r3lody writes "Hardening Linux, by James Turnbull, stands out as an important text that clearly lays out how to make your Linux boxes as secure as possible. Mr. Turnbull has done a noteworthy job in delineating many potential vulnerabilities, and how to mitigate them. Each chapter covers a particular area in depth, with carefully worded and easy-to-follow examples. In the cases where you need to install some other piece of software to provide extra security, Turnbull gives you the step-by-step details, removing the chance of misinterpretation. As you finish each chapter, you will want to apply your newfound knowledge to the machines at your disposal." Read on for r3lody's review.

An anonymous reader writes "An article at XYZComputing goes over Dell's open source line of desktop computers and workstations. The N line is something which Dell began to sell recently, but the situation is much more complex that it would seem. There is often little or no discount given if consumers opt to go with FreeDOS as their operating system. There is also a great link in the article showing how Dell is selling AMD processors in their Accessories section!" From the article: "A major hurdle preventing the growth of Linux with non-professional users has been installation the operating system and dealing with the resultant compatibility issues. An ideal solution to this would be a major manufacturer which is willing to sell computers with Linux preinstalled. This would not only make it easy for users to buy a computer and have Linux running after simply plugging it in, but it would theoretically allow the manufacturer to lower the cost of a computer because software licensing costs could be minimized."

ChocLinux writes "Linus Torvalds is cracking down on developers that add last-minute changes to the kernel during the two-week merge window. He says: 'If people miss the merge window or start abusing it with hurried last-minute things that just cause problems for -rc1, I'll just refuse to merge, and laugh in their faces derisively when they whine plaintively at me, and tell them there's going to be a new opening soon enough.'"

An anonymous reader writes "In order to protect themselves against patent grabbing 'trolls,' major Linux companies are buying software patents through a nonprofit company called Open Invention Network. This nonprofit company will then offer royalty-free licenses to companies and individuals that agreed not to assert their own patents."

avorobiev writes "WiFi Planet is running a story on all the advantages of Linux-based firmware for the Linksys WRT54G router. Little do they know that as of v.5 of the router Linksys dropped Linux and switched to VxWorks. And yes, they crippled the hardware (halved the RAM) so that third-party firmware can not be installed anymore."

An anonymous reader writes "The OpenDocument format is gathering steam, as several influential companies seek an alternative to Microsoft Office." From the article: "The ODF Summit brought together representatives from a handful of industry groups and from at least 13 technology companies, including Oracle, Google and Novell. That stepped-up commitment from major companies comes amid signs that states are considering getting behind OpenDocument. James Gallt, the associate director for the National Association of State Chief Information Officers, said Wednesday that there are a number of state agencies are exploring the use of the document format standard."

An anonymous reader writes "CNN is reporting that IBM, Sony, and Philips are creating a Linux adoption group. Called the 'Open Invention Network', it is intended to protect vendors and customers from patent royalty fees while using OSS." From the article: "Patents owned by OIN will be available without payment of royalties to any company, institution or individual that agrees not to assert its patents against others who have signed a license with OIN, when using certain Linux-related software. Traditionally, patents have been pursued for two primary reasons -- to defend one's own intellectual property or for barter to trade in cross-licensing agreements to gain access to other companies' patents. OIN represents a new form of cross-licensing that its backers say could spur innovation. "

csplinter writes write to tell us that SuSE Linux founder Hubert Mantel has resigned from Novell stating "Too late for me. I just decided to leave Suse/Novell. This is no longer the company I founded 13 years ago." Novell confirmed his resignation but had little else to say on the topic. From the article: "Mantel's departure also comes less than a week after Novell announced a major restructuring that would result in 600 layoffs. It's unclear if Mantel's resignation is related to the restructuring."

