Debian: “The icecast-server (a streaming music server) package as distributed in Debian GNU/Linux 2.2 has several security problems… These have been fixed in version 1.3.10-1, and we strongly recommend that you upgrade your icecast-server package immediately.” Read more here.

Kernel.org: It looks like Linux kernel 2.4.17-pre5 is now out. Ah, it seems like only yesterday we were compiling that old newest version of the kernel. You can get it here.

From:	 Marcelo Tosatti <marcelo@conectiva.com.br>
To:	 lkml <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Linux 2.4.17-pre5
Date:	 Thu, 6 Dec 2001 15:39:21 -0200 (BRST)
Cc:	 Linus Torvalds <torvalds@transmeta.com>,
	 Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>


I'm going to release -pre versions more often from now on so people can
"see" what I'm doing with less latency: I hope that can make developer's
life easier.

So here goes pre5 with quite some changes... 

pre5:

- 8139too fixes					(Andreas Dilger)
- sym53c8xx_2 update				(Gerard Roudier)
- loopback deadlock bugfix			(Jan Kara)
- Yet another devfs update			(Richard Gooch)	
- Enable K7 SSE					(John Clemens)
- Make grab_cache_page return NULL instead 
  ERR_PTR: callers expect NULL on failure	(Christoph Hellwig)
- Make ide-{disk-floppy} compile without 
  PROCFS support				(Robert Love)
- Another ymfpci update				(Pete Zaitcev)
- indent NCR5380.{c,h}, g_NCR5380.{c,h}, plus 
  NCR5380 fix					(Alan Cox)
- SPARC32/64 update				(David S. Miller)
- Fix atyfb warnings				(David S. Miller)
- Make bootmem init code correctly align 
  bootmem data					(David S. Miller)
- Networking updates				(David S. Miller)
- Fix scanning luns > 7 on SCSI-3 devices 	(Michael Clark)
- Add sparse lun hint for Chaparral G8324 
	Fibre-SCSI controller			(Michael Clark)
- Really apply sg changes			(me)
- Parport updates				(Tim Waugh)
- ReiserFS updates				(Vladimir V. Saveliev)
- Make AGP code scan all kinds of devices:
  they are not always video ones		(Alan Cox)
- EXPORT_NO_SYMBOLS in floppy.c			(Alan Cox)
- Pentium IV Hyperthreading support		(Alan Cox)

pre4:

- Added missing tcp_diag.c and tcp_diag.h	(me)

pre3:

- Enable ppro errata workaround                 (Dave Jones)
- Update tmpfs documentation                    (Christoph Rohland)
- Fritz!PCIv2 ISDN card support                 (Kai Germaschewski)
- Really apply ymfpci changes                   (Pete Zaitcev)
- USB update                                    (Greg KH)
- Adds detection of more eepro100 cards         (Troy A. Griffitts)
- Make ftruncate64() compliant with SuS         (Andrew Morton)
- ATI64 fb driver update                        (Geert Uytterhoeven)
- Coda fixes                                    (Jan Harkes)
- devfs update                                  (Richard Gooch)
- Fix ad1848 breakage in -pre2                  (Alan Cox)
- Network updates                               (David S. Miller)
- Add cramfs locking                            (Christoph Hellwig)
- Move locking of page_table_lock on expand_stack
  before accessing any vma field                (Manfred Spraul)
- Make time monotonous with gettimeofday        (Andi Kleen)
- Add MODULE_LICENSE(GPL) to ide-tape.c         (Mikael Pettersson)
- Minor cs46xx ioctl fix                        (Thomas Woller)

pre2:

- Remove userland header from bonding driver	(David S. Miller)
- Create a SLAB for page tables on i386		(Christoph Hellwig)
- Unregister devices at shaper unload time	(David S. Miller)
- Remove several unused variables from various
  places in the kernel				(David S. Miller)
- Fix slab code to not blindly trust cc_data():
  it may be not valid on some platforms		(David S. Miller)
- Fix RTC driver bug				(David S. Miller)
- SPARC 32/64 update				(David S. Miller)
- W9966 V4L driver update			(Jakob Jemi)
- ad1848 driver fixes				(Alan Cox/Daniel T. Cobra)
- PCMCIA update					(David Hinds)
- Fix PCMCIA problem with multiple PCI busses 	(Paul Mackerras)
- Correctly free per-process signal struct	(Dave McCracken)
- IA64 PAL/signal headers cleanup		(Nathan Myers)
- ymfpci driver cleanup 			(Pete Zaitcev)
- Change NLS "licenses" to be "GPL/BSD" instead 
  only BSD.					(Robert Love)
- Fix serial module use count			(Russell King)
- Update sg to 3.1.22				(Douglas Gilbert)
- ieee1394 update				(Ben Collins)
- ReiserFS fixes				(Nikita Danilov)
- Update ACPI documentantion			(Patrick Mochel)
- Smarter atime update				(Andrew Morton)
- Correctly mark ext2 sb as dirty and sync it	(Andrew Morton) 
- IrDA update					(Jean Tourrilhes)
- Count locked buffers at
  balance_dirty_state(): Helps interactivity under
  heavy IO workloads				(Andrew Morton)
- USB update					(Greg KH)
- ide-scsi locking fix                          (Christoph Hellwig)

pre1:

