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IBM adds 12% to stock price early Thursday

Author: JT Smith

CBS Marketwatch reports that IBM shares climbed Thursday “after the company reported that its fourth-quarter profit rose 28 percent,
beating Wall Street’s consensus estimate, as sales rose 6 percent.” Part of the reason: better-than-expected sales of IBM’s Unix servers.

Category:

  • Open Source

Linux virus infection fears

Author: JT Smith

The BBC follows up on the ramen virus hitting some Linux servers: “This week, many web servers running some versions of Linux have
been infected with a malicious program that uses the computers as a
springboard to spread itself around the internet.

Although not destructive, the virus program is inconveniencing
many webmasters as it hogs resources while searching for new
servers to infect.” Here’s more from ZD Net.

Category:

  • Linux

Loki releases line of tools for managing software releases

Author: JT Smith

In an unprecedented race to GPL freedom, Loki Software, Inc. releases
the latest in their long line of open source projects: a complete set
of
end-user and developer tools for managing software releases.
Setup 1.5.8
http://www.lokigames.com/development/setup.php3
This update to the classic setup tool includes support for our
brand-new
XML product database. This new product database allows you to quickly
determine if your product is complete or corrupt, and doesn’t require
superuser permissions to install. If you install it, you can update
and
remove it with our new tools…
Loki Update Tool 1.0.6
http://www.lokigames.com/development/loki_update.php3
===========
This easy to use end-user tool allows anyone to quickly and easily
update any Loki software they install. It features easy-to-use mirror
support, the ability to resume broken connections, support for HTTP and
FTP proxies, and automatic update verification to make absolutely sure
that the download you want is the download you get. All this for the
quick and easy price of absolutely nothing! That’s right, just hop on
over to our open-source depot and grab the conveniently packaged binary
archive. And once you’ve updated your games and you’re looking for
space for the new ones, what better way to uninstall the old ones
than…
Loki Uninstall Tool 1.0.3
http://www.lokigames.com/development/loki_uninstall.php3
===========
This easy to use end-user tool allows anyone to quickly and easily
update any Loki software they install. In one step, you can easily
remove literally gigabytes of games, freeing yourself up for the latest
blockbuster titles from Loki Software, Inc.
Loki Patch Tools 1.0.1
http://www.lokigames.com/development/loki_patch.php3
===========
These tools are perfect for the developer in you. Whether you’re
working on a large binary-only project or just want the convenience of
the Loki Update Tool, these tools will allow you to build patches for
any project. Complete with pre-install scripts, post-install scripts,
and full diagnostics, these tools are a must for anyone looking for
easy
software updates.
The Loki Software Team

IPO star shrugs off 97 percent drop in stock value

Author: JT Smith

An article from the San Francisco Chronicle tracks the recent history of VA Linux’s stock. (VA Linux owns NewsForge.)

Category:

  • Linux

Linuxcare announces support for Internet service provider market

Author: JT Smith

From BusinessWire: Linuxcare, Inc., a leader in providing comprehensive professional services and solutions for Linux and open-source technologies, today unveiled
the first comprehensive managed services for Linux.
These subscription-based services extend well beyond traditional monitoring and systems administration. Linuxcare Managed Services are
targeted at the Internet service provider (ISP) market, so that these growing organizations can build competitive advantage by quickly deploying
Linux-based, low-cost, value-added services to their end-customers.

Conectiva Linux security update to php4

Author: JT Smith

Posted at LWN.net: “The php4 module shipped with Conectiva Linux 6.0 has two security
problems that were recently made public by the PHP development team
based on a report by James Moore:

1) It is possible to specify PHP directives on a per-directory basis
under apache. In the vulnerable versions of PHP, a remote attacker
could craft an HTTP request that would cause the next page to be
served with the wrong values for these directives.

2) Even though PHP is installed, it can be deactivated and activated
via a directive like “engine=off” or “engine=on”. This directive can
be used on a per-directory basis or even per virtual host. Vulnerable
versions of the php4 module could “leak” the “engine=off” setting to
other virtual hosts on the same machine, effectively disabling PHP
for those hosts and resulting in PHP source code being sent to the
client instead of being executed on the server.”

Category:

  • Linux

Custom configurations for Linux laptops: next project for Tuxtops?

Author: JT Smith

– by Tina Gasperson
Nathan Myers, the former CEO of the now defunct Linuxlaptops.com, says he was
the one who first made the suggestion to Tuxtops that they do custom Linux
configs for laptops. Now, it looks as if
Tuxtops might make a full-time venture out of creating those ready-made Linux
installation images.Earlier this week, Tuxtops announced that
it would no longer sell
laptops
loaded with Linux, but instead would be concentrating on an
as-yet-to-be-named software venture.

Why are they quitting?

Myers, whose Linuxlaptops.com was involved in virtually the same business as
Tuxtops was, says, “The profit margins are razor-thin. Brand-name machines
aren’t available at reasonable discounts, and the no-names (although they are
often identical inside) are a hard sell.” Not only that, but because they were
selling on the Web, potential customers were often loath to spend thousands on a
machine they couldn’t put their hands on first.

The big guys are better able to make a go of it, says Myers, because they don’t
have to deal with middlemen, and because they can charge a premium due to brand
name recognition.

Finding the nugget within

Part of what made Tuxtops so valuable to the Linux community was their OneStep
Linux innovation, which had them creating custom installation images specially configured
to each type of machine. According to Myers, in casual conversations he and VA Linux vice president of
engineering Gregg Zehr were having, Zehr was the first to suggest that
developing these custom images would be a great idea. In fact, Zehr told
NewsForge recently that he thinks it would be “a brilliant business move.” (Ed. — VA Linux owns NewsForge.)

Myers says he passed the tip on to Tuxtops CEO Graham Hine, and the company
utilized this particular hack quite successfully. Myers thinks it is possible
that Hine is planning on simply dropping the unprofitable hardware sales and
concentrating on selling the software configurations en masse.

“Tuxtops’ current CD product is equally as useful when you buy a machine
pre-loaded with Linux by one of the ‘big guys’ as it is for a naked machine,
because Dell and others haven’t put the attention into laptop Linux
configuration that the specialists have,” says Myers.

Does Myers have the scoop?

He says it would be smart for those big companies to get their own disk images
from Tuxtops. “I hope I’m not scooping Tuxtops’ announcement by recommending it
here,” he adds.

Hine, however, isn’t saying exactly what Tuxtops is going to be doing, though he does
admit that the new project will be based on those custom installation images.
“It’s more of an evolution,” he says. “It’s along those
lines, but significantly expanded. The new product will have a number of other
capabilities, and it will take several months to finalize it.”

NewsForge editors read and respond to comments posted on our discussion page.

Category:

  • Linux

New nVidia drivers!

Author: JT Smith

LinuxNews.pl writes “Well, new nvidia drivers for linux, NVIDIA 0.9-6 have just appeared! It’s really good news for all Linux gamers. This new driver version fixes some problems found in recent versions, like SMP problems and difficulties with memory management in systems with a lot of RAM. More info on
LinuxNews.pl

Remote desktop using Virtual Network Computing

Author: JT Smith

FreeOS gets technical with this nuts and bolts how-to on VNC (and for more than just *nix).

Category:

  • Linux

Linus Torvalds: Linux 2.4.1-pre8 changelog

Author: JT Smith

LinuxToday stays on the ball and posts this latest love note from Linus about the new kernel.

Category:

  • Linux