Alan Cox posted the latest change log to the kernel mailing list. Here are the details:

Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 23:39:11 +0000 (GMT)
                  From: Alan Cox alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk
                  To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
                  Subject: Linux 2.4.1ac12

                          ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/alan/2.4/

                  2.4.1-ac12
                  o       Make tmpfs use link counts of 2 on directories  (Christoph Rohland)
                  o       Update Documentation/sound/Introductions        (Wade Hampton)
                  o       Fix bug in new tlb shootdown code               (Ben LaHaise)
                  o       Add isa_* api to the Alpha                      (Richard Henderson)
                  o       Export down_trylock on Alpha                    (Richard Henderson)
                  o       Fix maestro3 build on ia64                      (Bill Nottingham)

                  2.4.1-ac11
                  o       Hack the setup code to do the right thing for   (me)
                          Cyrix processors. Cpuid on cyrix should now work
                  o       Change sigmatel codec inits                     (Jeff Garzik)
                  o       Revised TLB shootdown patch                     (Ben LaHaise)
                  o       Use pci quirks to handle the nonstandard irq    (Andrey Panin)
                          setup for VIA ACPI
                  o       If a user sets an io on the opl3sa2 assume they (me)
                          mean it even if isapnp isnt turned off
                  o       Fix xmms cpu burn on i810 audio                 (Marcus Sundberg)
                  o       Fix pnic problems with tulip driver             (Manfred Spraul)
                  o       Add pci skeleton driver                         (Jeff Garzik)
                  o       Fix vfat mishandling of 16bit characters        (Kazuki Yasumatsu)
                  o       Fix syntax things found by his source code      (Jean-Luc Leger)
                          analyser
                  o       Fix pcmcia ixj build bug                        (Florian)
                  o       Remove dead via sound docs                      (Jeff Garzik)
                  o       add __dev_alloc_skb for drivers needing to force(Jeff Garzik)
                          allocation types
                  o       Fix arcnet initializers                         (Jeff Garzik)
                  o       Fix various warnings                            (Keith Owens)
                  o       Further MPT fusion updates                      (Steve Ralston)
                  o       sock_alloc_send_skb fix                         (Manfred Spraul)
                  o       Fix signed/unsigned handling on 8139too         (Jeff Garzik)
                  o       Document problem with old powertweak            (Dave Jones)
                  o       s/controler/controller/ spelling fixes
                  o       S/390 build fixes                               (Neale Ferguson)

                  2.4.1-ac10
                  o       Merge with Linus 2.4.2pre3
                  o       More net driver clean up                        (Jeff Garzik)
                  o       Further maxiradio fix                           (Francois Romieu)
                  o       Lock reclaiming fixes                           (MCL)
                  o       Update ver_linux                                (Steven Cole)
                  o       Add support for the Socket LP-E CF+ ethernet    (Nicolas Pitre)
                  o       Fix microtek scanner abort handling             (Oliver Neukum)
                  o       Fix very dumb bug in my dma.c changes that      (me)
                          Linus noticed
                  o       Clean up AGP alloc/destroy a little             (me)
                          | Again a Linus request
                  o       Remove dead 8129 config help                    (Dave Jones)
                  o       Clean up extra unneeded check in setup.c        (Dave Jones)
                  o       Improve mkdep, remove acpi special case         (Keith Owens)
                  o       Fix bogus dead comment in fs.h                  (Jens Axboe)
                  o       Clean up config.in syntax errors                (Christoph Hellwig)
                  o       Offer Duron in CPU option list for clarity      (Terje Rosten)
                  o       New binutils need --oformat, old ones handle it (Andreas Jaeger)
                  o       Move bitops include in fs.h inside __KERNEL__   (Herbert Xu)
                  o       Fix misspellings of weird                       (Felix Odenkirchen)
                  o       Fix typos of 'valid' while we are at it         (Luuk van der Duim)

