2005 March

This bug bounty program is a great idea. Yes, it could be exploited I suppose. However, the likelihood of this money being paid to the folks that exploit them is just not something that I foresee happening.

A hack for Gimp to give it that Photoshop feel? Why not? I am someone who happens to feel more at home in Photoshop, but would rather do my work in Gimp. Perhaps this hack is the answer we need!

I have tried Linspire a number of times. I think for some people, it is fine. But I just cannot get over the fact that they attempt to get you into a root account by default. This is beyond stupid , folks, it just is. Anyway you try to slice it, this will continue to [...]

One of the big issues that I have with ‘make and make install’ is that you almost always get some mystery error that really tells you nothing. However, with Debian distributions this has been made a lot easier with apt-get. While it may not be perfect, I like it lot better that hitting my head [...]

What’s this? Is Amazon getting into bed with the Penguin? It is beginning to look that way from here. With them being dependent on Linux to offer them reporting and analytics, I am going to say that I could see this as the beginning of more dependence on the Linux solutions within Amazon as time [...]

Yes, Linux has made amazing strides into the mainstream. But there are still enough issues that lead me to be a bit concerned about where it is heading from the usability area. We have the command line commando crowd. Then on the flip side, we have the ‘let’s treat the users like morons’ crowd from [...]

Looks like Torvalds is really working to push Linux even further as Microsoft is beginning to respond better to customer concerns of security and price. Don’t get me wrong, I have major gripes with both OS’. Even to this day, I feel that OS X is still the easiest move away from Windows. But Linux [...]

Yet another example of how important it is for hardware manufacturers to give up their denial of an alternate OS and start releasing Linux drivers. In this article about some struggles with an eternal USB sound card, this gives me a great excuse to once again scream and yell at the hardware world once again. [...]

First off, a round of applause for this Website designed with the Linux newbie in mind. Anyway, let’s get on with it. Today ‘Granny’ shares her love of simple to use email clients like Kmail. Granny then goes on to boast about how much fun it can be to use the text editor know as [...]

Writing device drivers is one of the few areas of programming for the Linux operating system that calls for kernel-specific
knowledge. And device drivers literally drive everything you’re interested
in - disks, monitors, keyboards, modems - everything outside the computer
chip and memory. For years now, programmers have relied on the classic
Linux Device Drivers (Third edition, Corbet, Rubini, [...]

Is Open Source all set to take over the software world in the IT realm? I think that this is unlikely, but I am willing to bet that a fair sized piece will definitely fall to it. Having said that, OS software is still growing. There is still a lot of work to be done [...]

Everything considered, this Scientific Linux seems to be another form of Linux targeted at the enterprise user. This is great and all, but what makes it different from other comproble distributions? Guess we will have to try it to find out!

If you ever wanted to get inside the mind of a Linux dev, here is your chance my friends. Judd Vinet of Arch Linux is interviewed by OSNews. All and all, the interview had some great questions that were covered.

One man and a dream. Tom Russell shows interested parties the power of Runtime Revolution and Bash Shell through the power of video. Rather than becoming another talking head, this man is going to attract a lot of bees to this honey pot. All those interested in creating GUIs from within Linux are encouraged [...]

“Secunia Advisory: SA14713
Release Date: 2005-03-29
Critical: Moderately critical
Impact: Exposure of system information, Exposure of sensitive information, Privilege escalation, DoS, System access
Where: From remote
Solution Status: Vendor Patch
OS: Linux Kernel 2.4.x, Linux Kernel 2.6.x
Multiple vulnerabilities have been reported in the Linux kernel, which can be exploited to disclose information, cause a DoS (Denial of Service), gain escalated privileges, or [...]

A beer and Linux, what a combo! Well, apparently this distribution was done with the beer lover in mind. BEERnix is a distro based on Knoppix and was actually created with a beer in hand during much of the development.

Just found out that EXP Pharmaceutical Services Corp. Looks as if we are really beginning to see an evolving trend in which more and more companies in the medical field are moving away from the closed source world.

As Linux use in Asia continues to skyrocket, I noticed this article stating that the South Korean government is seriously getting into the whole Open Source scene. It seems that the government agencies of this region are feeling especially warm to the idea of going ‘Open’.

Now maybe you can help me out here, folks. My understanding this that the Simputer is that it would allow PC-like access to everyone. It would be both cost effective and location neutral. Apparently I was way off as the Amida Simputer is about as much as you might pay for a PDA here in [...]

I’ll be honest with you. I tried Red Hat once, never tried it again. While this was a number of years back and I realize that a lot has changed, the OS really never impressed me all that much. I have found a number of other free distributions that completely blow Red Hat out of [...]