- Change USB maintainer 			(Greg Kroah-Hartman)
- Speeling fix for rd.c				(From Ralf Baechle's tree)
- Updated URL for bigphysmem patch in v4l docs  (Adrian Bunk)
- Add buggy 440GX to broken pirq blacklist 	(Arjan Van de Ven)
- Add new entry to Sound blaster ISAPNP list	(Arjan Van de Ven)
- Remove crap character from Configure.help	(Niels Kristian Bech Jensen)
- Backout erroneous change to lookup_exec_domain (Christoph Hellwig)
- Update osst sound driver to 1.65		(Willem Riede)
- Fix i810 sound driver problems		(Andris Pavenis)
- Add AF_LLC define in network headers		(Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo)
- block_size cleanup on some SCSI drivers	(Erik Andersen)
- Added missing MODULE_LICENSE("GPL") in some   (Andreas Krennmair)
  modules
- Add ->show_options() to super_ops and 
  implement NFS method				(Alexander Viro)
- Updated i8k driver				(Massimo Dal Zoto)
- devfs update  				(Richard Gooch)


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PC World: “While press reports have described different remedies under consideration, it appears that the states’ proposal is still in flux… [T]he states on Thursday are asking for input from industry experts regarding the proposal, which could alter the draft remedies that already have been crafted.” Read more here.

New Your Times: “Thirty years ago, give or take a month or two, Ray Tomlinson, an unassuming computer scientist at Bolt, Beranek & Newman, an engineering firm in Cambridge, Mass., sat down at his computer and wrote a relatively simple computer program that enabled electronic messages to travel from one computer to another. Since then, e-mail has become such a fixture in so many people’s lives, it is hard to imagine life without it.” Read more here. Free registration required.

UserLocal: “In this document you will find out how tweak KDE 2.2.2 to the max, optimize it for your machine and make nice packages out of it. If you are not interested in tweaking KDE you can easily skip the tuning part, and just read how to configure, compile and make Slackware packages with KDE 2.2.2.” These tips can be applied to building KDE 2.2.2 from source on any distro.

Reuters reports that four top Chinese PC makers say they will bundle
Microsoft’s new operating system with all their new home PCs to curb piracy in the market where it is most rampant.

Slashdot readers talk about a press release-like document at Intel.com promoting VP3, an Open Source video codec that suppors VHS-quality video at
bandwidths as low as 200 kbps.

Irish writes, “Microsoft relently came out with a paper claiming that Web Services developement on .NET is superior to WebSphere. Now IBM released a paper claiming that when the benchmark is properly run WebSphere created the Web Service faster , cheaper, using fewer steps, and in an open environment. Whose side are you on?”

Tosatti: “I’m going to release -pre versions more often from now on so people can
“see” what I’m doing with less latency: I hope that can make developer’s
life easier.”

Subject:
Linux 2.4.17-pre5
Date:
Thu, 6 Dec 2001 15:39:21 -0200 (BRST)
From:
Marcelo Tosatti
To:
lkml CC:
Linus Torvalds , Alan Cox

I’m going to release -pre versions more often from now on so people can
“see” what I’m doing with less latency: I hope that can make developer’s
life easier.

So here goes pre5 with quite some changes…

pre5:

- 8139too fixes                                 (Andreas Dilger)
- sym53c8xx_2 update                            (Gerard Roudier)
- loopback deadlock bugfix                      (Jan Kara)
- Yet another devfs update                      (Richard Gooch) 
- Enable K7 SSE                                 (John Clemens)
- Make grab_cache_page return NULL instead 
  ERR_PTR: callers expect NULL on failure       (Christoph Hellwig)
- Make ide-{disk-floppy} compile without 
  PROCFS support                                (Robert Love)
- Another ymfpci update                         (Pete Zaitcev)
- indent NCR5380.{c,h}, g_NCR5380.{c,h}, plus 
  NCR5380 fix                                   (Alan Cox)
- SPARC32/64 update                             (David S. Miller)
- Fix atyfb warnings                            (David S. Miller)
- Make bootmem init code correctly align 
  bootmem data                                  (David S. Miller)
- Networking updates                            (David S. Miller)
- Fix scanning luns > 7 on SCSI-3 devices       (Michael Clark)
- Add sparse lun hint for Chaparral G8324 
        Fibre-SCSI controller                   (Michael Clark)
- Really apply sg changes                       (me)
- Parport updates                               (Tim Waugh)
- ReiserFS updates                              (Vladimir V. Saveliev)
- Make AGP code scan all kinds of devices:
  they are not always video ones                (Alan Cox)
- EXPORT_NO_SYMBOLS in floppy.c                 (Alan Cox)
- Pentium IV Hyperthreading support             (Alan Cox)