                  2.4.1-ac9
                  o       Merge with Linus 2.4.2pre2
                  o       Highmem bounce fixes                            (Ingo Molnar)
                  o       Fix cosa driver kfree                           (Jan Kasprzak)
                  o       Clean up pdoc202xx driver sleeps                (Vojtech Pavlik)
                  o       Final bits of NFS file handle changes           (Trond Myklebust)
                  o       Fix usbnet driver                               (David Brownell)
                  o       ATM includes fixes                              (Werner Almesberger)
                  o       Remove unneeded vm_enough_memory check          (Werner Almesberger)
                  o       Fix free_dma prototype case                     (Bill Nottingham)
                  o       Fix build bugs from pci_match_device fix        (me)
                  o       HP5300 USB scanner driver                       (Oliver Neukum,
                                                                           John Fremlin,
                                                                           Jeremy Hall)
                  o       DSP_SETFRAGMENT fixes for ymfpci                (Pavel Roskin)
                  o       Fix codafs error returns                        (Rob Radez)
                  o       Fix 48 misspellings of interrupt                (André Dahlqvist)
                  o       Fix 20 misspellings of successful               (André Dahlqvist)
                  o       Fix 11 misspellings of suppress                 (André Dahlqvist)
                  o       Fix 46 misspellings of address                  (André Dahlqvist)
                  o       Fix 26 misspellings of receive                  (André Dahlqvist)
                  o       Fix 7 misspellings of acquire                   (André Dahlqvist)
                  o       Fix 4 misspellings of unneccessary              (André Dahlqvist)
                  o       Fix 13 misspellings of until                    (André Dahlqvist)

                  2.4.1-ac8
                  o       Fix irlap speed changes and kfrees              (Jean Tourrilhes)
                  o       Further NTFS updates                            (Anton Altaparmakov,
                                                                  Yuri Per, Rob Radez)
                  o       Fix buglets in config.in for aic7xxx           (Andrzej Krzysztofowicz)
                  o       Cleanup irda QoS code                           (Jean Tourrilhes)
                  o       Fix mca documentations                          (Rob Radez)
                  o       Fix irlan device attach problems                (Dag Brattli)
                  o       Fix irda dongle crash case                      (Dag Brattli)
                  o       Change Kaweth firmware loading, add DU-E10      (Eric Sandeen)
                  o       pci_enable cleanups for networking              (Jeff Garzik)
                  o       Fix rcpci45 probing                             (Jeff Garzik)
                  o       Use SET_MODULE_OWNER() in lanstreamer           (Jeff Garzik)
                  o       Use pcmcia defines as per seperate pcmcia net   (Jeff Garzik)
                  o       Fix people calling netif_start_queue from a     (Jeff Garzik)
                          timeout
                  o       Remove 8129 driver (use 8139too)                (Jeff Garzik)
                  o       Remove dead malloc.h from net drivers           (Jeff Garzik)
                  o       Update eata driver to 6.04                      (Dario Ballabio)
                  o       Add DE320 support to ne2.c                      (Alfred Arnold)
                  o       Kernel hacking doc updates                      (John Levon)
                  o       Fix CPU detection offsets in head.S             (Mikael Pettersson)
                  o       Fix apic init/cpu detect problems               (Mikael Pettersson)

                  2.4.1-ac7
                  o       Rebalance the 2.4.1 VM                          (Rik van Riel)
                          | This should make things feel a lot faster especially
                          | on small boxes .. feedback to Rik
                  o       Silence osf syscall error printk                (Ivan Kokshaysky)
                  o       Don't trust ARC irq routing on ruffian          (Ivan Kokshaysky)
                  o       Report the right module on 3c59x for pcmcia     (Arjan van de Ven)
                  o       Update i82365 driver to add locks, delays, and  (Arjan van de Ven)
                          'bouncing' on the card detect
                  o       Get the name right on ide-cs (v ide_cs) and do  (Arjan van de Ven)
                          resource claims
                  o       Merge parport_cs                                (David Hinds)
                  o       Merge sedlbauer_cs                              (Marcus Niemann)
                  o       Fix a bug in the Cyrix pirq routing             (me)

