LINUX NEWS
RESOURCES & LINKS FROM BRAINBUZZ.COM
Thursday, September 6, 2001
Read By 7,000 Linux Enthusiasts Weekly!TABLE OF CONTENTS
1) Sean’s Notes
2) Linux News
Party Like It's 999,999,999
SUN to Break Mold on Star Office
RHCE Exam Discount
Is Linux good for UNIX?3) Linux Resources
Linux and UNIX, Together?
Forgot your root Password?
PostgreSQL vs. MySQL
Demand for Security Administrators on the Rise
Only 72 Hours?4) App o’ the week
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1) Sean’s Notes
A common question I hear is, “Do I want to learn Linux or UNIX?” To answer that, it would be a good idea to define UNIX, and take a bit of time to examine its past. Don’t worry, this history lesson will be entertaining.
UNIX started out as a pet project of a couple of fellows by the names of Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie. You see, they got their hands on a PDP-7 (from DEC), and Ken wanted to play a game that existed on an operating system called Multics. Being the OS hacker he was, he wrote a small kernel for the machine that would allow him to run the game. Later on, he and Ritchie got a PDP-11, and wanted to port their work from the PDP-7. Alas, his work was all in assembly, so it wouldn’t move over.
Thompson, Ritchie, and a chap named Brian Kernighan decided the best way to attack the problem was to develop a high level language that could be compiled to any architecture. Thus, C was born by Ritchie and Kernighan (otherwise known as K&R C), and Thompson was able to rewrite his operating system using this language, allowing it to work on both the PDP 7 and 11 (and to be easily ported in the future). In most respects, this is when UNIX was born.
AT&T, the employer of these hackers, was in a situation where it wasn’t allowed to make money off of it. So, it was licensed very cheaply to universities, who really took a shining to this operating system. Soon, courses were offered using UNIX as the backdrop, with books being published with the source code and commentary.
“Stop the presses!” said AT&T in the mid ‘70’s. “It may be cheap, but it’s still our licensed code!”. This action only served to drive UNIX development underground, and to promote the hackish spirit that exists even today.
Around this time, Berkeley University had made many extensions to the operating system, including TCP/IP sockets and signals. This spawned more legal wrangling, ending up in a Berkeley derived version of UNIX known as the Berkeley Systems Distribution, or BSD.
So, at this point in time, we’ve got a couple different strains of UNIX with multiple paths (“flavors”), hackers developing like crazy, and lawyers suing anyone they can lay their hands on. The network that would later become the Internet was hitting Universities, and UNIX made a great server.
Around 1991, AT&T spins off a company called “Unix Systems Laboratories”, which owns the UNIX trademark. 1993 comes, and the rights to UNIX are sold to Novell. Novell turns around and transfers them to X/Open. Some time later, they get moved off to SCO. Quite recently, Caldera and SCO merge.
X/Open is a group created to standardize APIs and such, and to protect the UNIX trademark. They are the ones that define what can be called UNIX (TM), and drive development of newer standards. Because of this standardization, most software can be easily ported between various flavors.
At the moment, the following mainstream UNIX-like operating systems are registered as UNIX (TM):
* SUN Solaris * HP-UX * IBM AIX * SCO Unixware (from Novell) * SGI IRIX * Digital UNIX/OSF/Tru64 UNIX (this one has gone through many name changes)
What does it mean? Practically, it means that the companies have paid a whack of cash to have it certified that their work adheres to the standards put out by X/Open (who are now called “The Open Group”).
Yep, you’ll notice Linux isn’t on that list, nor are the BSDs. What’s stopping them from being called “UNIX (TM)”? Not much. Most of the development is geared around all the appropriate standards anyway, so all it would really take would be that whack of cash.
Does it matter? Not really. Will it ever happen? Maybe. Linux and the BSDs have succeeded on their own merits thus far, being able to legally call them UNIX (TM) probably won’t help. However, with the merger of Caldera and SCO, the coin is still in the air.
