LinuxSecurity.com: “A problem exists with the kdesu component of kdelibs. It created a
world-readable temporary file to exchange authentication information
and delete it shortly after. This can be abused by a local user to
gain access to the X server and could result in a compromise of the
account that kdesu would access.”

Slashdot contributor Andy Murren reviews Richard Blun’s new book Postfix. Postfix is a mail transfer agent designed at IBM, released under the IBM Public License, and intended as a replacement for Sendmail. Murren: “Overall I have found this to be a well-written book that addressed several questions that I had about
configuring and using Postfix (such as the SOHO section). It is clear, direct and covers each topic to a level
that I found comfortable. For some people this book will be too advanced but that should not be anyone who
has a working knowledge of mail servers or of Unix. I would recommend this book for someone who has
started to use or wants to migrate to using Postfix.”

Slashdot: “In a victory for all Linux users, Linus Torvalds declared jihad on
annoying ‘informational’ kernel boot messages. I’m sure we’ll all miss the inspirational
‘spewtron driver 0.09 installed (C)2000 by Wardwick
Extrusion’ messages in our dmesgs.”

TheStandard.com reports that Microsoft has dropped its “smart tag” plan from its new IE browser.
“As a result of smart tags in beta versions of
Windows XP and IE, we received lots of
feedback, and have realized that there is a
need to better balance the user experience
with the legitimate concerns of content
providers and web sites,” Microsoft
Thursday said in a statement. Slashdotters discuss the news.

LinuxDevices.com takes a look at the Intrinsyc CerfCube for Linux — a Linux
system that takes up just 0.015 cubic feet. “Intrinsyc has put together a very nice package with their
Linux distribution for the CerfCube. With the exception of
the chaotic and currently hard-to-reverse installation
process, the package is well designed, with helpful
scripts and good documentation allowing you to focus on
your application rather than the environment. The software
is also structured in a simple and intuitive way, so you
can easily figure out how to accomplish anything that is
not covered by the generally complete documentation.”

From InternetWire: YesSoftware, Inc today
announced the launch of www.GotoCode.com, a new portal website designed to showcase its
open source applications and function as a community web site for web developers and users of
its code generation software — CodeCharge. Featured on the website is a selection of database
driven web applications and examples with source code that can be downloaded at no charge in
variety of scripting languages. Beginning with 15 free applications, the offering is projected to
increase based on user demand and contribution from community members.

From the humor site, Segfault: “Five people were hospitalized and over a hundred suffered scrapes and bruises when the
World Unix Editor Contest, held yesterday in Finland, ended in an all-out slugfest … As the judges considered the two finalists, wordless tension mounted in the audience. The
tension finally broke in an incident following an observation by judge unixhacker@cs.unl.edu
that emacs includes better mouse support. Judge backslash@orb.freesoft.org quickly
retorted, ‘But would a hard-core Unix user even want mouse support?’ At this point, an
unidentified member of the audience shouted, ‘You tell ’em! I would throw my mouse away
if it would save me from using emacs!’ “

The announcement is posted at LWN.net. From author Dave Jones: “Ok, it’s done. It’s been tested to death by me, and I can’t
break it. We still have a long way to go for some of the
really cool features, but that stuff can wait for later
revisions. I’m very happy with how this release looks.”

CNet has the analysis: ”
A chastened Microsoft? Think again.

During its antitrust battle with the Justice Department and 19 states,
Microsoft showed more restraint–at least publicly–in its business
strategies and tactics. But given George W. Bush’s election and
signs that the Court of Appeals would partly deflate the
government’s victory in the trial court, the software behemoth has returned to the hard-charging
Microsoft of old.”