                  2.4.1-ac6
                  o       Fix eepro100 reporting on lockup fix            (Ion Badulescu)
                  o       Clean up i810 error message                     (me)
                  o       Fix S390 build bug                              (me)
                  o       Update version id on cpqarray driver            (Charles White)
                  o       Further aic7xxx fixes                           (Doug Ledford)
                          | again please report aic7xxx stuff to Doug
                  o       Further maxiradio cleanups              (Dimitromanolakis Apostolos)
                  o       Change ide to use mdelay cleanly                (Petr Vandrovec)
                          | Still broken for PROMISE if no IDE_CS
                  o       Fix duplicated ncpfs fix                        (Petr Vandrovec)
                  o       Improve inode hash function                     (Dave Miller)
                  o       Correct 62 misspellings of transferred          (Andre Dahlqvist)
                  o       Update AC97 codec setup and tables              (Jeff Garzik)

                  2.4.1-ac5
                  o       Fix zero page corruption                        (Ben La Haise)
                  o       Elevator corruption fixes                       (Jens Axboe, Linus)
                  o       Fix fdatasync possible corruption problem       (Arjan van de Ven)
                  o       Further KSLI ethernet fixes                     (Eric Sandeen)
                  o       Merge the correct version of the pm fixes       (me)
                          | noted by Mikael Pettersson
                  o       Account for inode/dcache in free memory         (Rik van Riel)
                  o       Add info on how to check reiserfsprogs versions (Steven Cole)
                  o       Disable write combining on serverworks LE chips (Mark Rusk)
                  o       Fix via audio crashes                           (Jeff Garzik)
                  o       Fix ip accounting rules bug                     (Rusty Russell)
                  o       Handle USB printers that use device not         (Johannes Erdfelt)
                          interface descriptors
                  o       Fix wheel on graphire usb tablet                (Peter Hofmann)
                  o       Clean up maxiradio driver                       (Francois Romieu)
                  o       Fix visor USB size reporting on buffers         (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
                  o       Update USB serial documentation                 (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
                  o       Fix locking on etherworks3 ethernet             (Jeff Garzik)
                  o       Fix empeg USB driver problems                   (Gary Brubaker)
                  o       Generic USB serial driver fixes                 (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
                  o       Update USB serial configure.help                (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
                  o       Add more device support to mct_u232 USB         (Cornel Ciocirlan)
                  o       Fix typo in asm-ppc/semaphore.h                 (Andre Dahlqvist)
                  o       Report reiserfs tools in ver_linux              (Steven Cole)
                  o       Fix resource leaks in NCR_53c406, atari_scsi    (Rasmus Andersen)
                          and qlogicisp
                  o       Move pci_enable_device earlier for hamachi      (Dave Jones)
                  o       Type 6 drives are apparently floppy 2.88M       (Dave Jones)
                  o       Remove duplicate pci_enable_device in ne2kpci   (Dave Jones)

                  2.4.1-ac4
                  o       Fix sk_in use counting in svcsock.c             (Neil Brown)
                          | Not yet a complete and final agreed solution
                  o       Add support for KLSI USB ethernet               (Brad Hards,
                                                   Stephane Alnet, 'the Zapman', and co)
                  o       Update aic7xxx driver                           (Doug Ledford)
                          | Please test this carefully and cc reports to Doug
                  o       Add help for CONFIG_INPUT                       (Steven Cole)
                  o       3c523 driver update                             (Tom Sightler)
                  o       Fix reiserfs Changes entry further              (Steven Cole)
                  o       Limit ide scatter gather to 128 blocks          (Jens Axboe)
                  o       Merge hppa config.in changes                    (Matthew Wilcox)
                  o       Fix tx timeout recovery on via rhine            (Manfred Spraul)
                  o       Fix stale comments in fs/block_dev.c            (Tigran Aivazian)
                  o       Further defxx driver work                       (Maciej Rozycki)
                  o       winbond 840 reported wrong setting value        (Maciej Rozycki)
                  o       Guillemot Maxi radio support            (Dimitromanolakis Apostolos)
                  o       Allow sleeping in pm callbacks but with locking (me)
                          working

