From LWN.net: The linux 2.4.x firewalling code, netfilter, contains a vulnerability
whereby an attacker can bypass firewall rules.

From BusinessWire: MontaVista Software Inc., the company
powering the embedded revolution, announced today that its Hard Hat Linux operating system now
supports the IBM next-generation reference platform for the recently announced NP4GS3 network
processor.

American Megatrends Inc. (AMI), the leading developer of innovative BIOS and Hardware Diagnostic Utilities worldwide, today announced the development of AMIDiag for Linux, the latest version of the industry standard diagnostic utility.

AMIDiag for Linux, the latest version of AMI’s industry standard diagnostic software, is being developed in a 100% native Linux environment. AMIDiag for Linux supports all major Linux distributions including those from Redhat, SuSE and Mandrake. The product provides a structured diagnostic environment that is ideal for embedded Linux applications.

In addition to AMIDiag for Linux, American Megatrends offers a complete line of diagnostic utilities including AMIDiag for DOS, Windows and AMIDiag for the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI). With the addition of AMIDiag for Linux to the line of AMIDiag utilities, American Megatrends offers the most complete solution available.

“With an estimated growth of 154% in Linux systems, it is a necessity to offer a diagnostic solution which supports the open source community,” said Stefano Righi, Engineering Director, Diagnostic Utilities. “AMIDiag for Linux will allow AMI to continue its mission in providing the most advanced products to its customers.”

AMIDiag for Linux is set to release in the fourth quarter of 2001. Prior to its release to the market, AMIDiag for Linux will undergo an extensive beta-testing program. Users who are interested in participating should check www.ami.com for more news and updates on the program.

About AMI

Founded in 1985, American Megatrends Inc. (AMI) has dedicated its resources to providing OEMs, resellers and systems integrators with leading edge computer technologies. This privately held company, best known for its Basic Input/Output Systems or BIOS, also supplies its state-of-the-art hardware, software, utilities and RAID controllers to over 55 percent of today?s high-tech manufacturers. Headquartered in Atlanta, AMI has locations in the U.S. and throughout the world including Munich, London, Taipei, Chennai, Seoul and Tokyo to better serve our customers. For more information on AMI, its products, services or reseller opportunities, call 1-800-U-BUY-AMI or visit www.ami.com.
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All registered trademarks are property of their respective companies.

Posted at LWN.net: Versions of the Pine email client prior to 4.33 have various temporary
file creation problems, as does the pico editor. These issues allow
any user with local system access to cause any files owned by any
other user, including root, to potentially be overwritten if the
conditions were right.

honey writes, “The Polish infosite, 7thGuard.net, has just published an
article
about the strategy of Polish government for next few years.
The short English version is here.
It says that Polish Government will support Open Source and promote it
both — in administration and commercial use. Will Poland be a first
Open Source-only country?”

– By Tina Gasperson –
You might think the world already has too many sites devoted to Mandrake. I’d have agreed with you, until I found the MandrakeForum. It’s a place to get with all your Mandrake-using brothers and sisters to discuss the high and low points of living with what some people say is the most cutting-edge distribution.
This is not a fanzine site, either. Due to the open nature of the discussions, many different viewpoints and opinions are espoused. Debian lovers are not ostracized; neither are war-torn, frightened Windows refugees who don’t speak the language; it’s OK to be pissed off at your computer; you don’t have to be perfectly knowledgeable to be accepted and valued here. Come as you are.

One of the discussions centers on sound card issues. Without even trying I found some answers about how to get my onboard sound chip to work reliably (don’t use the KDE sound server, but ALSA instead).

After such serendipitous fortune, I decided to go looking for information about getting my USB mouse to work with Mandrake 8.0, and found several related topics and posts. No definite answers, other than “Mandrake USB support needs to mature,” but satisfying nonetheless. It’s nice to know you’re not the only one suffering.

On a side note, I’m realizing that people who are simply users of Linux, not coders or IT gurus, but those of use who just need an OS and related applications to support the work and play that we do, are a truly persistent group. We experience failure after failure and move from troubling situations to perplexing conundrums — and we do so gladly (even though we’re pulling our hair out) just to experience the joy of finally getting it to work.

Mandrake may have a reputation as the most newbie-friendly distribution, but the road to Linux nirvana is still like a brand-new washboard in many, many places. A friend of mine who uses SuSE swears that he hates Mandrake because it is too buggy. Yet, how many newbies are flocking to that distribution, or to Debian? No great numbers.

I won’t be doing it anytime soon, because SuSE and Debian have reputations as being only for the Linux elite, and I don’t want to try to install it and have my system out of commission for a day, or even several days. At least with Mandrake, if I break things, I know I can quickly undo my mistakes. With other distros, I’m not sure and not ready to enter the badlands quite yet.

