Category: Linux

Newsday has a nice overview article of Linux distros that are free as in beer and easy to use for newbs.  If it were geared toward a more technical audience, it would be a bit more thorough, but I think that it hits the mark.

Via Slashdot, Cobind Desktop is an interesting Linux Distro.  It is based on Fedora Core and is pretty cutting edge component wise.  It runs version 2.6.4 of the kernel, has XFree86 4.3.0, GCC 3.3.3, and so on.  It does not rely on KDE or Gnome, rather XFce.  This results in a lean distro with clean lines.

For more info, check out an article at FlexBeta about it.

The OCERA Project has released LinCAN 0.2:

an implementation of the Linux device driver supporting more CAN controller chips and many CAN interface boards. The driver roots can be traced to LDDK project. The OCERA version of the LinCAN driver adds new features, continuous enhancements and reimplementation of structure of the driver. The usage of the driver is tightly coupled to the virtual CAN API interface component which hides driver low level interface to the application programmers. Driver enables multiple opens of each communication objects from more Linux and RT-Linux applications. The message processing is based on the oriented graph of FIFOs concept.

CAN is a really interesting protocol, but the last time I was at a real-time/embedded trade show, it appeared to be a pretty closed environment.  LinCAN will at least let you use CAN-specific hardware in an embedded Linux.

I know that I had read about Apt for Red Hat and Fedora before, but it was mind boggling to see it in action.  I was talking to Erik about updating RH/Fedora and eventually found my way to ayo.freshrpms.net.  I don’t have any experience with Yum, but the thought of running Apt on a fresh Fedora box excited me.

After grabbing Apt for Fedora, I issed the following commands (I didn’t include the list of packages):

[root@localhost matt]# rpm -Uvh apt-0.5.15cnc3-0.1.fr.i386.rpm
warning: apt-0.5.15cnc3-0.1.fr.i386.rpm: V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID e42d547 b
Preparing... ########################################### [100%]
1:apt ########################################### [100%]
[root@localhost matt]# apt-get update
Get:1 http://ayo.freshrpms.net fedora/linux/1/i386 release [1990B]
Fetched 1990B in 0s (5305B/s)
Get:1 http://ayo.freshrpms.net fedora/linux/1/i386/core pkglist [1445kB]
Get:2 http://ayo.freshrpms.net fedora/linux/1/i386/core release [151B]
Get:3 http://ayo.freshrpms.net fedora/linux/1/i386/updates pkglist [288kB]
Get:4 http://ayo.freshrpms.net fedora/linux/1/i386/updates release [157B]
Get:5 http://ayo.freshrpms.net fedora/linux/1/i386/freshrpms pkglist [159kB]
Get:6 http://ayo.freshrpms.net fedora/linux/1/i386/freshrpms release [161B]
Fetched 1893kB in 9s (202kB/s)
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
[root@localhost matt]# apt-get dist-upgrade
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Calculating Upgrade... Done
The following packages will be upgraded
[ ... big list of 106 packages goes here ... ]
The following NEW packages will be installed:
[ ... 5 packages here ... ]
106 upgraded, 5 newly installed, 0 removed and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 206MB of archives.
After unpacking 26.5MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]


I said yes to the prompt, and apt downloaded installed everything for me.  *Bing*  System up to date.  From this sources.list, it looks like you can make Apt work all the way back to Red Hat 6.2.  You should be able to apt-get install just about anything you need as long as it is in the repository.

Of course, don’t use this on an important system without reading a lot about it first.  It will help me keep my fedora test box up to date though.

Ack!  A new Knoppix release is out and I’m trapped on an overloaded starwoodbroadband connection!  I’m not sure what minor feature enhancements are in there.

The changelog hasn’t been updated yet.

MacCentral:

This year, the event has been renamed the Advanced Developers Hands On Conference (ADHOC), and has been expanded to include related technologies like Unix, Palm OS and more.

It seems like lots of cool little things come out of every MacHack.  This year, ADHOC will be held from July 21 to July 24.  I’m sure that many things on many platforms will be born.

The Unnoficial SUSE Faq is quite useful.

MacCentral has a nice little peice about Maestro on the Mac.  I’m all about the Maestro project getting some news coverage.  I guess that you have to report to your audience, but a quick acknowledgement that Maestro runs on Windows, x86 Linux, and Solaris on Sparc would have been nice.

Apple appears to be pleased that Maestro looks sexy on OSX.  That’s great.  The amusing thing is that Windows installation is as easy as downloading a file and installing.  On the Mac side, you first need to download Java3d and JavaAI.  Of course, many users find this out after Maestro fails to run.  I’ve been hanging out at #maestro on freenode since before the slashdotting (thankyouverymuch) and a fair number of people come in to the channel because they have not installed Java3d and cannot get it to run on OSX.  It’s just not as simple as it should be.

How’s that for a multifaceted minirant?  Let the world know: Maestro runs on Windows, Mac OSX, Linux-x86, and Sparc Solaris.  It’s a darn fine program, and is something new for JPL.  They’re not used to giving away their data to everyone like this.  The Maestro project is a new and very exciting thing for everyone.  Also, Apple: how about getting things like Java3d and JavaAI in the default install, mmkay?

Note: I’m not trying to start yet another PC vs. Mac argument.  I currently run several windows machines, several flavours of Linux, several BSDs, Solaris on Sparc (have not upgraded to 9 yet though), and have several Mac boxes.  Due to fundage and the fact that I have not been able to coax my G4 8500 into it, I am not running OSX.  I would love to be, though.

