As a real Debian unstable addict, for a long time, I wanted to have real time notifications when upstream repository updates. So I can immediately check what's new and, time permitted, do the upgrade right away. Fortunately, I had some spare time few weeks ago that I invested in developing a neat script that you can find attached. This was also an exercise in using the GNOME notification mechanism. It's all quick and dirty, but it gets the job done well.

Let me also say that I know that there are GNOME applets that do the similar task, sitting in the tray and checking for updates. But for many reasons, I wanted my own solution. First of all, I don't like programs taking place in my GNOME panel (or system memory), when there's no pressing need for that. Second, I wanted much faster response. Finally, doing some perl scripting from time to time is good for one's karma.

In the Linux operating system, the disks are mounted through labels, instead of device path. This is the most effective approach as the device name and path may change when you boot and thus may create several complications for the system and hence for the user.

So the disks are assigned labels so that the devices may mount up in the correct place. Thus disk labels are the important structure for the access of the Linux volumes. All entries for disks to be mounted at startup are in the file /etc/fstab.

Adobe has just released a public beta of the next Flash Player, version 10. Mike Melanson from Adobe says:

There are plenty of nifty new features covered in the labs link. More interesting for Linux users is that we have been addressing the graphical performance issues that manifesting starting in 9r115, the version where we had to rework the graphical system due to the new XEmbed support (trying to remember what that bought us... oh yeah: context menus consistent with the desktop). The key to performance? Move away from recommended APIs and use unrecommended ones (without resorting to deprecated APIs).

Xen Virtualization is a new book from Packt that helps Linux administrators to use Xen virtualization for development, testing, virtual hosting or operating systems training. Written by Prabhakar Chaganti this book is a practical guide for supporting multiple operating systems with the Xen hypervisor.

Xen was originally developed in 2003 at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory and users now have the choices of both commercial and free versions of the Xen hypervisor. The commercial versions are built on top of the open-source version with additional enterprise features. In this book Chaganti explores and uses the open-source version of Xen.

Xen is an open-source paravirtualization technology that provides a platform for running multiple operating systems on one physical hardware resource, while providing close to native performance. Xen supports several operating systems like Linux, FreeBSD, Windows, and NetBSD. It enables the user to easily test, deploy and run their software and services on multiple operating systems with resource isolation and great performance. It is also a terrific way to consolidate servers, save hardware and maintenance costs, and minimize downtime. Xen is one of the most popular open source projects in the world and vendors like IBM, Sun, HP, RedHat and Novell are working on integrating Xen into their Linux servers.

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Red Hat (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced an agreement with Sun Microsystems to advance open source Java™ software. Red Hat has signed Sun's broad contributor agreement that covers participation in all Sun-led open source projects by all Red Hat engineers.

In addition, Red Hat has signed Sun's OpenJDK Community TCK License Agreement. This agreement gives the company access to the test suite that determines whether an implementation of the Java Platform Standard Edition (Java SE) platform that is derived from the OpenJDK project complies with the Java SE 6 specification.

Jeremy Andrews of KernelTrap has today announced the availability of the new Linux Kernel Job Board service on his site. Here's the original announcement:

I am pleased to announce that KernelTrap has partnered with Specialty Job Markets to offer a unique Linux kernel job board for our readers. It is completely free to submit your resume, which will then be personally reviewed and matched with current and future employment opportunities. If you're an employer, it's also free to post jobs. Jobs and resumes that are posted to our boards are individually reviewed and matched by a professional recruiter, not a computer program, offering quality results with a personal touch. The contact information you provide is kept confidential and is only visible to our dedicated recruiter.

Myah OS 3.0 alpha 1 is now available to kick off the 3.0 release cycle. This first alpha release has been very carefully put together. The only thing really missing so far is the graphical installer, which is under construction. This release is a live CD that includes package utilities and all development tools.

Myah OS is an original linux distro created by Jeremiah Cheatham. Myah OS is built for the i686 intel/amd PCs but will also work very well with the newer 64bit intel/amd PCs. Myah OS uses it's package management suite designed to be simple and fast. Myah is designed to be a full featured distro, with at least 1 or 2 applications for every need. XFCE 4.4.1 desktop makes Myah run very fast without taking a lot of resources. Myah will also handle all of your multimedia needs.

