Reuters (on Totaltele.com) has a story about the challenges facing IBM as new CEO Samuel Palmisano takes over. The story notes IBM’s love of open standards. “IBM says it has embraced such open industry standards, putting its weight behind the Linux
operating system — which is an open system that can be changed by anyone that uses it. Just
last week it announced it would begin selling mainframes that run on the Linux operating
system alone.”

DocTomoe writes, “Using Java in Konqueror or Mozilla on PPC Linux is not very difficult, yet one has to know how to do it and unfortunately, documentation on the subject is sparse. That’s why I hope this small HowTo at ImacLinux.net will be able to help people get it working.”

Jason Spisak writes: Lycoris enthusiastically cut the ribbon today on its new community portal, www.lycoris.org. The site was created to meet the needs of the growing population using its flagship product Lycoris Desktop/LX. Users can now find tutorials, editorials, forums, and the latest Lycoris news all in one place.

“It’s like a new home. Users of Desktop/LX can exchange ideas and help us improve our product quickly and efficiently. There’s a forum for installation, one for multimedia, and even one for experienced linux people to bring up important technical issues they discover while using Desktop/LX. One of Linux’s strengths has always been its virtual cities where people trade knowledge and help each other. Now Desktop/LX users have their very own subdivision.” said Jason Spisak, who serves on the Lycoris Board of Advisors.

The portal uses an open source technology named MyPHPNuke, which is based on the PHP web scripting language. Lycoris chose MyPHPNuke because of its strong open source community foundation and it’s flexibility. The portal allows users to send private messages to each other, have their outside e-mail accounts checked into a convienent, private web-mailbox, and have their own private event calendar. Additionally, users can see at a glance who is currently online, and who has logged in recently. The site provides search capability for all of the posted news articles and other content so that users can quickly find the valuable piece of knowledge they need.

In keeping with the tradition of giving back to open source, Lycoris is donating the customized theme for www.lycoris.org back to the MyPHPNuke community.

“I believe in respecting those people who have helped us by opening their code. When we give back to the community, the possibility of our success actually becomes stronger because the community is where we get the basis for our products,” said CTO and Founder, Joseph Cheek.

About Lycoris

Lycoris, located in Redmond, Washington, was started in the year 2000 with a vision of making Linux easy enough for anyone to use. The company makes open source applications easy to use and integrates them into the linux desktop.

About Joseph Cheek (CTO and founder)

Joseph Cheek’s highly technical background has allowed him to work for companies such as Linuxcare (as a Senior Linux Consultant) and Microsoft (as a network and systems tester). He co-authored the book “Integrating Your Network with Caldera OpenLinux 2.3”, was a Technical Contributor to Microsoft’s Windows 98 Resource Kit, and writes a monthly Linux column for Computer Source Magazine. As an entrepreneur Joseph has worked as a freelance computer network consultant in both the Novell NetWare and Linux spaces.

About Jason Spisak (Board member)

Jason Spisak has a background in the entertainment industry, and uses his knowledge of marketing and aesthetic design to help Lycoris create and sell attractive, buyer-friendly products. His skills aid in positioning Lycoris as a player in the desktop software marketplace and his focus is to bring Open Source, profitability, and usability together under one roof.

For Additional Information

Web: http://www.lycoris.com
Info: info@lycoris.com
Sales: sales@lycoris.com

Lycoris
PO Box 2313
Redmond WA 98073-2313
USA
1+ 425 869-2930
1+ 425 671-0504 facsimile

David Allen writes, Press release/news story at:

http://www.plan9.org/UF_PR.html.

From David Allen. Publisher, CEO, Janitor of
Plan Nine Publishing
http://www.plan9.org.

Dave Jones: “Fix up some of the build problems from last time, and trickle in
some more
small bits.”

Patch against 2.5.3 vanilla is available from:
ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/davej/patches/2.5/

 -- Davej.

