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                        LINUX NEWS
            RESOURCES & LINKS FROM BRAINBUZZ.COM
                  Thursday, May 3, 2001
           Read By 5,000 Linux Enthusiasts Weekly!
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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1) Sean's Notes

2) Linux News

	IBM Small Business Suite Review
	Get 'yer Kernels While They're Hot
	Your Psychic Microsoft Friend
	Linux Training Pyramid Topples

3) Linux Resources

	Chapter from "Data Munging With PERL"
	Java Web Applications
	Amateur Fortress Building
	Stopping Spam and Trojan Horses
	Spam Hall of Fame

4) App o' the week


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1) Sean's Notes
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Being the GNOME fan that I am, I was quite eager to try out
the new release from Ximian.  For those who don't know,
Ximian (formerly Helix Code) is a company that creates a
distribution of the GNOME windowing environment and
miscellaneous applications.  Their latest release includes
Gnome 1.4, the Mozilla web browser, Nautilus file manager,
and the Red Carpet software updating system.

http://www.ximian.com

Red Carpet is perhaps the most intriguing part of the whole
thing.  With Helix 1.2, you got the Helix updater, which would
check back to the main site to see if any updates had been
released to the Helix packages.  If so, it would show you a
list of what was important, what was just new, and what you
didn't have in case you wanted to try it out.  Red Carpet
takes this one step further by making channels of software.
For example, the Ximian channel would be a list of all the
packages that are relevant to your Ximian installation.
There is also a Red Hat 7.0 channel (or whatever your
distribution might be) that finds out from RedHat what
updates are needed.  Thus, after subscribing to the
appropriate channels, one can keep one's system up to date by
running Red Carpet every few days.  I'm looking forward to
other vendors getting on board, such as Sun offering patches
for Star Office.

The installation is pretty straightforward. Whether you're
upgrading or doing a fresh install, you just run

lynx -source http://go-gnome.com/ | sh

When you finish with that, the system runs you through a
pretty complete wizard that lets you select your desktop
options (or keep them the same).  Running "doorman" lets you
go back and select your options.

For all the hype that mozilla and nautilus were given, I
wasn't impressed.  Mozilla is nice, but doesn't really give
me any reason to switch from my current Netscape.  Nautilus,
on the other hand, is pretty, but it's a pig!  Opening up a
folder takes a long time, as does navigating through files.
It does, however have a lot of promise, as many common tasks
are available within Nautilus itself.  For example, it works
like Windows' Quick View, so you can open up files within the
console itself.  It can also render HTML (through a Mozilla
widget), so you can have web pages (ie documentation) within
the same window.  I found some software services within it,
which allowed for a user to install software off of the main
web site (commercial or open source) quite easily.

All in all, the upgrade to Ximian 1.4 was worthwhile.  I'm
still tweaking the settings, but the newer options and
software are worth it.

Long live the Penguin,

Sean
mailto:swalberg@brainbuzz.com

Visit the Linux News Board at
http://boards.brainbuzz.com/boards/vbt.asp?b–2

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2) Linux News
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IBM Small Business Suite Review
-------------------------------
IBM has a special offer whereby small businesses can get a
limited version of popular IBM products, such as Domino, DB2,
and WebSphere for a great price. UnixReview.Com reviewed
this offering--it is well worth a read.

http://unixreview.com/articles/2001/0104/0104j/0104j.htm

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Get 'yer Kernels While They're Hot
----------------------------------
2.4.4 is released. For us i386 folk, it looks like it's
mostly USB updates. Lots of updates for the other platforms
though.

http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.4/ChangeLog-2.4.4

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Your Psychic Microsoft Friend
-----------------------------
After getting some not-so-stellar support from Microsoft PSS,
some bored students decided to compare the service to that
received from the Psychic Friends network. You'll be
surprised at the results.

http://www.bmug.org/news/articles/MSvsPF.html

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Linux Training Pyramid Topples
------------------------------
Linuxgruven makes more news, as some of the stories come to
light. This time around, the founder has a previous fraud
charge, and the Better Business Bureau comes forward with
a list of complaints.

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,43192,00.html

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3) Linux Resources
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-------------------------------------
Chapter from "Data Munging With PERL"
-------------------------------------
This book is a fairly recent publication, and deals with
processing data in the PERL language. Chapter 2 is available
online, and is very helpful for those trying to get the most
out of the language.

http://linux.com/newsitem.phtml?sid“&aid063

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Java Web Applications
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The Tomcat extensions to Apache give it the ability to
serve out Servlets and JSP (Java Server Pages). This series
of articles goes into how this is set up, and how the
applications are written.

http://onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2001/03/15/tomcat.html

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Amateur Fortress Building
-------------------------
This author takes a different approach to securing a Linux
box. Rather than the standard locking down of inetd.conf, he
chooses to do away with it entirely and install a whole new
set of tools. It is rather a good article, getting down into
alternate ways of locking down a box, and more importantly,
verifying that you're locked tight.

http://secinf.net/info/unix/linuxf1.html

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Stopping Spam and Trojan Horses
-------------------------------
If you're a sendmail user, you must read this paper on using
the built-in features to stop spam. Not only does it cover
how to stop your site from being a spam relay, it has advice
on things you can do to protect your users from spam.

http://www.brettglass.com/spam/paper.html

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Spam Hall of Fame
-----------------
On the lighter side of spam, sendmail.net brings you some of
the funnier bulk mailings to ever waste bandwidth. If you
thought the one that offers you a "degree from a prestigious
non-accredited university based on your life experience" was
a riot, you've got to see these.

http://www.sendmail.net/000807knaussspamone.shtml

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4) App o' the week
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This week's app is really an appliance. Now, Linux appliances
are nothing new, but I'm sure you'll agree that this one has
a different angle on the market.

http://www.riverdale.k12.or.us/linux/toaster/

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