The first release of Flex Builder Linux, a plugin-only version of the Flex Builder that you can use to build Flex applications on Linux is now available on the appropriate labs page.

This alpha version is based on several features from Flex Builder 3 (codenamed "Moxie"). It includes project creation, code coloring, code hints, compilation, the Ajax Bridge, Find All References, and debugging. Not all Flex Builder 3 features are supported, so be sure to check out the release notes for a list of unsupported features.

Adobe wanted to get an early release out with the base Flex Builder features so they could get valuable feedback from early adopters and thus better prioritize development of additional features.

Well, Linux team at Nvidia certainly know their job, because they released new version of Nvidia Linux display driver 100.14.19 not long after X.Org 7.3 started showing up in popular Linux distribution. It even looks like they actually waited for X.Org to release 7.3 first, so they could sync with it pretty fast. I can only agree with such strategy. :) The new drivers come with all sorts of fixes and improvements and I can't wait to test it on my desktop.

This morning, hardworking Debian developers pushed the remaining pieces of the brand new X.Org 7.3 to Debian sid (unstable) distribution. And it must be said, a well done job!

ii  x11-apps            7.3+1      X applications
ii  x11-common          1:7.3+2    X Window System (X.Org)
ii  x11-session-utils   7.3+1      X session utilities
ii  x11-utils           7.3+1      X11 utilities
ii  x11-xfs-utils       7.3+1      X font server utilities
ii  x11-xkb-utils       7.3+1      X11 XKB utilities
ii  x11-xserver-utils   7.3+1      X server utilities
ii  xbase-clients       1:7.3+2    miscellaneous X clients - metapackage
ii  xorg                1:7.3+2    X.Org X Window System
ii  xorg-dev            1:7.3+2    the X.Org X Window System development
ii  xserver-xorg        1:7.3+2    the X.Org X server
ii  xutils              1:7.3+2    X Window System utility programs


Sunnyvale, Calif - September 7, 2007 - AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced a major strategic initiative to support the Open Source development community for ATI Radeon™ graphics processors. The week of September 10th, AMD plans to provide an open source information and development package supporting the ATI Radeon™ HD 2000 series as well as ATI Radeon™ X1000 series of graphics processing units (GPU) on Linux desktops. To accelerate this initiative, AMD partnered with Novell's SuSE Linux engineering team.

By Allen B. Downey
Second Edition Revision date July 2007

The Little Book of Semaphores is a free (in both senses of the word) textbook that introduces the principles of synchronization for concurrent programming.

In most computer science curricula, synchronization is a module in an Operating Systems class. OS textbooks present a standard set of problems with a standard set of solutions, but most students don't get a good understanding of the material or the ability to solve similar problems.

Features

• Xorg server 1.4 - see Server14Branch for more details. Highlights:
  • RandR 1.2: RandR 1.2 offers output hotplug, as well as on-the-fly output reconfiguration and mode switching.
  • Input hotplug: Input hotplug allows hotplugging of input devices, and also adds enhanced support for touchscreens and tablets, through either HAL or D-Bus.
  • KDrive: Numerous enhancements have been made to the KDrive codebase, including better support for multiple input devices.
  • DTrace: When running on OpenSolaris, DTrace support is available in the X server, allowing detailed accounting of operations inside the server.
  • EXA: A great deal of work has been done on the EXA framework to make it more usable.
• New applications: xbacklight
• New drivers: xf86-video-glide, xf86-video-vermilion
• New man pages for API's: libXinerama, libXcomposite, XKB functions in libX11, Xtest functions in libXtst
• Support for font catalogue directories in font path
• xdm: Xft support added

The Perl Survey is attempting to take a snapshot of the Perl world as it currently stands. Whether you're a web developer, sysadmin, or using Perl for scientific research or finance or just tracking your DVD collection, we'd love to hear about it.

We're trying to answer questions like:

Debian's FreeRadius package is built without support for EAP/TLS/TTLS/PEAP because of the licensing problems of the OpenSSL library. But, if you want to implement 802.1x network authentication with strong security, you'll need it. This is a short tutorial that explains how to build Debian (sid aka unstable) package linked to libssl and with EAP/TLS/TTLS/PEAP support compiled in.

First, download the newest source package (orig.tar.gz), Debian diffs (diff.gz) and description file (dsc) from the freeradius package page. The version I tested the procedure with is 1.1.7-1.