                  2.4.1-ac3
                  o       Remove ancient dead net/Changes file            (Janice Girouard)
                  o       Merge Linus 2.4.2pre1
                  o       Resync xirc2ps with Dave Hinds tree             (dilinger)
                  o       Finish sorting out ramfs problems               (Mike Galbraith)
                  o       Update AWE32 documentation                      (Andre Dahlqvist)
                  o       Remove reference to dead PPP documentation      (Andre Dahlqvist)
                  o       Make max_map tunable                            (Werner Almesberger)
                  o       Fix dead references to java support in some     (Andre Dahlqvist)
                          arch/config
                  o       Make shmfs estimate size limits if none set     (Christoph Rohland)
                  o       Revert Crusoe hanging pci hanging changes
                          | Im still chasing something weird in this
                          | area that some of the pci changes I have fixes...
                  o       Merge HPPA hackers into CREDITS                 (Mathew Wilcox)
                  o       Merge some of the HPPA updates                  (Mathew Wilcox)
                  o       Add Reiserfs tools to changes                   (Steven Cole)
                  o       Fix i2o Configure.help typo                     (YOSHIMURA Keitaro)
                  o       SuperH HD64465 host bridge support              (Greg Banks)
                  o       Fix modversion.h includes                       (Keith Owens)
                  o       Tlan driver probing updates                     (Jeff Garzik)
                  o       Change media drivers to use new style module    (me)
                          locking
                          | Janitorial job - fix the last ones that
                          | don't use module_*() and dump the init code

                  2.4.1-ac2
                  o       Fix matrox G450 framebuffer support             (Petr Vandrovec)
                  o       Fix description of DMA-mapping.txt              (Dave Miller)
                  o       Fix accidental revert of classifier bug         (Dave Miller)
                  o       Fix accidental revert of isdn change
                  o       Fix datagram hang on shutdown                   (Alexey Kuznetsov)
                  o       Fix 64bit build of clntproc                     (Michal Jaegermann)
                          | wants a tidier solution yet
                  o       Fix ide toc caching bug introduced in 2.4.0     (Fredrik Vraalsen)
                          | this should fix the DVD playback problems
                  o       Swapfs renaming and final bits                  (Christoph Rohland)
                  o       Further APIC/NMI updates                        (Mikael Pettersson)
                  o       Add further kernel doc contributions            (John Levon)
                  o       ACPI battery tweaks                             (Pavel Machek)
                  o       Further ramfs fixes                             (Ingo Oeser)
                  o       ROMFS fixes                                     (Mike Galbraith)
                  o       CS4281 fixes                                    (Thomas Woller)
                  o       Shift to authors official fixes for acenic      (Jes Sorensen)
                  o       Update the usb hosthost network drivers      (David Brownell)
                          | Experimental but he wanted feedback so if you
                          | have one beat it up a bit

