Readers have sent in quite a few links to stories wrapping up this year's LinuxWorld. The most interesting thing I saw was the HP MP3 stereo component which looks a lot like a tivo, but for sound. I'm not sure if they're going to get it right, but it looks close. Hopefully the code will be available. If it is, I'm buying one. Hit the link to read a bunch of other links related to the show compiled by Timothy.

rstewart writes: "The NSA has released a new version of SELinux for public consumption. It is based on the 2.4.9 kernel and the utilities patches are known to work on Redhat 7.1. More information and the source can be found at the NSA SeLinux site." You can read the what's new for more information.

RedLeg wrote with this poser: "So, looking at the changelog for the 2.4.9 kernel release, I see a few '- Alan Cox: driver merges' entries. Intelligent consumers of (or those of us who modify them for our own uses) RedHat Kernel src.RPMs look at the patches in the RH kernel builds. Alan's (and other persistent RH) patches don't seem to be integrated into Linus' 'mainstream' kernel trees on any kind of a predictable basis, and this frequently causes projects like freeswan to have difficulty merging their patches (not intended for kernel inclusion) with kernels that appear 'in the wild' like the kernel RPMs from RedHat. Often, kernel patches for obviously older kernel versions continue to be applied (in the RPMs) to newer kernel versions. Alan is a RedHat-er, so he obviously has an inside track to RedHat kernel builds, but he's also Linus' Right-Hand man, but his patches are not (apparently) consistently making it into the 'mainstream' kernel. What am I missing?" Who better to answer this question than Alan Cox? Alan was kind enough to write an explanation of the (still complicated) process of merging -- and it's not as simple as who works for what distro maker ;)

Last week you asked Sam Lantinga , developer of the Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL) about SDL and other issues related to gaming. He's responded with answers about the SL port to Sony Playstation, game audio, DirectX, his new job at Blizzard, and more. He even drops some hints about some interesting gaming developments to watch out for.

mz001b writes "There is an interesting article from RH posted on LinuxToday discussing why they chose ext3 over the other available journaling filesystems (ReiserFS, xfs, jfs,...) for RH 7.2"

bc90021 writes: "CNET has this story about Hewlett Packard's new secure version of Linux. Using 2.4.2, it can supposedly detect attacks as they happen. (At $3,000, I think it should counter-attack, too.) It will be available on HP servers (duh), or on servers that pass the RedHat 7.1 server qualification tests."

rsd writes: "I have been searching the web for a few days looking for old rpm based distributions ISOs for a study with libc5. All I could find so far is some loose packages, but not a downloadable ISO image. For RedHat 4.2 and older, Conectiva Linux 1.0, ... it is impossible to find. So I ask myself is there a centralized place taking care of this, for public use and even preservation of the Linux History and evolution? We have lots of places with ISO images, like linuxiso, however these sites just keep with recent distributions."

Juraj Bednar writes: "I have done two interviews: one with Bero from RedHat and one with Richard Stallman, the GNU and FSF founder. I usually write in my native language, but since these interviews were done in English, I asked myself why not to share them" Readers may want to also visit Bero's shared-source.com, and bookmark it as a FUD antidote.

LinuxNews.pl writes: "Few days ago RedHat uploaded new Beta release of their distro - Roswell. If you want to find out more about it just go to the LinuxNews.pl" And I won't even make a snide comment about how I haven't run Red Hat in 2 years!

More information below to update recent stories about MandrakeSoft's IPO, CDs designed to thwart the evil and insidious practices of convenient listening and fair use, and He-Man's favorite GNU/Linux distribution.