2.5.3-dj2
o   More include file shake-ups.                (Me)
    | Break binfmt out of sched.h
    | Divorce fs.h from linux/capability.h
    | fs.h fathers err.h
o   Fix some include breakage from -dj1.        (Jarno Paananen)
o   Fix LVM compile.                            (Dave Gilbert)
o   Numerous Lanstreamer fixes.                 (Kent Yoder)
o   Support large numbers of SCSI devices.      (Richard Gooch)
o   CRC32 late initialisation fix.              (Petr Vandrovec)
o   qnx4fs update.                              (Anders Larsen)
o   Iforce joystick compile fix.                (Vojtech Pavlik)
o   Numerous NFS fixes.                         (Trond Myklebust)
o   No CONFIG_PCI compile fix.                  (Adrian Bunk)
o   NBD request size limit fix.                 (Petr Vandrovec)
o   Selectable port/irq for i8042.              (James Simmons)
o   Improved free page accounting.              (Ed Tomlinson)
o   Convert various strtok --> strsep.          (René Scharfe)

– By Jeff Field –
Adaptec has long been a leader in the area of SCSI cards, and despite the company’s reign it does not sit still. Today, I am reviewing Adaptec’s 39160 Dual Channel SCSI card, and though officially it is targeted at the server market, it will work just fine in your Linux-based desktop PC.The card
The 39160 is physically similar to the other products in Adaptec’s line of 160MB/second SCSI cards. The obvious differences are the increased number of connectors from lower-priced models, and the capability to use the card at full speed in 64-bit PCI slots, allowing the 39160 to take full advantage of platforms that support the feature, only found on higher-end boards.

The 39160 has quite a few connections. Externally, there are two 68-pin SCSI connectors for LVD (low voltage differential, a technology that allows for lower power consumption and faster data transfer) drives, each connected to a separate bus. Internally, there are also two 68-pin LVD connectors, connected to two separate SCSI busses, as well as a 50-pin internal connector for connection to legacy Ultra SCSI devices, such as CD-ROMs, or even older hard disks, if need be.

All of these connectors can cause a problem getting the maximum performance from your card. The idea is to keep the fastest devices separate from any legacy devices, specifically keeping LVD (Ultra 160, Ultra2) off the same chain as Ultra and lower legacy devices. If you need to connect such devices, your best bet is to connect the legacy devices to channel A (which is the channel the 50-pin internal connector is assigned to) and LVD devices to channel B. If you have no 50-pin devices, then legacy devices can be connected to channel A or B, as long as the LVD devices are on the opposite channel of the slower devices. The reason this problem occurs is that the way SCSI manages device speed is by limiting the channel to the slowest device on it.

Dual personality
As I mentioned above, the four Ultra160 connectors are split between two separate, full-speed 160MB/second SCSI channels. This means there is a total of 320MB/second of bandwidth available on the card for the Ultra160 channels. The way to get the best possible performance is to split the load evenly between the two channels. Each channel is detected by the Linux Kernel’s Adaptec Drive as a separate device, channels A and B, as shown below:

scsi0 : Adaptec AIC7XXX EISA/VLB/PCI SCSI HBA DRIVER, Rev 6.2.4
[Adaptec 3960D Ultra160 SCSI adapter]
aic7899: Ultra160 Wide Channel A, SCSI Id=7, 32/253 SCBs

scsi1 : Adaptec AIC7XXX EISA/VLB/PCI SCSI HBA DRIVER, Rev 6.2.4
[Adaptec 3960D Ultra160 SCSI adapter]
aic7899: Ultra160 Wide Channel B, SCSI Id=7, 32/253 SCBs

Linux Support
Adaptec likes to support the Open Source community, and is even known to use Open Source software in solutions for its customers, such as using FreeBSD in digital broadcasting solutions. As a result, Linux support for Adaptec devices is excellent, with company engineers personally overseeing the development of the Linux driver. The 39160 is no different, and is supported by default with the included aic7xxx driver in the kernel.

