LINUX NEWS
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Thursday, May 10, 2001
Read By 5,000 Linux Enthusiasts Weekly!TABLE OF CONTENTS
1) Sean’s Notes
2) Linux News
.COMs Gone, Google Races On
Behind AnandTech - 2001 Server Upgrade
Mozilla 0.9 Released
RLX Outed3) Linux Resources
Unresolved Symbols in Kernel Modules
Creating a Driver for the PC Speaker
Network Security Bible
Apocalypse 2
Learning to Count on Perl at the Census Bureau4) App o’ the week
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1) Sean’s Notes
For the past week or so, I’ve been seeing stories about how Microsoft is looking to move to a subscription-based revenue stream. There was even talk about making Office XP available on a yearly contract, rather than buying the licence outright. All of this is designed to change people from customers into revenue streams.
Not that it’s wrong in any way to make a buck. The problem lies in the fact that a subscription delivery of software takes choice away from the consumer. Thought you were happy with the ‘97 version of your office suite? “No”, says Microsoft. That’s four years of income they’ve been missing out on! According to Microsoft, about 60% of people are using versions of Microsoft Office that are pre-2000.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-5067906.html
Open Source is about choice. Do you want to stay with your 1997 era kernel? No one is stopping you. You’ve got the source, just rebuild it on your machine. (Yes, things change and upgrades are sometimes necessary, but there are almost always workarounds).
Linux, being a product of the Open Source movement, embraces this philosophy. There are several window managers to choose from. Darn near everything can be customized to some extent. There are several word processors, database systems, development environments, and any other common application. The choice is yours. Most of the time, if you have a feature request, you can speak directly with the author.
Another advantage is support. Remember Y2K? Remember having to upgrade Windows? With Linux, you had the source. Chances were that no matter what version you were running, you could find the appropriate patches. Even if Linus decides that no one should ever run anything older than 2.2, you’ll still be able to find someone that supports it. Running an Alpha processor? What did you think about Microsoft dropping support for it? Guess what? That didn’t happen under Linux.
So, to counter Open Source, Microsoft makes up “Shared Source”, and presents it along with the usual Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD):
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/craig/05-03sharedsource.asp
Linus Torvalds responds: http://web.siliconvalley.com/content/sv/2001/05/03/opinion/dgillmor /weblog/t orvalds.htm
Alan Cox responds: http://news.wideopen.com/fc/2-118,209-119,509967
Take away the source, take away the choice. Without the choice, we’re left only with what we’re told we want.
What does the future hold? I don’t have a clue. What I do know is that I’ve got the source to my operating system and applications, and that no company can take that away.
Long Live the Penguin,
Sean mailto:swalberg@brainbuzz.com
Visit the Linux News Board at http://boards.brainbuzz.com/boards/vbt.asp?b2
2) Linux News
.COMs Gone, Google Races On
Google is a great example of the power of distributed computing. Using 4,000 Linux boxes around the Internet, Google creates a search engine out of commodity hardware. They’re at 4,000 nodes now, and growing to over 8,000!
http://www.internetweek.com/story/INW20010427S0010
Behind AnandTech - 2001 Server Upgrade
AnadTech is a web site that specializes in hardware news and reviews. Though their main system is running on NT, they were able to use the Linux Virtual Server project to build a scalable, redundant web cluster. Lots of pictures and descriptions of the hardware that went into it are included.
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i56&p=1
Mozilla 0.9 Released
According to the release notes, the Mozilla team has done a lot to improve the performance of their browser and email software, including a complete rewrite of the image rendering library.
http://www.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla0.9/
RLX Outed
One rack is 42 Rack Units, which gives you around 80 processors. The RLX uses Transmeta chips, and gives you 336 processors at a fraction of the power consumption. It’s not truly SMP, so Databases are out, but serving web pages is where this device is positioned.
http://www.linuxgram.com/newsitem.phtml?sid8&aid209
3) Linux Resources
Unresolved Symbols in Kernel Modules
If you’ve ever compiled your own kernel, you may have seen unresolvable symbols when trying to load certain modules. As this page shows, it’s tied back into module versioning– the kernel is set up to do it, but the module doesn’t support it.
http://faqchest.dynhost.com/linux/KERNEL/kern-01/kern-0102/kern-010 209/kern0 1020221_32215.html
Creating a Driver for the PC Speaker
While most of us have little intention of writing a kernel driver ourselves, knowing more about the kernel couldn’t hurt. This article is about one person’s effort to make a driver for the PC Speaker that looks like a sound card. It explores what drivers do and how they function.
http://www.linux.com/newsitem.phtml?sid&aid197
Network Security Bible
The intent of this site is to be a resource for security papers across the Internet. There are almost 100 links to papers on all aspects of security.
http://www.securityflaw.com/bible/
Apocalypse 2
Any time Larry Wall, the creator of PERL, speaks, it’s worth a listen. His Apocalypse series of articles have to do with what’s going on under the hood of Perl 6. If you code a bit of Perl, reading this is a good idea!
http://www.perl.com/pub/2001/05/03/wall.html
Learning to Count on Perl at the Census Bureau
And, while I’m on a Perl trend, here is a case study on how Perl is used at the US Census Bureau. In fact, Perl and PHP enabled the 2000 census to be used on the Internet, resulting in a huge savings.
http://perl.oreilly.com/news/census_0101.html
4) App o’ the week
Slashcode, the software that runs Slashdot and many other sites, is this week’s App. Version 2.0.0, “Bender” was just released, with a slew of new features. If you’re looking for a dynamic news system that can handle the load, this might be the one for you.
http://slashcode.com/
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