– By Grant Gross –

It’s that time of year when pundits like to look back and forward. Indeed, NewsForge/Linux.com will have a news roundup of 2001 this week. Looking forward this week were a couple of writers who boldly offered predictions on Linux.

Our friend Joe Barr offered 10 Linux predictions for 2002. Some are serious, some less so. Among his predictions: The Linux business sector will emerge from slump, and “at least one global megacorp will announce a complete migration away from all Microsoft Windows platforms to an interoperable mix of Unix, Mac and Linux platforms.” He also sees a bigger acceptance of Linux on desktops in the coming year.

NewsForge’s Robin “Roblimo” Miller gazed into his crystal ball a little further, predicting what will happen to Linux in 2003, when Microsoft will stop full support of Windows 98 and NT. He predicts many people running old versions of Windows will move to Linux instead of upgrading their hardware to run Windows XP.

Santa switches to Linux, Open Source

OK, so a lot of you don’t believe in Santa Claus anymore. But NewsForge freelancer Daniel P. Dern swears he visits with the old guy once a year, and this year, Santa says he’s switched to Linux and other Open Source tools. Hey, could I make this up?

New releases

While the holiday week made for a slow news week, there was a whole lot of Open Source software releasing going on. Perhaps the developers used time off from their day jobs to crank out code on their pet projects. Among the new releases this week:

Devils-Linux 0.5 beta 5 3.

PHP 4.1.1.

Window Maker 0.80.

ROCK Linux 1.5.12 (Development).

KDE 2.2.2 for Solaris and FreeBSD.

Newly reviewed

Tech-Junkie.com reviews Red Hat 7.2 and Mandrake 8.1 on the desktop, taking readers from set-up to using the Linux distributions. From the conclusion: “With the equivalent technologies deployed, Red Hat’s focus appear to be for professionals and Mandrake’s focus on the average desktop user. As a result expect more wizards and fancy front ends from Mandrake’s offering. This is not necessary [sic] bad, since shortcuts can save a lot of time even for experienced users. All Linux users should be happy, as long as quality distributions in the future don’t treat and second-guess users through some drug-induced, Disney-eue [does he mean Disney-esque?] experience.”

New at NewsForge and Linux.com

Other stories that NewsForge and Linux.com reported first this week:

Tina Gasperson caused quite a stir with her review of Linuxsucks.com. Her opinion: It needs a lot of work to be credible.

Columnist Jack Bryar suggests where Open Source fans can focus their charitable contributions. Among his suggestions: The Free Software Foundation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Peace Corps.

Stock news

The holiday-shortened stock week was a good one for the tech-heavy Nasdaq and for many Open-Source related Linux stocks in general. The Nasdaq ended last week at 1,987.26, up from 1,945.83 Dec. 14, and some analysts are predicting continued increases based on news last week that the manufacturing sector seems to be turning around and consumer confidence is up.

As expected, it was a slow news week for the companies on our Open Source stock list.
Of the 11 Open Source-related stocks on our list, eight were up this week, although most posted modest gains. Only Hewlett-Packard and MandrakeSoft posted losses for the week, while Wind River Systems ended the week at 18.05 for the third week in a row.

Here’s how Open Source and related stocks ended this past week:

Company Name	Symbol	12/21 Close	12/28 Close
Apple	AAPL	21.00	22.43
Borland Software Int’l	BORL	15.39	15.85
Caldera International	CALD	0.77	0.89
Hewlett-Packard	HWP	21.00	20.82
IBM	IBM	122.00	122.90
MandrakeSoft	4477.PA	e4.90	e4.69
Red Hat	RHAT	6.95	7.02
Sun Microsystems	SUNW	11.74	12.59
TiVo	TIVO	5.47	6.30
VA Software	LNUX	2.48	2.49
Wind River Systems	WIND	18.05	18.05

Upgrade-cepis.org has a special issue on Free Software. Articles include “Harm from The Hague” by Richard M. Stallman, “Open Source in a Major Swiss Bank,” and “The Crisis of Free Scientific Software,” among others.

Dave Jones: “Resyncing with Linus has begun, and I’ve pushed him some of the
more simple stuff to begin with. Doing so has shaken up some bits
in my tree which were incorrect.

