PenguinREPORT

It’s been great to see the release of new Linux versions over the past few weeks. Whether you use their products or not, the commitment of Suse, Mandrake, and RedHat to continued inprovements in Linux. The OS that Linus created for fun continues to improve in many ways, providing powerful tools, solving complex problems, and bringing general computer fun to more and more users each day.

However, with that growth comes some problems. All three major new distros have also released a slew of security and bugfixes. In Mandrake, these errata include updates to:

• tcpdump
• rm
• iptables
• libsafe
• imlib
• sudol
• squid

RedHat has produced the following patches since the release of Valhalla:

• Updated Mozilla packages
• Perl-digest fixes
• Netfilter fix
• Updated mod_python packages

Suse has released quite a list of patches. You can find it here. They have a longer window since their most recent release, so the fact that this is a pretty sizeable patch list in comparison to the other is to be expected.

All in all, though, these releases appear to be stable well-planned improvements on the previous versions from all three. You might think a bit differently if you’ve subscribed to any of the distro specific mailing lists - there’s a lot of bickering and bantering about one problem or the other. But, the truth is, it all seems to be a matter of not seeing the proverbial forest for the trees. Overall, Linux continues to grow in a very impressive way. There are considerably fewer post-release problems than even just a year or two ago. I mean, need I really mention RedHat 7.0?

It is, indeed, a good time to be a Penguin.

Tony
Steidler-Dennison