Aleksandar Stancin (aka D’Pressed) reviews Linux security basics for new users at Help Net Security.

“A powerful OS that runs popular applications would represent a Unix that has finally grown up. And it would present us with a truly interesting question: Should Microsoft be worried? I say yes, because Mac OS X can potentially challenge Windows both in usability and in industrial reliability; but, no, because Apple’s slice of the market is still too small, and Microsoft’s sway with developers and independent software vendors is too high.” FreeBSD Project co-founder Jordan Hubbard reviews Mac OS X for Salon.

Nitrosoft Linux today announced the availability of N-able IT Monitor, its hardware and software server monitoring software for Linux. The program can be downloaded and used on up to three servers per organization at no charge. From a press release at Canada NewsWire.

Sebastopol, CA–Linux was once seen as a kind of counter-culture hacker
experiment. But as Linux has increasingly become a mission-critical
part of many organizations, a deep knowledge of Linux is increasingly
valued as a sophisticated display of programming skill. In order to
really understand Linux, you must understand the kernel.
Linux was developed by Linus Torvalds at the University of Helsinki in
Finland. To complete the operating system, Torvalds and other team
members made use of system components developed by members of the Free
Software Foundation for the GNU project. Thus, the only software to
which the term “Linux” applies is the kernel. The Linux kernel is
responsible for the sophisticated memory management of the whole
system, and the force behind Linux efficiency.

The kernel is the essential center of Linux, providing all the basic
services for all other parts of the operating system. Typically, the
kernel handles all requests or completed I/O operations and determines
which programs will share the kernel’s processing time and in what
order.

“Linux source code for all supported architectures is contained in
about 4500 C and Assembly files stored in about 270 subdirectories. It
consists of about 2 million lines of code, which occupy more than 58
megabytes of disk space,” says Daniel P. Bovet, coauthor of the latest
O’Reilly release “Understanding the Linux Kernel.” “After reading this
book, you should be able to find your way through the code,
distinguishing between crucial data structures and secondary ones–in
short, you’ll become a true Linux hacker.”

For more information about the book, including Table of Contents,
index,
author bios, and samples, see:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linuxkernel/

– by Dan Berkes –

Try to remember the last time you didn’t hear a personal digital assistant warbling softly to its owner as you stood in line for the morning latte fix. For most of us, that sound of silence is nothing but a distant memory. Like a Florida ballot recount, the things are all over the place and the revolution has only just begun.Most current handhelds are nothing more than glorified day planners that, through the ingenuity of software developers, have been coerced into looking and acting like miniature computers. Go beyond the surface to see the compromises made to achieve those effects, and you’ll understand why current palmtop development will soon stall without innovation.

That innovation has arrived in a big way and the driving force behind it is Linux. Even on a device just slightly larger than a credit card and powered by a pair of AAA batteries, a handheld running Linux can deliver the real-time multitasking desktop power that developers crave and users will hopefully demand.

Palm owes much of its success to being the first company to deliver a truly affordable handheld organizer to the masses. The half dozen or so companies slated to release their Linux powered wares next year are mindful of this fact, locked in a race to be first to market and market share with their new gadgets.

Agenda Linux VR3

At this point, the most likely contender to be first across the finish line and into your local computer superstore is the VR3 from Irvine, Calif.-based Agenda Linux. Slated to debut in January 2001, the translucent handheld device features a stylus driven grayscale display and VR Linux under the hood.

VR3 is probably the most Palm-like Linux PDA to be developed. The interface is similar in certain ways to Palm, including full compatibility with that products’ infrared port. Hook it up to a serial port and telnet or FTP right on in to its miniature file system.

Samsung Yopy

Samsung’s Yopy may not be the first Linux palmtop to hit the market, but it just might be one of the coolest. The Yopy features a full-color display with an as yet to be named flavor of Linux powering an organizer, MP3 player, and wireless Internet access all in a device roughly the size of a Compaq PowerPC. Later models will include support for voice recognition and the Bluetooth protocol.

Samsung seriously considered Windows CE for Yopy before settling on Linux, citing the wide availability of Linux and its growing community of software developers as major factors in making that decision.

Distribution and Survival

Getting the attention of consumers through print, radio, and television ads is the easy part of selling these new devices. In a market dominated by Palm and PocketPC, convincing retailers — especially brick and mortar chain stores — to grant valuable display space to this new array of products won’t be easy.

Once the Linux advocates and gadget collectors have made their purchases, these companies will need the support of mainstream consumers for long-term survival. How do you sell a handheld organizer to a mass market that could probably care less about the operating system behind it?

For Samsung’s Yopy, the hopes are that those extra multimedia features will be the “secret sauce” that wins over the consumer. Another company has tentative plans to integrate its device into a variety of wireless phones. The Palm compatibility features built in to the VR3 will likely be its strong selling point.

Accidentally or intentionally, most of the work involved with making Linux PDAs a success will likely fall into the hands of the open source community. The possibility of hundreds, even thousands of programs developed to run specifically on Linux handhelds without a dime of investment from manufacturers is enough to make any marketer drool.

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

Most companies concerned with enterprise-wide security have invested in a number of different security products. New software handles the sometimes frustrating job of visualize how the products work together as a whole — if, in fact, they do.
Network Magazine reports.

Government Executive Magazine: “A year ago, government officials faced a firestorm of controversy from civil liberties groups over their plan for the Federal Intrusion Detection Network, or FIDNet. But this year, when Congress approved funding for the computer-security program, hardly a word of protest was heard.”

“Move over, iMac imitators: Now a company has cloned the Cube. In the past year, Apple sought and won injunctions against three computer companies that planned to produce “iMac-alike” all-in-one computers.
”
From ZDCOUK.

VNUnet reports that Internet security researchers have warned that criminals are planning to launch internet-based denial of service (DoS) attacks on web retailers over the Christmas period.

Israel’s Business Arena has this story: “Ehud Tenenbaum (“the Analyzer”) was only eighteen-and-a-half at the end of 1998 when he achieved his fifteen minutes of fame by breaking into the US Pentagon computer. The Tenenbaum trial has continued ever since and the defense is now entering its plea.”