Seems quite a few people are using my tree to develop against.
For this reason I’ve wimped out and accepted some new bits in
this diff just to get those folks some extra testers.”

Patch against 2.5.1 vanilla is available from:
http://www.codemonkey.org.uk/patches/2.5/patch-2.5.1-dj9.diff.bz2

Some of the fixes still haven't found their way back to Marcelo yet
but should show up in a later 2.4.18pre with any luck.

Enjoy,
  -- Davej.

2.5.1-dj9
o   Merge up to 2.5.2pre4.
    | Also fix up a bunch of build errors.
o   Add support for Sony DSC-P5 to USB unusual devs.    (Gregor Jasny)
o   First part of new console locking infrastructure.   (James Simmons)
o   Cleaner/Lighter fbdev api.                          (James Simmons,
                                                         Geert Uytterhoeven)
o   Don't coredump framebuffer contents.                (Andrew Morton)
o   Fix hang on close of serial tty.                    (Russell King)
o   Remove the set_current_state() patch, needs work.   (Me)
o   Drop ICH2 addition to ioapic Whitelist.             (Me)
o   Do the asm/segment.h crapectomy properly.           (David Woodhouse)
o   Reactivate the PNPBIOS Configure.help entry.

_NoDDingDog tells us about this item: KDE Konqueror Web browser SSL security flaw lets remote users conduct man-in-the-middle attacks to access sensitive information.
Version(s): Konqueror 2.2.1, 2.1, possibly other versions. Description: A vulnerability has been reported in the KDE Konqueror web browser that allows a remote user to perform a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) man-in-the-middle attack without being detected by most users.

follow up:
More information at Securitytracker.com.

_NoDDingDog tells us about this: Mozilla Personal Security Manager uses unsafe temporary files and may allow local users to overwrite critical files on the server. Version(s): Mozilla 0.8.
A local user can create a symbolic link from a temporary file used by the Mozilla Personal Security Manager (PSM) to another critical file. Then, when a privileged user accesses a secure web site, thereby invoking Mozilla PSM, the linked file will be overwritten.
More at Securitytracker.com

This will be a family style Install Fest. It will not run late, so arrive early! This Install Fest is made possible through the work and kind generosity of the Hudes family. This Fest will take place somewhere on or near West 72nd Street on the Island of the Manahattoes. To be admitted you must write to Dana Hudes and get the exact address. Read more for the official announcement.

Objective: Install any variety of Linux / FreeBSD/NetBSD / Minix in single/dual-boot configuration on the computers of those who come. Last time we had a number of laptop users. Anyone with laptop documentation on how to get into the BIOS of e.g. ThinkPad , please bring it. Also, I only have install CD’s for RedHat. If you have CDs for other o/s, please bring them.

Priority is given to installations (new/upgrade) of the operating system. As time and interest allows, we will cheerfully assist with installation of other free software in the free o/s environment (e.g. MRTG under Linux).

Restriction: We’re not here to help people with their Microsoft Windows (or any other non-free o/s, that includes Solaris as well as Mac OS) issues. That doesn’t preclude attendees from making arrangements to follow up with someone for their non-free o/s problems privately at another time & place.

A short introduction to Perl will be forthcoming at a later date.

Here is general information about Install Fests:

Hardware: Bring the boxes on which you wish to run a Free OS.

Software: Bring whatever distribution CDs, boot and rescue disks, boot managers, tiny distributions, manuals, and anything else you want.

Important: Everything done to/with any computer at any Install Fest, and in particular, at this Install Fest, is done at the specific request of the owner of the computer. As with all human endeavor, there is some risk of catastrophe. Back up all your data, before coming to the Fest! In addition, make a list of all hardware and media you bring to the Fest, and check that you have all your hardware and media when you leave the Fest.

useful reading:
http://www.netcom.com/~casandra/mirror-of-luny-site/installfest/guidelines.html
http://linuxmafia.com/bale/linuxprep.html
http://www.luv.asn.au/if/preparation.php3

The LDP hardware HOW-TO:
http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Hardware-HOWTO/index.html

