2004 October

The problem a number of people have with the Touchpads on their laptops is oversensitivity — on occasion, an errant bump with the corner of a palm can cause an inadvertent click that results in inconvenience at best and data destruction at worst. Personally, I also find it irritating when I’m attempting to drag the [...]

“This is the third update of Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 (codename ‘woody’) which mainly adds security updates to the stable release, along with a few corrections to serious problems. Those who frequently update from security.debian.org won’t have to update many packages and most updates from security.debian.org are included in this update.

SUSE Linux Advisory: xpdf, gpdf, kdegraphics3-pdf, pdftohtml, cups
Package: xpdf, gpdf, kdegraphics3-pdf, pdftohtml, cups
Announcement-ID: SUSE-SA:2004:039
Date: Tuesday, Oct 26th 2004 10:30 MEST
Affected products: 8.1, 8.2, 9.0, 9.1, 9.2 SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 8, 9 SUSE Linux Desktop 1.0
Vulnerability Type: remote system compromise
Severity (1-10): 5
SUSE default package: yes
Cross References: CAN-2004-0888 CAN-2004-0889
View Advisory

A test version of Fox Linux has been released by the Fox development team recently. Said to be based on Fedora, this test version of Fox Linux will allow potential users to see what this distribution will have to offer once completed.
I have to ask, where in the world do people come up with the [...]

CNET reports that Dell is just getting warmed up with the Linux market. Being a company that is always on the cutting edge of innovation, Dell obviously see an opportunity on the horizon by offering SuSE Linux installed on new servers.
Nothing short of brilliant, by using Dells large marketing arm and Novell’s well designed OS, [...]

Nettalk 2.0 has been released here recently. Offered as an AppleTalk Protocol solution for Linux, Nettalk 2.0 has been released as stable for those who wish to use it. Why should you even care about Nettalk? Because it has a lot to offer.
Described as “a collection of server programs and utilities for handling various protocols [...]

For many years, dairy farmers have found method after method for using existing technology to make the milk farm more efficient. Well these days is no different and their latest move just reinforces the ability to embrace change in order to remain competitive.
In South Africa, dairy farmers have decided to implement Open Source software in [...]

An article that not only addresses the how factor, but also shows the why factor as well. What in the heck am I talking about? I am referring to setting up a simple Linux firewall. As daunting as it may sounds, it can done with more ease than you might expect.
Joseph Brenner really out did [...]

After years without a release, we are glad to announce that Window Maker 0.90.0 is out!

Tim Bray lets loose quite a list of gripes about some recent remarks by Richard Epstein. Apparently some things about Open Source that really got Bray peeved. Although I am not going to try to understand the motivations for either party in involved, it does sound like Bray took it a bit too personally.
Look, I [...]

Just to prove that even big companies like Red Hat are not immune to scam artists, I thought I might bring this article about a little “oops” that I am sure that Red Hat would like to forget about to your attention.
As always, it was targeting the company directly, but their customer base instead. Red [...]

Even with Firefox setting servers ablaze with impressive download numbers, the target remains about choice, not dominance. I believe that Mozilla’s Bart Decrem, understands that while Firefox is becoming a top browser among the computer savvy, there is still those out there that are quite content to blindly use what already comes on their default [...]

As some of you might recall, Johann De Freitas first introduced us to the Ubuntu distribution back on the 17th of this month. Since then, the distro continues to gain popularity with each passing day.
As distros go, I suppose one might describe Ubuntu as a “progressive” form of Linux. The logo shows that they [...]

Is it nearing that time of year? You know, that special time when the leaves start to fall from the trees, the nights are getting colder and your current CMS (content management system) begins to stink.
Hey don’t feel bad, it happens with time. Lucky for us that these days a decent CMS is just a [...]

This is a well-thought-out, well-written piece on Linux vs. Windows security. This continues to be an ongoing debate and the answer to which is more secure depends, to a great degree, on who you ask. This report looks in detail at the claims that are made and analyses them one by one, citing hard data [...]

Broadband users can heat up those burners the latest installment of Suse Live Cds is available for download. Unlike previous versions 9.2 Live Cds come in two flavors a KDE only and GNOME only version. The Live DVD contains both desktops. According to the readme file at least 384MB of RAM is required for smooth [...]

I. BACKGROUND
libtiff provides support for using the Tag Image File Format (TIFF), a widely used format for storing image data.
II. DESCRIPTION
An exploitable heap overflow in the handling of malformed tiff files has been discovered in the latest version of libtiff when JPEG support has been enabled.
The overflow occurs in the OJPEGVSetField() function of libtiff/tif_ojpeg.c. [...]

This new category is to help you penguin folk be notified of Linux security problems. Unfortunately, all software has security troubles - fortunately, the open source model of development allows for world wide collabaration on a project, allowing for coders in another time zone to work on a security hole while folks in the [...]

Oh coolness! Slackware on a LiveCD? Well in a sense, yes. Slax Linux is a LiveCD based on Slackware that allows anyone with a compatible PC and a cdrom drive to experience the power that this distro has to offer.
I am really loving this new flow of LiveCDs that seem to be pouring out all [...]

When I saw an article about a critical plain text vulnerability in Linux in my feed reader, I probably had the same reaction you are now: “Holy crap!” Surely something so simple can’t have befallen our favorite OS? I clicked the full story link with all speed, and arrived here.