                  2.4.1-ac1
                  o       Resync with Linus 2.4.1
                  o       Fix recursive make_request crash                (Ingo Molnar)
                  o       Updated VIA IDE driver                          (Vojtech Pavlik)
                          | Please exercise due care and caution testing this
                          | bit...
                  o       Fix case where threaded apps might write to     (Ben LaHaise)
                          freed kernel memory
                  o       Fix ACPI oopses on tecra (apparently bios bugs) (Pavel Machek)
                  o       AHA152x fixes from maintainer                   (Juergen Fischer)
                  o       Fix case where scsi could hang on boot waiting  (Rogier Wolff)
                          for a disk spinup
                  o       Further maestro3 pm work                        (Zach Brown)
                  o       Further NTFS fixes                              (Yuri Per)
                  o       Add GNU make to the list of URLs in Changes     (Steven Cole)
                  o       Make dmx3191d enable device before touching it  (Rasmus Andersen)
                  o       Make the sbpcd driver actually useful in 2.4    (Paul Gortmaker)
                  o       Make buslogic enable device before touching it  (Rasmus Andersen)
                  o       Fix tty module locking mishandling              (Maciej Rozycki)
                  o       Workaround code for APIC problems with ne2k     (Maciej Rozycki)
                          | this will break original 82489DX devices for now
                          | ie _very_ early dual pentium boards
                  o       Fix iptos netfilter bug                         (Rusty Russell)
                  o       Fix get/set_fpu_mxcsr to check xmm ont fxsr     (Doug Ledford)
                  o       Fix name_to_kdev_t symbol                       (Adam J Richter)
                  o       Update magic sysrq docs                         (Jeremy Dolan)
                  o       Support for ETinc PCIsync boards                (Francois Romieu)
                  o       Mass duplicated word spelling fixes             (Dave Jones)
                  o       Update sb driver to use spinlocks               (Chris Rankin)
                  o       Fix leak in bmac driver                         (Hans Grobler)
                  o       Fix kmalloc check in atm/common                 (Hans Grobler)
                  o       Fix buffer leak in defxx                        (Hans Grobler)
                  o       Fix kmalloc check in netrom driver              (Hans Grobler)
                          |BTW side exercise - how about using vmalloc here ?
                  o       Ditto for rose                                  (Hans Grobler)
                          |Ditto for comment ;)
                  o       Fix lockd 64bit handling                        (H J Lu)
                  o       Tidy pci_match_device ifdefs                    (Rasmus Andersen)
                  o       Fix qla1280 handling of registration failure    (Rasmus Andersen
                                                                           Rakesh Rakesh)
                  o       Config include fixes                            (Niels Jensen)
                  o       MatroxFB updates                                (Petr Vandrovec)
                  o       Tidy fat_read_super to use get_hardsect_size    (Tigran Aivazian)
                  o       Fix m68k bitops ffs()                           (Geert Uytterhoeven)
                  o       Fix ip_nat_standalone ksyms stuff               (Rusty Russell)
                  o       Fix copy_from_user mishandling in ip_fw_compat  (Rusty Russell)
                  o       Fix romfs for 2.4ac maxbytes                    (Mike Galbraith)
                  o       filemap/aging updates                           (Rik van Riel)
                  o       Enable device before reading irq in ne2k-pci    (Martin Diehl)
                  o       Remove surplus nr_ioapics definition            (Rasmus Andersen)
                  o       S/390 build fixes                               (Florian Laroche)
                  o       Advansys driver fixes/portability               (Arnaldo Carvalho
                                                                           de Melo)
                  o       Fix out of message handling error in i2o_block  (Jason Lai)
                  o       Fix bit granularity of 32 in ACPI driver        (Adam J Richter)
                  o       Fix unsafe casting for ARM on NFS root mount    (Russell King)
                  o       Fix mxcsr masking on pentium IV                 (Doug Ledford)
                  o       Update u14/eata drivers to 6.03                 (Dario Ballabio)
                  o       Fix signed/unsigned mess in sysctl handlers     (me)

                  ---
                  Alan Cox alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk
                  Red Hat Kernel Hacker
                  & Linux 2.2 Maintainer                        Brainbench MVP for TCP/IP
                  http://www.linux.org.uk/diary                 http://www.brainbench.com

From FreeOS.com: “Recently I happened to read an article in Linux Journal, which brought into focus
the age-old debate of Linux v/s GNU/Linux. And guess who seems to be more
vociferous about this? It was good old RMS. Fortunately or unfortunately, this issue
got the better of me and led me to think about facts I would otherwise have
neglected.”

– By Dan Berkes –
To a new, prospective, or casual Linux user, the excitement surrounding the release of the new Linux kernel might seem a little confusing. What is this “kernel thing” as one newcomer called it, why is it so important, and how do you get your hands on it without imploding your system in the process?The rush to upgrade is on whenever one of the dozens of Linux distributions announces a new version. In the quest to become the first geek on the block with an up-to-date system, users can expect sluggish FTP servers and timed-out downloads. That flurry of activity is small potatoes compared with what happens when Linux creator Linus Torvalds announces a new kernel.

Flashy, multimedia-drenched press conferences heralding a revolutionary new computing experience usually accompany the announcement of a new closed source and commercial operating system. Companies like Microsoft and Apple spend millions of dollars to rake in millions of consumer dollars — not to mention press coverage — on their newest products.

