OReillynet: “Diagnosing what went wrong after a system failure can prevent it from happening again. Jennifer Vesperman introduces the tools required for finding out what happened.”

ZDNet reports that the “43-nation Council of Europe adopted a convention on cybercrime on Thursday, the first international treaty on criminal offences committed over the Internet.”

– by Tina Gasperson –
IBM is not making a big enough deal out of this big collection of Linux tutorials. There are a lot of how-to’s floating around the web, and many are good — but many are poor. The stuff you get from IBM is of fairly reliable quality.I was going to focus on Mark Chapman’s “Transitioning from Windows to Linux,” which, with its 50 pages of hand-holding reassurance, is a more than worthy candidate for the spotlight. It covers installation, configuration, GUIs, shells, root/user account differences, and other things every newbie wishes he knew.

But then I found out that IBM has put together a whole list of tutorials of this ilk — some of which are from sites other than IBM — and I knew it was a resource to share. There are about 20 tutorials listed here, and new ones are being added continuously.

Some of the more recent ones:

“Backing up your Linux machines” (8/8/01) — this tutorial says it “gives you techniques for covering your back in the worst-case scenario.” It’s a java script tutorial that requires a short registration process.

“Configuring TCP/IP under Linux” (10/29/01) — this is a two-hour tutorial that addresses the origins of TCP/IP and how it works. The description says, “We discuss the various network configuration files required by Linux, how to initialize a network interface, and how to edit the system’s routing table.”

“Creating dynamic web sites with PHP and MySQL” (5/15/01) — the description for this tutorial claims it will teach you to use PHP and MySQL in an hour. “When we are finished, you
will know how dynamic sites work and how they serve the content, and you will be ready to serve your own dynamic content from your site.” That sounds like something worth investigating.

“Beginning Haskell” (9/27/01) — it will take you two hours to complete this tutorial, and when you finish you’ll have had a “gentle introduction to the paradigm of functional programming, with specific illustrations in the Haskell 98 language.”

As mentioned earlier the site also links to select outside tutorials, such as the Brave GNU World tutorials, which cover a whole range of subjects themselves; the BasicLinux courses, which have accompanying mailing lists; and Advanced Linuxconf, winner of a Linux Magazine “editor’s choice award” and brought to us by Solucorp.

IBM’s list of Linux tutorials is an excellent resource and a “must bookmark” URL. I invite you to share your bookmark file’s best-kept secrets – send me a note telling me about your favorite Linux and Open Source-related sites.

CNet reports that “IBM has captured three victories in the supercomputer realm, maintaining a top spot in worldwide supercomputer rankings and winning two major new contracts for nuclear weapons and climate research.”

theHighlander writes “From CIOL: FastTrack, a Dutch start-up technology firm, allows computer users to swap The Beatles, Britney Spears and others for free. The best part is that it allows swapping of huge movie files. This one-year-old company is also facing a lawsuit by US record and movie industries similar to the one by the Music industry on Napster. What would happen?”

ZDNet reports: “After earlier announcing plans to create a subsidiary for its operating system, Palm on Thursday said it is looking to divide itself into separate, publically traded companies.”

CNN reports on IBM’s launch of its pixie-dust hard drives, which allow the storage of four times as much data per square inch as current technology drives.

Kelly McNeill writes “Since the initial introduction last week of the proposed settlement in the Microsoft antitrust trial, there have been some interesting changes made to Microsoft’s and the DOJ’s proposed terms. The agreement itself does not punish Microsoft for its misdeeds — or even properly plug all the loopholes that will allow the company to conduct future wrongdoings”

KDE dot proudly reports that the KDE project has won three Linux Journal awards for best web client, best development tool, and best desktop environment.

Berkeley, CA — November 8, 2001 — Researchers and scientists at Quantum Magnetics say the flexibility of the Linux operating system provided a greater benefit than Windows during the development and testing of a new concealed weapons tracking system. Their research is being presented this week at the 5th Annual Linux Showcase & Conference in Oakland, California.

“Linux offers extremely fast boot, relative immunity to power interruption, is scalable from embedded devices to scientific workstations, has a more reliable serial port driver, and copes very well with running on older and smaller computers,” said Alexander R. Perry, Quantum Magnetics Developer. “These features give it the ability to reduce cost by permitting the continued usage of older systems.”

“This research presents a use of the Linux operating system in a way not traditionally thought of and discusses its practical advantages,” said Bryan Andregg, ALS 2001 Program Chair. “This presentation is perfect for our conference program because it touches on a real world problem and provides a valuable, realistic solution.”

The weapons tracking system runs on a 24×7 schedule, utilizes the Debian GNU/Linux OS and standard user interfaces to receive data from mounted cameras and sensors and approximate the location of a concealed weapon. The system gives security personnel enough information to focus searches on specific locations or even parts of the body, reducing search time by at least 50 percent. Data is collected by video and converted to a sequence of target coordinates on a computer screen, tracking a potential weapon at a speed of 30 frames per second using the smoother Linux interface. Although much of the data collected is subject to interpretation or deduction by security personnel, it provides enough information to understand what kind of weapon they are facing and minimizes the chances of being attacked.

“If you drive down the road at night and see really bright lights coming the other way, you haven’t actually measured where the car is but have no trouble knowing enough about its position to dodge,” said Perry. “In the same way, we don’t directly measure the position of the weapon but the signature from the sensor suffices to know where it is.”

The system has been successfully beta tested by users. Previous designs were independently tested at the National Safe Skies Alliance in Knoxville, Tennessee as well as added to the FAA’s list of approved technologies. Already recognized as the most significant development in metal detection technology, the system is applicable beyond airports and government offices, into banking institutions, corporate offices, medical facilities, and other organizations concerned about 24×7 access to their locations.

“This research shows that Linux can be used for real world applications outside of web servers and parallel machines,” said Andregg. “The wider adoption of Linux for these kinds of solutions provides a greater financial and technical benefit.”

The research is being presented on Friday, November 9, 2001 at ALS 2001 in the Oakland Marriott City Center, Oakland, California. Registration for technical sessions is currently open to the public and available on-site. A detailed program is available online at www.linuxshowcase.org. For more information about Quantum Magnetics, log onto their web site at www.qm.com.

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The 5th Annual Linux Showcase and Conference
November 5-10, 2001
Oakland Marriott City Center
Oakland, California
http://www.linuxshowcase.org

About the USENIX Association
USENIX is the Advanced Computing Systems Association. For over 25 years, it has been the leading community for engineers, system administrators, scientists, and technician working on the cutting edge of the computing world. USENIX conferences are the essential meeting grounds for the presentation and discussion of technical advances in all aspects of computing systems. For more information about the USENIX Association, visit http://www.usenix.org