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The Linux User Group Backnang has once again (2006. 2007 and 2008) released its yearly xmas present, the tuXmas Distro.
The project is intended to attract users to a big variety of great and free Open Source Software projects in the german speaking region.
Infos and details can be found on their tuXmas Project site
Here are some mirrors đ
http://ftp.stardiv.de/mirmon/mirror-state.html
The language specific installers are usually located in the localized branch
Update: Even 2 days later, the website ist still struggling ver very excessive performance issues:
Apologies – our website is struggling to cope with the unprecedented
demand for the new release 3.0 of OpenOffice.org. The technical teams are
trying to come up with a solution.
Thank you for your patience.
Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical and the Ubuntu Project has recently announced to hire a team of developers working on Desktop related applications such as OpenGL, QT, KDE and Gnome in order to improve desktop experience for Linux Users which is in my opinion an essential requirement for Linux to breach some minor barriers in the main stream Linux usage as a true alternative to proprietary Operating Systems like Window and OS X.
Fortunately this development will also boost other Linux Distributions as well and will help other Open Source Operating Systems like BSD competing to the proprietary desktops.
Bootchart is a tool that monitors and graphs your Linux boot processes. The detailed view will allow you to view CPU and disk usage, as well as the timeframe that certain daemons and modules require. This seems to be an interesting option for Netbooks and optimizing OS startup time.
The analysis can be rendered in png, svg or eps format and are dumped to /var/log/bootchart/
Here is an example from my Acer Aspire One running Ubuntu
Want some color in your shell logins?
There is a package for Ubuntu and Debian (and i suppose for the other Distros) which will automatically generate a color system logo for your shell.
You can install the package using:
apt-get install linuxlogo
Next, write the logo to your motd or issue file using the command
/usr/bin/linux_logo > /etc/motd
Voila
Note: This may not work will all types of terminals
You think “Crazy Japanese guys” is just a cliche?
Think again….Â
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15rUkIJ25EE
I wouldnt be surprised if they had an AIBO cyborg dog attached to their IDS…
The small version of the Chaos Communication Camp, the ICMP4 aka. Intergalaktische Club Mate Party is less than one month away. The first lectures are popping up on the schedule, including mine
I will be holding a presentation which is a mix between a hacking and a social track about criminalization of computer security and computer analysis tools using wireshark as an example.
Why a packet sniffer?
Why Wireshark?
Presentation will be up about one or two days before the event, I might also upload an English version in case someone is interested.
Finally replaced my secondary 19 Inch Display with a second 22 Inch and now running 1680×1050 in twin view.
In case you have problem setting up Twin view with 3d acceleration i highly recommend installing EnvyNG which will download drivers and setup most of the configuration for you.
The final step is to tweak your configuration using nvidia-settings.
In case you have problems with full screen applications (such as games) running centered on both screens you can bind the application to a screen using the meta mode function in your xorg.conf
Option "metamodes" "CRT-0: nvidia-auto-select +0+0, CRT-1: nvidia-auto-select +1680+0; CRT-0: NULL, CRT-1: nvidia-auto-select +0+0"
Adding a NULL value to your option will make sure the application only launches on one screen.
I like open source software… Especially when its cross platform so i can use it on the occasional Windows Sessions.
Many great Programs like Nessus, Gimp, OpenOffice, Firefox and Thunderbird (i could go on forever) have proven that OpenSource can also appeal to Windows users and help them to get rid of proprietary software.
About a month ago i required an irc client for a Windows Machine and since i use Xchat on almost any Linux machine i own (including the EEE PC) i was shocked to receive a notice that my 30 day trial of Xchat has expired and asked me to register for a small fee.
At first i thought this was a joke until i read this on their site:
Q. Why can’t XChat for Windows be free?
A. It’s free to try for the first 30 days! Building XChat for Windows is a difficult process, it requires quite some skill and expertise to accomplish. It takes time, and is by no means automated. This version also has some value added features only for Windows, such as opening irc:// URLs from your web browser in an existing instance of xchat, spell checking and graphical emoticons.
I have no problems donating a small amount of money to support the hard work which i have occasionally done in the past for the Gnome and Gimp projects, but disadvantaging Windows users by making them pay for software every other user can download for free is pretty much restrictive and the above reasons are no argument to really get users into paying for software.
If you ideologically believe in coding and distributing open source software – make sure you treat everyone who wants to use it equally.
Virtual machine backups can be accomplished in many ways using open source tools.
I personally prefer rsnapshot based on rsync.
An overview of possibilities and an actual backup script for Xen can be found at john and cailins blog