– By Jeff Field –

Many people know ABIT as a popular manufacturer of motherboards. What a lot of
people may not know is that ABIT also makes other products, among them a line of NVidia-based graphics cards. The MX400 is based on NVidia’s low-end GeForce2 MX400
chipset, intended to replace its previous low-end chipset, the GeForce2 MX. But can it do the job?
Last year, NVidia released the GeForce2 MX chipset, a low-end version of the powerful GeForce2 GTS. The card was very successful because it combined current-generation features and power with a low-priced card. Instead of being
stuck buying something like an older TNT2 Ultra or GeForce card, those users looking for decent-but-not-astounding 3D
performance could just buy a GeForce2 with reduced performance. NVidia accomplished this by lowering the memory bandwidth
and clock speed on the board and slicing the number of rendering pipelines in half, from four to two.

These changes nearly crippled the chip — it still performs well, just not to the level of the GeForce2 GTS or, now,
the GeForce3. With the GeForce2 MX400, NVidia simply increased the clock speed of the GeForce2 MX from 175 to 200 to match
the GeForce2 GTS. Yes, boys and girls, that’s about it. NVidia also added RAM — from 32 to 64 megs, but that does not help at all,
because where the chipset is really hurt is the lack of memory bandwidth.

Documentation and software
Unfortunately, the ABIT Siluro MX400 is lacking Linux documentation and software — no information about Linux is provided in the manual, and no drivers are provided on the included CD. The included documentation is, however, well written, and does cover the basics of physically installing the card, although in most cases (and on all operating
systems) installing the drivers is probably going to end up being the more difficult of the two tasks.

Board design
The board design is very much a reference design (that is, it is based on the basic board design used by NVidia and provided to OEMs). In fact, the only real difference physically between the Siluro GF2MX
and the MX400 is the lack of a TV out on the MX400 and the increased number of RAM chips, due to its extra 32MB of RAM.
Also, the heatsink seems to be of a higher quality than that of the GF2MX, and is adhered better, because unlike my GF2MX
board, the heatsink did not fall off (which is not much of an issue — the GF2MX chipset could run quite well without a
heatsink, and did so since October).

Performance
System Specifications

AMD Athlon-C 750MHz (100 MHz bus)
512 Megabytes Crucial PC133 CAS 2 SDRAM, provided by Crucial
Western Digital 7200RPM 10.2 gig IDE Hard Drive
3Com 3c905TX-C PCI 10/100 NIC
300 Watt AMD-Approved ATX Power Supply
XFree 4.0.3 with 1251 drivers from NVidia
Quake 3 1.27f Beta

QuakeIII timedemos
Quake III timedemos are done by going into Quake III, entering the console (~) and enabling the timedemo function (by
typing timedemo 1. Optionally (and this was done for these tests, because I’m testing the video board and not the
system) you may disable the sound by typing s_initsound 0 followed by snd_restart. Once you have done all
this, type demo four.dm_66 to run the demo.

Timedemos reflect 3D gaming performance, and in no way reflect professional 3D performance.

Quake III results (frames per second)

Resolution	GF2 MX400	GF2MX
800 * 600	60.3	58.5
1024 * 768	56.0	53.9
1280 * 1024	41.1	39.9
1600 * 1200	31.1	30.2

As you can see, the difference between the GF2MX and the GF2 MX400 is negligible — because the only change is increased
memory and clock speed, and neither of those were actually bottlenecks, the GF2MX400 has almost no advantage over the
GF2MX.

Conclusions
So, if there is no performance difference between the MX400 and the GF2MX, what advantage does it have? The answer is,
none. However, it could drive the cost of cards such as the Siluro GeForce2MX down, which is helpful for those in the market for
a low-end card. This is no fault of ABIT’s — the company made the best card it could with this chipset from NVidia. Once it
drops in price to the $45 range where the GeForce2MX is right now, it will be quite a bargain, but for now, I would
recommend a GeForce2MX-based card over an MX400-based one. If for some odd reason you have your heart set on an MX400, however, the Abit Siluro MX400 is a decent card — just held back by a lackluster chipset. Prices were not yet
available for a Siluro MX400 on pricewatch, but other MX400-based boards can be had for $80 on Pricewatch.