug selling web site, a basic database and order system is created. Just another example of the tools that are out there for the using. Did I mention they’re free? :)
http://www.nwc.com/unixworld/1119/1119uw.html
Don’t Forget your Pants!
This SYSV init script will “Make sure you’re wearing pants when you go multi-user.” I know I face this challenge constantly, much to my embarrassment.
http://www.linux.org.au/~conrad/scripts/pants.html
More on Reiserfs
Hmmm…I seem to be on a roll with the links on journaling file systems. This article walks through some of the benefits of Reiserfs, and how to compile, install, and use it. For those that are new to them, journaling file systems allow for faster and more reliable recoveries after an unclean shutdown.
http://www.linuxworld.com.au/article.php3?tid=1&aid4
Cisco’s Printing Solution
I remember reading an article in a Linux magazine a couple of years ago on how Cisco started using Linux to manage all of their enterprise printing. It’s a really slick system for distributed management. They’ve released this to SourceForge under the GPL, and VA Linux has picked up on it. If you have a medium-to-large company, maybe this software can help.
http://ceps.sourceforge.net/index.shtml
Learn PERL!
I think every UNIX administrator should learn PERL. Problems have obvious solutions when you can code around them. Reports are easy to write, statistics a breeze to collect. Laugh at the mere mortals who have to import data into spreadsheets and manipulate. Anyway, here’s a good intro to the language. Don’t forget that BrainBuzz has some good PERL hackers that read the PERL board.
http://www.perl.com/pub/2000/10/begperl1.html
4) App o’ the week
Any Cisco PIX users out there? (A PIX is Cisco’s firewall). The logging is interesting on them, eh? It’s either quiet, or filling up your disk with everything it sees. Have no fear, this PERL script interacts with syslogd and generates HTML reports of activity. I’ve been looking for something like this for a while!
http://cs.calvin.edu/~mpost89/pixlog/
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