Via RootPrompt.org, it looks like someone has managed to put together a working iTunes Linux server.  The Rendezvous part has been available for quite some time, but the secret is in daapd, a daemon for your Linux box that speaks the daap protocol that iTunes speaks.

Stream on!

Newsforge points to Gentoo for Zaurus.

Dude, that’s sick.

Chromatic has posted a roundup of the most popular and favorite articles posted at O’Reilly’s ONLamp in 2003.  We must be quickly approaching 2004…

Changelogs do not lie.  Grab it from your local mirror and let’s start playing!

MythTV 0.13 is out.  The new release includes a lot of bugfixes, an improved scheduler, a Konq-based browser plugin, and more.  While poking around the site, I also found two live-cd distributions that were built around MythTV: KnoppMyth and MiniMyth.  KnoppMyth is (as you probably guessed) based on Knoppix.  MiniMyth is designed to be run on the VIA Mini-ITX platform, but should run just fine on any standard hardware.  MiniMyth is pretty much built from scratch using Busybox and other tools.

OSNews:

After spending a few months as a download available only to YDL.net members, Yellow Dog Linux 3.0.1 ISOs are now freely available. The distro now includes HFS+ support and the 2.4.22-based kernel.

Other distros that run on Apple hardware include Debian for PPC, Debian for Motorola 680×0, Gentoo PPC, Mandrake Linux 9.1 PPC, NetBSD PPC, NetBSD 68k.  The list is much longer than it was a few years ago.

One of the biggest things that scared me about the Fedora Project was the fact that there really was not a company behind it to be “responsible” for it (Of course Red Hat is behind it, but it is not a commercial product).  I was worried that security updates would take longer than I would be comefortable with.

The recent rsync vulnerability tested that, and Fedora passes with flying colors.  Here are two stories that showed up in my news aggregator back to back this morning from Linux Today: Red Hat Linux Advisory: rsync and Fedora Linux Advisory: rsync. 

There you have it folks.  The Red Hat and Fedora security advisories and fixes were released at some point yesterday.  I’m not going to bother tracking down which one was released first, because it does not really matter.  It is true that Red Hat and Fedora were not the first distros to release fixes, but they both released a fix within 24 hours of the vulnerability becoming public.  Grab your Fedora rpms or check the post for Red Hat RPMs.  Keep those boxes patched.  Of course up2date should work quite well also.

I don’t see Red Hat Enterprise Linux RPMs listed in the Linux Today article, but you can grab them from Red Hat’s Errata page.

The rsync page has noted that an obscure vulnerability in some rsync installations combined with a vulnerability in the Linux kernel can equal a pretty nasty exploit:

The rsync team has received evidence that a vulnerability in rsync was recently used in combination with a Linux kernel vulnerability to compromise the security of a public rsync server. While the forensic evidence we have is incomplete, we have pieced together the most likely way that this attack was conducted and we are releasing this advisory as a result of our investigations to date.

Newsforge points to more coverage by secunia.com.  Thanks for the heads up, Jim.

LWN notes the release of White Box Enterprise Linux RC2.  Please be kind and download it using BitTorrent.  I was unable to install WBEL on older/lower end hardware (K6II laptop and my Via platform), but I will see if I can get a WBEL platform running with RC2.

Yum and up2date are now functional.  Many other small fixes have made their way in to RC2.

In other Red Hat news, LWN also notes an announcement by Red Hat saying that they will make RHEL available to students and faculty for as little as $25 a year for RHEL Workstation.

Via Newsforge, linmagau has a preview of Xine 1.0 and interviews some of the authors.  Here is a quick taste of what it can do:

It plays back CDs, DVDs, and VCDs. It also decodes multimedia files like AVI, MOV, WMV, and MP3 from local disk drives, and displays multimedia streamed over the Internet. It interprets many of the most common multimedia formats available – and some of the most uncommon formats, too.

The current release candidate can handle subtitles and handle a ton of file formats and streaming codecs.

Via PCLinuxOnline, MEIPS is a Debian-based distro that allows you to both boot from a LiveCD and install to your hard drive.  Of course Knoppix is the king of LiveCDs, but the last time that I installed it to a local hard drive, it still behaved like it was running on a CD, just from my hard drive.  Of course there are ways around it, but it’s a little awkward.

It looks like MEIPS does a good job of allowing you to play around with Linux, and then easily install it to your hard drive if you so choose.  From what I’ve seen of the installer, it looks pretty intuitive and pretty straightforward.  Because it runs from a full-on KDE session, you don’t have to deal with those useful but unsightly text menus.

I have not had a chance to give this a try, but it looks promising.  It is based on Debian unstable and of course you can use all of the apt goodness once you have a working installation.

Check out the MEIPS site for included features, screenshots, mirrors and more.

Newsforge points to the perfect Debian setup for ISPs and servers.  If you are used to a whizzy Red Hat/Mandrake/SUSE/etc installer, the text-based Debian installer can be a little scary.  It can be a little confusing too, but it reminds me of installing Slackware on a shiny new Pentium 60 when I was younger.

The article is an excellent run-through of the Debian install process, with a focus on a functional server without a million things installed by default.  Of course everyone thinks of Red Hat as the de-facto server distro, but a Debian server if installed and administered properly can be a lean mean serving machine.  Debian can also be kept up to date with security and bug fixes insanely easily.  Major bonus there.

The beautiful thing about Debian is that you start with a pretty barebones system, and as soon as you need something, apt-get install it and you’re good to go.  You don’t have to deal with all of that unwanted cruft.

Serve on, baby!