But I digress.

MandrakeForum has different discussions going on in German, English, Spanish, and French. There’s a place to submit news tips and links, and a link to MandrakeSoft’s store. The site runs on PHP-Babylon, which is a multilinqual version of PHP-Nuke, and has easy-to-use navigation and basic, clean look-and-feel.

There’s no indication on the site as to whether or not it is sanctioned or sponsored by MandrakeSoft, and no indication as to the age of the site; the FAQ section is empty and so is the links section, but again, not sure whether this is due to newness or neglect. Either way, it doesn’t matter because the discussions at MandrakeForum are well populated and not full of trolls and flames like other places with which we’re familiar.

Nokia and Loki Software announced today an
agreement to make Linux games from Loki available on the Nokia Media
Terminal.The Media Terminal is an innovative infotainment device that seamlessly
combines digital video broadcast (DVB), gaming, full Internet access,
and
personal video recorder (PVR) technology. As part of the agreement
Linux-based games from Loki will be pre-installed on the Media
Terminal.
Anticipated roll out of the Media Terminal will be early Fall in
Europe.

Both Nokia and Loki Software have made a firm commitment to support the
open source community by developing open tools and standards making
such
a collaboration a natural fit. Loki Software has developed open
multimedia standards for gaming such as SDL, SMPEG and OpenAL(. Nokia
has
created the OST (Open Standards Terminal) platform for home
entertainment
applications based on open source technologies such as, Linux, Xfree86
and Mozilla. The OSTprovides a platform for developing applications for
a
variety of electronic devices, the first of which is the Nokia Media
Terminal. In addition, Nokia recently announced the launch of
ostdev.net,
a website dedicated to support developers in the open source community.

“Loki games add great value to our Media Terminal product,” said
Rickard
Nelgér, Head of Product Management, Nokia Home Communications. “Both
Nokia and Loki Software will work together to open up access to more
Linux games from the comfort of the living room. This collaboration
works
hand in hand with Nokia’s commitment to continuous development of new
and
interesting products and applications for home environment. “

“The Nokia Media Terminal represents a new breed of product which
combines ease of use with a rich set of innovative features seamlessly
integrated into a single device–and the technology that makes this
possible is Open Source software and the Linux OS,” said Scott Draeker,
President, Loki Software. “Nokia has taken a leading role in bringing
the
stability, speed and features of Linux to the home consumer and it is
the
users who will benefit. Loki, as the leading publisher of games for
Linux, is committed to open source software and the development of open
standards.

Nokia is demonstrating the Media Terminal and will show the ostdev.net
open source network at the E3 exhibition in Los Angeles 16-19 May.

About Nokia
Nokia is the world leader in mobile communications. Backed by its
experience, innovation, user-friendliness and secure solutions, the
company has become the leading supplier of mobile phones and a leading
supplier of mobile, fixed and IP networks. By adding mobility to the
Internet Nokia creates new opportunities for companies and further
enriches the daily lives of people. Nokia is a broadly held company
with
listings on six major exchanges.

About Loki Software, Inc.
Founded in 1998 in Orange County, California, Loki is the leading
publisher of games for Linux. Titles from Loki include Sid Meier’s
Alpha
Centauri Planetary Pack, Tribes 2 and SimCity 3000 Unlimited. In
addition
to this arsenal of games, Loki has initiated and continues to support
several Open Source development projects, including OpenAL(, a
cross-platform 3D-Audio Library, and SDL MPEG Player Library (SMPEG), a
general-purpose MPEG video/audio player for Linux. For more information
visit www.lokigames.com.

Linux is a registered trademark of Linux Torvalds. All company and
product names are the trademarks, registrations, or copyrights of their
respective owners.

It’s on Eazel’s Web site. “Our most diligentn efforts were not sufficient to secure additional funding. We’re disappointed that we can’t continue developing software and services for users of Open Source Software. We are confident, however, that Nautilus development will continue forward.” Here’s another announcement on the gnome.org mailing list.

From the folks at O’Reilly: “In the past, laptops have been the only real option for mobile Linux,
but that’s changing. A recent article on the O’Reilly Network compares
three Linux PDAs: Compaq’s iPAQ, Agenda Computing’s VR3 and G.Mate’s
Yopy. ” This is the first part of a four-part series testing Linux PDAs.

Zork.net: “Welcome to KC KDE! After a schedule-related challenge that prevented last week’s issue from appearing, we are back again with a
summary of the last week’s development mailing lists. The week in KDE development was marked by incremental improvements all
across the desktop.”