Khakionion writes "Ubuntu has announced their recent certification for IBM's DB2 Universal Database for Linux. Quite a big step for Ubuntu towards becoming one of the heavyweights of the Linux world." From the announcement: "With an respected product like DB2 on Ubuntu, our partners will relish the chance to discuss database and solution choices with their clients."

kormoc writes "Transgaming has released a large update to Cedega. This release (5.0) changes how the entire product works, merging the GUI with the actual program, as well as implementing features such as pixel shadier 1.4 support, in order to get games such as battlefield 2 working. The release notes list all the new improvements as well as the newly supported games. This seems to be the best release to date and expands the feature set to work with a large number of new games."

zerojoker writes "The discussion is not new but was heated up by a blog entry from Greg Kroah-Hartman: Three OSDL Japan members, namely Fujitsu, NEC and Hitachi are pushing for a stable Kernel driver layer/API, so that driver developers wouldn't need to put their drivers into the main kernel tree. GKH has several points against such an idea." What do you think?

dr_d_19 writes "According to Groklaw, SCO is now demanding IBM to turn over 'all documents concerning IBM's contributions to the Linux 2.7 kernel, including development work'. Of course, there is no 2.7 kernel and no plans at all to create one."

jurt1235 writes "McAfee reports that a Linux worm has been found in the wild. The Linux/Lupper.worm is a derivative of the Linux/Slapper worm which also exists for BSD, just to be crossplatform. From the McAfee description: The worm blindly attacks web servers by sending malicious http requests on port 80. If the target server is running one of the vulnerable scripts at specific URLs and is configured to permit external shell commands and remote file download in the PHP/CGI environment, a copy of the worm could be downloaded and executed."

mstansberry writes "At the Open Source Business Conference last week, Microsoft's Shared Source mouthpiece Jason Matusow argued the point that open source isn't really open. He said you can't just go changing code on supported Linux offerings without paying extra to companies like Red Hat or Novell. So as Linux is commercialized, it becomes less open. While Matusow made good points during his presentation, many in the open source community are skeptical of the idea at best."

sebFlyte writes "ZDNet is running an interesting look at the sudden upswing of investment in open source products and the ensuing debate as to whether the open source business model has given us a bubble (akin to the dot-com bubble) that is about to burst. The counter-argument is that the increase in investment is just the natural progression of a robust business model whose time has come. One point that few people, whatever their viewpoint, could disagree with is that the key to a financially successful open source project rests with the community, rather than just the technology."

Anonymous Coward writes "In light of the many misunderstandings about Linux, software repositories and installation of packages, part one of this season's Mandriva Linux 2006 review includes an extensive background article about it. It explains why the nature of Free Software leads to a more userfriendly software installation setup for Linux distributions in general, as compared to proprietary systems such as the current desktop market leader. The process is illustrated with Mandriva Linux tools. This first part of the Mandriva Linux 2006 review also contains information on the installation and benchmark figures against previous Mandriva/Mandrake products and much more"

twitter writes "The BBC's David Reid attended Euro OSCon in Amsterdam and reports what he learned about the Open Source Model. He sums up the rise of non free software in the 1980s and how people and companies like IBM can make money with free software. From the article: 'The open source movement does not object to making money. The source code may be free, but there is gold in software support, training and publishing.'"

An anonymous reader writes "The Ubuntu Below Zero conference is in full momentum this week and Kubuntu has been prominent throughout. In his opening remarks at the start of the conference Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth announced that he was now using Kubuntu on his desktop machine and said he wanted Kubuntu to move to a first class distribution within the Ubuntu community. Free CDs for Kubuntu through shipit should be available for the next release if the planned Live CD Installer removes the need for a separate install CD."

Motor writes "In what must be one of the least unexpected announcements of recent times, Novell says that they are standardizing on one desktop rather than supporting two different codebases. From the article: 'Novell is making one large strategic change. The GNOME interface is going to become the default interface on both the SLES (SuSE Linux Enterprise Server) and Novell Linux Desktop line. KDE libraries will be supplied on both, but the bulk of Novell's interface moving forward will be on GNOME.'"

rbochan writes "Some of you may recall a couple of years back when Microsoft and Unisys decided that a multi-million dollar ad campaign against *nix was in order, dubbed 'We Have A Way Out.' The results weren't what they'd hoped. ZDNet is now reporting that Unisys has done an about face and is now touting Linux as 'a mature technology and the right cost-effective option for many companies.'"