Documentation
The documentation included with the 39160, as we have come to accept with much hardware, does not include instructions for using the device under Linux; however, your distribution (if you are running Mandrake or Red Hat) should pick the card up and configure it automatically, and if that is not the case, perhaps it is time to visit the Kernel-HOWTO. As for the rest of the documentation, which deals with the physical installation of the card and subsequent installation of internal and external devices, Adaptec does a good job of explaining how to get the most out of your card. This can be tricky with a card like the 39160, where you have five connectors and two channels to choose from. I would suggest reading the manuals; they are brief but well-written, and extremely useful.

Conclusion
The price of the 39160 may be its most interesting aspect when comparing it to “lower-end” SCSI cards, specifically the 29160N, which Adaptec lists as a card for “high performance PCs.” There is only a $50 dollar difference, which pushes me to recommend the 36160 for those who can afford it — it’s like paying $50 for the performance of having a second SCSI card, essentially.

If you do not think you will need many different SCSI devices, then you may wish to look at lower-end devices such as the 19160, which will probably provide you with all the SCSI you need. Either way, with its well-tested Linux drivers and its excellent expandability, the 39160 is an easy card to recommend, and it even comes with a reasonable cost compared to other SCSI cards in its range, coming in at about $300 according to PriceWatch. If you are thinking of becoming a serious user of SCSI, you won’t beat the 39160 with anything less than a RAID card.

Advogato: “What are the risks of running an Open Source Project? Every maintainer of an Open Source project will always have issues that she/he needs to mitigate all the time. What is the best way to do it?”

Net-Security.org: “This article is written for a linux newbie or anybody who cares, at least a bit about the data stored on his hard drive. You’ll notice that it’s aimed mainly for home-users, not for large network administrators or similar. All procedures have been done and checked on an installed SuSE 6.4 linux distribution.”

Anonymous Reader writes: “Feb. 3, 2002 (CodeOpen). The Philippine’s first software services company dedicated solely to the promotion of open source software, the Distributed Development Network (DDN), was launched on the World Wide Web on February 3, the anniversary of the Open Source initiative, amidst speculation and wonder about its radical business model.
Leading the impending breakout of the open source movement into the mainstream Philippine IT industry, DDN distributes, develops, and supports only open source products. Unlike proprietary counterparts such as Windows, the source code, or programming lines used to create software, of open source software is open to the public. Users can freely modify and redistribute open source applications provided they also make these applications open. As a result, open source software is often affordable or free, of very high quality, and much more stable and secure than commercial software.

DDN is unlike proprietary software vendors who charge exorbitant licensing fees for their software. “We intend to give practically all of the supported open source applications away”, said Victor Serafica, Managing Partner of DDN. “We are compensated through our reasonably-priced support services, which includes training, customization, installation, and user support.”

DDN is also putting in place an Open Source Developers Network. Called 2DNet, it is a pool of experienced open source software developers who are organized into teams to support DDN’s projects. “This will allow us to support our clients without the risk of huge overhead costs,” said Emmanuel Amador, one of DDN’s partners. The Developers Network is tapping the members of various open source groups such as the Philippine Linux Users Group (PLUG).

In addition, DDN also launched a new website to support the development efforts of the local open source community. Called CodeOpen, the website is a repository of available open source information as well as a place where developers can promote and link their current open source software projects, enabling others to cooperate in the development process. Users can access CodeOpen at http://www.codeopen.com.

DDN also takes pride in its completely open and transparent business model. “Our books, research initiatives, company structure, the very way we do business, shall be open for all to see,” Serafica said. “We believe honesty and transparency are the best way to win the trust of our clients and the open source community,” Amador added.

DDN’s website is at: http://www.distdev.com.

The Developers’ Network is at: http://2dnet.distdev.com

Contact email: info@distdev.com“

Stephen Evanchik writes, “Clarkson University was recently announced the overall winner in the IBM Linux Scholar Challenge. The university won an IBM zSeries mainframe which will reside in the recently formed Clarkson Open Source Institute (COSI). COSI is an all volunteer force of students that work on open source projects, our web site is http://cosi.clarkson.edu.

You can see the Clarkson University press release here:

http://www.clarkson.edu/news/releases/rel.cgi?linu x_challenge_clarkson_wins_113-01.rel.”