Last week, you asked Shawn Gordon questions about his venture TheKompany, an outfit which has been (fairly) quietly working on a small flotilla of software for GNU/Linux systems, and some cross-platform applications as well. His responses are below; you might be surprised at a few of them. (And some lucky Debian hacker might even pick up a job.)

toughguy asks: "I've got a single phone line with three numbers attached to it. The three numbers make three different rings when they are called ("Distinctive Ring Service"). I'm trying to get a Linux machine (RedHat) to answer only on one of the distinctive rings so that it can receive faxes on that line. So far I haven't had any luck. I'm wondering if anyone has been able to get a Linux machine answering distinctive rings. If so, what modem hardware were you using and what software package as well?"

ahde asks: "I tried to install Ximian Gnome 1.4 on a customized Redhat 6.1 box that their Red Carpet installer didn't like. No big deal, I thought I'd just download Gnome and install it myself, only to discover that there is apparently no such thing. Gnome.org tells you to download from Ximian, which only allows installs through their Red Carpet. I have nothing against Ximian, but is there another way to get Gnome without downloading a hundred separate RPMs and then going through dependency hell?"

Okay, here's a nice "behind the curtains" peek into the way tech industry analysts (who are not the same as stock analysts) get and interpret their data, courtesy of IDC analyst Dan Kusnetzky, in the form of answers to the insightful questions you asked him last week.

David A. Wheeler sent in linkage to his extensive analysis of the true size of Linux. There's an amazing amount of information in here, and although it focuses on Red Hat 7.1, it still has tons of interesting bits of information about the code that makes up the distribution. Break downs include languages, licenses, cost estimates, and stats that in no way clear up the legendary GNU/Linux debate that will undoubtably be engraved on tombstones somewhere.

Cycon writes "Red Hat has just announced that they have finally achieved a positive cash flow! Today they announced that in the quarter ending May 31, 2001, they have seen $25.6 million in revenue, with an adjusted net income of $600,000. Congradulations to everyone at RHAT!"

gergi writes: "Running at the kernel level, Redhat's Tux 2.0 blew away Apache and IIS in webserving content according to this benchmark! Given the never-ending security flaws found in other webservers, has a major turning point in web server design come about?"

darthtuttle asks: "Hardware has a concept of meantime between failure, so how about applying a similar concept for software. Here's how it works. Cracks can be described by the level of access gained, some examples are: remote root, remote user (root if run by user root), remote group, local root, local user, local group, and so forth. Applications or services have their own measurements and descriptions as well. Most all types of cracks can be listed in an order and a higher level crack is equal to each of the lesser level cracks. For example: a remote root is also a remote user and remote group crack. Now measure the mean time between incidences! Do people find ways to break in to your system every day? Every week? Every month? Every year?"

jimiUK asks: "I've been working for a while on my streaming mp3 server, using Apache:MP3 running on FreeBSD to start with but now running on RedHat Linux. It all runs smoothky, but what I'm trying to do is automate the ripping process so I can just insert cd's and have them ripped and classified automatically. This box is a dedicated server without a keyboard or moniter connected so I'd rather have no user input whatsoever. I've solved all of the initial problems, and now have the box set to login automatically on boot up, but I still can't find the right script. The most useful has been autorip, and I've also tried ripit (although it requires user intervention). My main problem is that if autorip cant find the cd information, it just stalls. My Perl skills are non-existent really so i'm not sure how to alter the script to instruct it to rip away if it doesnt find track info, which I could add in later. Does anyone have any other suggestions for alternative script front ends, or can point me in the right direction on altering autorip to get it over this hurdle." For those of you running MP3 servers, this idea might be a huge timesaver. Has anyone implemented such a system?

irregular_hero asks: "I'm curious as to the experiences of other users about Redhat's much-publicized Red Jat Network support offering. I was initially impressed by the product, which seemed to offer a central console for application of updates. However, in recent weeks, I have become somewhat disillusioned with the service. This morning marked the 12th time I have been unable to even log on to the service in the past 2 months I have used it. I get various errors: 500 Server Errors, pauses of interminable length, and even empty pages. This morning, a new error occurred. Once logged in, all of my painstakingly prepared system profiles had disappeared. I can only hope that they will reappear soon." Sounds like there might still be a few bugs. Irregular_hero's bug-list continues, below. Have any of you found workarounds to these problems? Do you have others to add to the list?