Linux pre-install checklist:
http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/Pre-Installation-Checklist/index.html

Linux post-install mini-checklist:
http://algolog.tripod.com/postlnx.htm
http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/Post-Installation-Checklist/index.html

http://www.lxny.org
http://www.gnubies.org
http://www.nylug.org
http://www.sixgirls.org
http://www.fsf.org
http://www.debian.org
http://www.linux.org
http://www.debian.org/ports/hurd
http://www.squeak.org
http://www.freebsd.org
http://www.netbsd.org
http://www.openbsd.org
http://www2.ics.hawaii.edu/~esb/prof/proj/hello
http://www.daemonnews.org
http://slashdot.org
http://dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Operating_Systems
http://www2.tunes.org/Review/OSes.html

Jay Sulzberger secretary@lxny.org
Corresponding Secretary LXNY
LXNY is New York’s Free Computing Organization.
http://www.lxny.org

From Teledyn: “The Center for Information Policy at the University of Maryland is organizing a one-day workshop on open source. The NSF-sponsored event will explore issues and relationships of open source to other forms of enterprise and community, and discuss implications for institutions and public policies in a digital society.”

Dave Jones: “Mixed bag of goodies this time.”

Patch against 2.5.1 vanilla is available from:
http://www.codemonkey.org.uk/patches/2.5/patch-2.5.1-dj8.diff.bz2

Some of the fixes still haven't found their way back to Marcelo yet
but should show up in a later 2.4.18pre with any luck.

Enjoy,
  -- Davej.

2.5.1-dj8
o   Remove leftover EISA cruft in x86 ksyms.            (Me)
o   Add a missing part of the split visws support.      (Me)
o   Make reiserfs partitions mountable again.           (Al Viro,
                                                         Andrew Morton, Me)
o   Make x86 math emulation work with dynamic LDT.      (Manfred Spraul)
o   Fix problems with tdfxfb & high pixelclocks.        (Jurriaan)
    | Only tested on PCI 4500, feedback to thunder7@xs4all.nl
o   Replace text.lock with .subsection                  (Keith Owens)
o   Remove Cyrix SLOP workaround.                       (Me)
    | Can be done in userspace/initramfs.
o   Merge pnpbios support.                              (Thomas Hood)
    | Should work, but may be nice to bend into shape
    | to fit the new driverfs model at some point.

Alan Cox has released the 2.2.21pre1 patch to the Linux kernel. Links to the patch and a changelog are below.

http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/alan/linux-2.2/2.2.21pre/

o       Fix potential corruption with vmalloc on        (Ralf Baechle)
        virtually cached boxes
o       Small PPC build fixups                          (Tom Rini)
o       zImage booting fix                              (Kalev Soikonen)
o       EIO on NFS read fixup                           (Trond Myklebust)
o       Update 3ware raid driver                        (Adam Radford)
o       page_alloc race fix                             (Andrea Arcangeli)
o       Update USB maintainers                          (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
o       bttv clipcount=0 fix                            (Solar Designer)
o       Fix multiple eepro driver bugs                  (Aris)
o       Sym53c8xx queue handling fix                    (Gerard Roudier)
o       Update SubmittingDrivers document               (Michal Svec)
o       8139too performance tune                        (Jens David)
o       procfs follow link return fix                   (Solar Designer)
o       Backport SEM_UNDO overflow fix from 2.4         (Leonid Igolnik)
o       VM86 fixes                                      (Manfred Spraul)
o       Fix alpha build                                 (Kim Heino)
-

MozillaQuest Magazine (MozillaQuest.com) reports: “There is lots of very good free and open source software. There is some pretty bad free stuff too. If you chose wisely among the available free and open source software, you can acquire a nice collection of good software without spending a single buck. Some free or open source software is very similar to popular or well-known commercial software. For example, AbiWord (a Microsoft Word look-alike) and GIMP (similar to Adobe PhotoShop) are nice, free alternatives to the more expensive commercial software they emulate. To get started with free software, take a look at AbiWord, Composer, GIMP, and StarOffice. These all are cross-platform (XP) programs. So, they will run on both the Linux and … Windows platforms.” Check this MozillaQuest.com story for details.