So now you know what UNIX (TM) is, and how it differs from Linux. Which should you learn? It really doesn’t matter. Unless you have a strong preference, or immediate need to learn a different flavor such as Solaris, Linux provides a good foundation for further UNIX knowledge. Through my experience, I’ve noted that:
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60% of what you need to know is common to all UNIX-like OSes.
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15% is the same, it’s just called something different or is in a different location.
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25% is specific to the flavor, such as administration tools or hardware
Not only does Linux run on cheap hardware, there are tons of people that can help you out. Besides, this is a Linux newsletter. I’d probably get fired if I told you to run Solaris.
Long live the Penguin,
Sean mailto:swalberg@brainbuzz.com
Learn more about the history: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/levenez/unix/ http://www.crackmonkey.org/unix.html http://www.unix-systems.org
2) Linux News
Party Like It’s 999,999,999
UNIX keeps time by counting the number of seconds since January 1, 1970, the date otherwise known as “epoch”. On September 9 at 01:46:39 UTC, this number will hit 1,000,000,000, which by most people’s reckoning would make UNIX one billion seconds old.
http://www.electromagnetic.net/press-releases/unixonebln.php
SUN to Break Mold on Star Office
If you, like myself, run Star Office, you’re probably annoyed at the way it takes over your desktop. It isn’t the speediest thing going either, no matter how much RAM I throw at it, I’m always waiting for it to load libraries from disk. 6.0 promises to lighten it up a bit and move everything to its own window. Preview releases are available, the link is in the article.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2809857,00.html
RHCE Exam Discount
The Red Hat Certified Expert is a hands on exam that tests for proficiency in Red Hat Linux. Red Hat strongly encourages people to take one of their various courses before attempting the exam, going so far as to offer different packages for people with different skill levels. If you take one of their courses in September, and pass the exam before the end of October, they’ll pay you back for the cost of the exam. I’m confused as to why the refund amount is different depending on which course you took, given that the exam is the same, but hey – a freebie is a freebie.
http://www.redhat.com/mktg/youpass_wepay.html
Is Linux good for UNIX?
This article by SUN Microsystems examines the impact of Linux on UNIX, and if SUN considers Linux to be a friend or foe. Linux drove SUN to give away non-commercial licenses of Solaris 8, so you know it weighs heavily in their plans.
http://www.sun.com/software/cover/2001-0829/
3) Linux Resources
Linux and UNIX, together?
Yes, I know I just finished an article saying I didn’t think they’d come together, but this free whitepaper discusses their vision of unification – a UNIX kernel (SCO) with Linux utilities. That doesn’t count in my books, but it’s still worth a read.
http://www.caldera.com/expertise6/
Forgot your root Password?
It happens to the best of us: maybe we inherited a machine, or just plain forgot, but we can’t log in as root. Here’s the quick way to get back in, and also how to lock down the console so that bad guys can’t use the trick.
http://itresources.brainbuzz.com/tutorials/tutorial.asp?t=S1TU608
PostgreSQL vs MySQL
Two of the more popular free SQL database platforms out there are PostgreSQL and MySQL. Each has their advantages over the other, and this article points them out.
http://www.webtechniques.com/archives/2001/09/jepson/
Demand for Security Administrators on the Rise
Security can be a challenging job, though it is stressful. Even with the slowdown in IT jobs, the security industry is still steaming ahead. If you’re looking for that next step in your career, this may be it.
http://www.itworld.com/nl/it_career_adv/08272001/
Only 72 Hours?
The Honeynet project monitors machines in order to determine the tactics used by hackers to break in. They also publish a monthly challenge, inviting you to try your hand at figuring out what the hacker was doing. This one is worth noting, though, if only for the comment in the introduction “The expected life expectancy of a default RedHat 6.2 server is less then 72 hours. The last time we attempted to confirm that, the system was compromised in less then 8 hours.” Ouch. Lock down those boxen!
http://project.honeynet.org/scans/scan18/
4) App o’ the week
Stored procedures are pieces of code that can be executed within the server itself. Usually, they’ll be in the form of a shared library that gets linked in at runtime, and is called via SQL commands.
This nifty little application lets you run PERL code right out of the SQL server, either from a row or directly from a SQL query.
http://freshmeat.net/projects/myperl/
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