When one of the most anticipated events in the Open Source community happened, the copy to announce it was, well, a little more understated. On the night of January 4, Torvalds posted the following to the Kernel Mailing List:

In a move unanimously hailed by the trade press and industry analysts as being a sure sign of incipient brain damage, Linus Torvalds (also known as the “father of Linux” or, more commonly, as “mush-for-brains”) decided that enough is enough, and that things don’t get better from having the same people test it over and over again. In short, 2.4.0 is out there.

That short announcement — not even a press release — generated the kind of media coverage and user interest that some companies would kill (or at the very least sell their first-born) to generate.

To understand Linux, it’s essential to understand the kernel. Whether you’re talking about Windows, the present or future Mac OS, or of course, Linux, the kernel is the heart of the operating system. Whatever extras a certain distribution may toss into the mix, the basic Linux kernel is always there.

“A kernel is so deep down the bowels of an OS that 99% of users won’t ever notice,” says Moshe Bar, author of Linux File Systems and Clustering with Linux.

The kernel may be somewhat anonymous to the casual Linux user, but it’s the single most important element of the system. It sets up the basic interface between computer hardware and software, enabling users to run all of their favorite programs. The kernel is also responsible for supporting those protocols a modern computer can’t live without — networking, sound, graphics, and so on.

It’s tough to compare the Linux kernel with closed source offerings, but here goes: The release of a new kernel is almost the same as Windows announcing a new version of its Windows product line. Almost the same, if you can look past the fact that upgrading your Linux kernel won’t set you back a few hundred or a few grand (depending on your needs and use).

“It’s important to keep up with new versions, because modern hardware often is supported just by the new OS release (such as USB or FireWire),” says Bar. “Also, design flaws (rather than plain bugs) are only addressed in major release numbers such as 2.4.”

That brings up a small but nagging question asked by most newcomers: What’s the deal with the version numbers? After all, the last major kernel release was 2.2. Why did the version skip from 2.2 to 2.4? What happened to 2.3?

Well, there was a 2.3 release, but that’s something that should only concern kernel developers and those daring to live on the bleeding edge of Linux advancement. Uneven version numbers are reserved for works in progress. The current 2.4 kernel was known as 2.3.x until Linus deemed it acceptable for final release, at which point the last 2.3 kernel became known as 2.4.

Therefore, the next development kernel will be known as 2.5, and its final product will be released as kernel 2.6.

The kernel itself is a never-ending project, the work of hundreds of Linux developers and kernel testers around the world. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, this team of dedicated programmers work to add new kernel features and enhance existing ones, as well as tracking and fixing any bugs that might have cropped up since the last release.

Alan Cox and Torvalds then consolidate all of these changes into incremental releases, offering up to one new release of the kernel on a daily basis. For a kernel that has already been released, these newcomers are tagged with version numbers like “2.4ac-7.” When work begins on the next Linux kernel, those pre-release test kernels will bear a version number like “2.5pre-1.”

Getting the latest kernel release won’t cost anything more than a simple download. The latest kernels are posted daily at the Linux Kernel Archives, known far and wide by the simple mention of its domain name, kernel.org. Downloading is the easy part; it’s the actual kernel upgrade that might be an issue for casual Linux users.

If fiddling with the internals of your system gives you a queasy feeling, the most painless way to upgrade involves waiting for your favorite Linux distribution to offer a new version of their wares with the new 2.4 kernel.

The first major distribution to include the new kernel will likely be SuSE Linux. Version 7.1 of the German organization’s distribution will debut for download and purchase on February 15.

Red Hat users can now download a beta version of the next-generation of that company’s distribution, code-named “Fisher.” Remember that a beta release is something that’s not quite ready for widespread distribution; so don’t be surprised if something traumatic happens to your system.

Other distributions may wait until the late second or early third quarters of 2001 to offer a complete distribution. Many are still researching 2.4 and how it will integrate with all of their packages; others may be waiting for a more stable incremental release with more bug fixes to come along.