– By Grant Gross –

When Asset Research & Retention, a financial services software company, was looking to Web-enable its Verify-Checks application, company officials considered both Microsoft and Open Source solutions.

As he was making a decision about moving Verify-Checks to the Web, Mike Wheeler, president and CEO of the Sioux Falls, S.D., company, had been hearing about security problems with Microsoft IIS, including a recent Gartner Group report. At the same time, Wheeler talked to the head technician of a local Internet service provider, who recommended Linux and other Open Source tools.

Wheeler began investigating the Open Source tools his company needed — including Linux, Apache, PHP and MySQL — but was concerned about the time and effort his company would spend rolling its own solution. “Here was the big dilemma: How do I go out and get all this Open Source stuff and make sure I’m running the current version — not the bleeding edge, the cutting edge — and I have all the patches,” he says.

Then, he saw an ad in a computer magazine for NuSphere Corporation, which was offering all those Open Source tools in a package, along with installation help, software updates, and tech support.

With help from NuSphere, the Microsoft-using Wheeler was comfortable working with PHP within a month and had a working Web site for Verify-Checks in about two months. With Verify-Checks, retailers can use the Web interface to check on the status of customer checking accounts.

NuSphere isn’t the only company offering Open Source service and support, of course. Several Open Source companies’ business plans are based on similar support and packaged software products. But Wheeler can’t say enough good things about NuSphere, and how his proprietary software company arrived at the decision to use Open Source may be helpful for other companies considering the same move.

Without NuSphere’s package of installation, software updates, and tech support, Wheeler says he wouldn’t have gone with Open Source tools. “Frankly, without that, I wouldn’t have gone there. It would have been too difficult to maintain the interactivity of all the Open Source tools. That was a huge part, the integration of all these tools, and to have it updated, and to have the tech support.”

Britt Johnston, CTO for NuSphere, says a lot of the attraction to Microsoft products is the complete solution they offer, but more and more customers don’t want to get locked into one proprietary system.

“The problem, we see, is that you end up buying into a lot of proprietary technology, and you get locked in,” he says. “We don’t lock you into a particular platform. We provide the same set of components, integrated the same way, in Windows, Linux and Unix.”

By offering solutions on Windows, NuSphere helps companies interested in Open Source gradually move in that direction, Johnston says. A company with Windows NT servers can experiment with Open Source tools without changing everything, he says.

NuSphere’s customers who switch to Open Source products come mostly from commercial Unix or small Windows systems that need to scale up. A smaller number come from Linux but want to get out of the “business of rolling their own,” Johnston says. One attraction to NuSphere is a variety of installation options, he says.

In Asset Research & Retention’s case, ‘they didn’t have to go out and collect the pieces together, and then be forever wondering whether or not they had all the right stuff,” Johnston says. “There are an awful lot of IT departments that want to focus on solving their own problems rather than trying to determine what the right components to use are.”

Wheeler, asked if he has advice for other companies considering the switch to Open Source, explains his philosophy about technology: “We have never been a company to say, ‘We’re going to write something with a Microsoft product.’ Not to take a shot at them, they have some terrific tools … but the aren’t the only game in town. We’ve always approached it from a standpoint of, what is the best tool to solve the problem that business is demanding?”

His other advice for companies: Make sure you’re using tested, stable software. With most Open Source software constantly improved and changing, it may be worth paying a Open Source services company to keep track of software updates, as NuSphere is doing for Asset Research & Retention.

Wheeler says he might have some doubts about buying enterprise-grade software from a small company, but he has no such doubts about the future of the Open Source movement. His experience with the Open Source community, since buying the NuSphere package in early summer, convinces him that he’s made the right choice.

“The thing about Open Source is [NuSphere] also pointed me in the direction of the user community, which absolutely flattened me,” he says. “I had some questions regarding PHP, and I went to the PHP newsgroup. I put out a question I was confused about; I had a response from three different people within 10 minutes. All three were good solutions.”