If you simply can’t wait to experience all the wonders of the latest and greatest Linux kernel, and more importantly, if you’re willing to accept that your first attempts at upgrading the kernel might be less than successful, you can find plenty of help at the Linux Documentation Project to guide you through the process. The best starting point is the Linux Kernel Upgrade HOWTO.

NewsForge editor Tina Gasperson contributed to this article.

NewsForge editors read and respond to comments posted on our discussion page.

Mirko Zorz writes “”Help Net Security introduces a new FREE comprehensive security information service”
Rijeka, Croatia – February 14, 2001 – Help Net Security, a popular information security portal, today announced its Security Database service. HNS Security Database consists of a large database of security related companies, their products, professional services and solutions. HNS Security Database (http://www.security-db.com) will provide a valuable asset to anyone interested in implementing security measures and systems to their companies’ networks.

In recent years, predictions and actual figures on the growth of the security software market have been outrunning each other beyond anyone’s expectations and recent studies suggest we haven’t reached the end of it yet. At HNS we believe this is how it should be, security is definately not something to be neglected. However, the enormous expansion of this market can make it quite non-transparent for the end-user. With this in mind, HNS Security Database was born.

HNS Security Database offers an extensive, userfriendly approach on acquiring that information, which is relevant for everyone who ever questioned how to protect themselves from the dozens of security issues which we’ve frequently seen reported on by media as Help Net Security. In close cooperation with the companies developing the actual products and services, HNS Security Database will provide a centralized, easily accessable way to browse and search these, in this way enabling the end-users to make a calculated choice on what fits their needs.

From firewalls to encryption to penetration tests, HNS Security Database will not only show you what’s out there, but what’s out there for you.

Help Net Security has been a leading source of information regarding the security scene for several years now. Through this new, rather unique initiative in the security arena, it intends to even more position itself as a source of guidance on how to approach security related issues in personal as well as business environments. As always, this will be carried out following HNS’s principles to inform and guide without the commercial strings that are too often attached in this scene nowadays.

About Help Net Security

Help Net Security is a privately owned information security portal which started out in 1998. Initially providing its users mainly with the latest news from the InfoSec community it has grown to be one of the prime places for various inside information about computer security happenings, news from the InfoSec community and a lot of
other additions like press releases, discovered vulnerabilities and patches, large security software archives, categorized articles, virus information database and stock quotes. As to improve the accessibility of its services even more the security news is also served in a which is viewable by wireless devices as WAP phones or Palm Pilots.

Help Net Security is based in Rijeka, Croatia. For further information please visit http://www.net-security.org.”

The Linux Journal explains just what all this hubbub about Napster really means, from the background of the case, the court’s findings, and a little personal opinion for good measure.

tjhanson writes “”Federal regulators were concerned the deal could reduce competition in the office software package market, which includes word processing, spreadsheets and graphics, the paper said.” from
http://www.forbes.com/newswire/2001/02/14/rtr184518.html“

ZDNet has a commentary piece about the addition of XP to Microsoft’s Windows family, calling it too many Windows: 95, 98, 98 SE, NT 4, 2000, ME, CE, and now XP. Feel like alphabet soup?

From PR Newswire: eOn Communications Corporation (Nasdaq: EONC), a leading provider of
unified voice, e-mail and Web-based communications systems and software, today
announced changes to its senior management team, the restructuring of
operations and product lines to improve profitability, and measures to focus
operating resources on its Linux-based communications systems and software
business.

The humor site Segfault makes fun of the latest Gnome/KDE spat. “‘It’s a crisp, delicious outrage!’ claims bacon fan Mitchell Tucker. He’s referring to Linux desktop
company Ximian’s recent purchase of bacon-related keywords such as “bacon” using Google’s
AdWords system.

Many in the bacon-loving community are angered by Ximian’s latest enroachment on the
traditionally noncommercial world of fried pork.”

Anonymous Reader writes: ” The ReactOS project has released the latest revision to its operating system aimed at cloning Windows NT. And it has made some major progress in recent releases. It currently can boot into a command prompt run simple programs, and has a subset of Windows NT’s functions implemented. I loaded it up under Bochs and took some snapshots.”
Check out the shots at OS FAQ.