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This guide explains how you can install WebVZ on a Debian Lenny OpenVZ host. WebVZ is a light web-based control panel for OpenVZ. It has its own web server (Webrick) and database engine (SQLITE 3).

Even though a trixbox system is a phone system, it is still a basic computer system like any other. One of the problems that we face is that extensions and VoIP service providers typically come into the system over the open Internet; this means that certain aspects of our system are wide open to the outside world. During the week that this article was written, several new scripts came out that allowed people to scan machines over the Internet, find systems that are running Asterisk, get the list of available extensions, and then hack the passwords. Because of issues like this, it is more imperative than ever that you understand how to properly secure your trixbox server from the outside world. In this article we will focus on how to secure the trixbox server.

If you have just upgraded to or installed Hardy or Intrepid or Jaunty and you have some sound somewhere, but not everywhere for everything, this is a fast way to get all the missing stuff you need and give you some tools to figure out what is going on. If you hear the startup sound but nothing else, or if some applications work and others don’t, this is for you. If you have no sound at all, there is a link at the end of this post for more extensive troubleshooting help but you should try this first anyway as it may solve your problem and will not make matters worse.Make sure that your system is fully updated.

Late last month we looked at the Intel X25-E Extreme SSD on Linux. We ran this high-performance solid-state drive within a System76 Serval Notebook and compared its performance to a Seagate Momentus 7200.2 SATA HDD. During that testing we were just using the default EXT3 file-system, but now we have taken the Intel X25-E SSD for another spin as we looked at its performance when using the ReiserFS, JFS, XFS, EXT3, and EXT4 file-systems.

As with the last Firefox 3.1 beta, there's improvements to the private browsing mode, the performance has increased, pages render faster, pages with JavaScript code run much faster, with the new Tracemonkey engine. Use of operating system sounds. 93/100 on the Acid 3 test. "Add Tab" button, Many extensions for Firefox 3.0 are already compatible with Firefox 3.1 beta 3.

Yesterday, the new dynamic tiling window manager i3 was released. Focus is on clean, readable and well documented code, a decent Xinerama implementation and various other improvements.

Fact is, OpenOffice is good enough for the vast majority of businesses seeking a productivity suite. The bigger problem facing OpenOffice involves bloggers who grew up deploying and troubleshooting Microsoft Office.

Almost back to trying to get back on a normal sleep schedule :)

Mozilla Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 has been released. This milestone is a public preview release intended for developer testing and community feedback. This milestone includes improvements to private browsing mode, and better performance and stability with a new Tracemonkey engine.

A windfall for corporate Linux Users? What gives?

Linux doesn't have much in the way of advertising. While Apple's wonderful "I'm a Mac" TV ad campaign is famous, and Microsoft's Bill Gates/Jerry Seinfeld ads are infamous, Linux really doesn't have anything. Now, the Linux Foundation is trying to change that with it's "We're Linux" Video Contest. The winning designer will get a free trip to Tokyo, Japan to participate in the Linux Foundation Japan Linux Symposium in October 2009. The Linux Foundation doesn't have the money for a major or even minor for that matter, television advertising campaign. But, at the very least, the winning ad will get some news and online exposure for both the winner and Linux.

Recently Red Hat has decided to go on the offensive with their patent strategy. With this patent Red Hat is attempting to patent “Method and apparatus to deliver messages between applications”. To me this smacks of the way Microsoft deals with patents. They patent “ideas” or “the framework of an idea” in case someone happens to get the same idea or a similar idea. This “offensive patent” strategy is very much in line with the Microsoft way of business. Of course Red Hat does have a different twist. What they have promised is these “offensive patents” will not be enforced against open source development.

LXer Feature: 15-Mar-2009

I figured I would start the Roundup this week with a good play on words with Michael Tiemann's, From the End of the Beginning to the Beginning of the End. Caitlyn Martin gives us a review the very different results in testing the performance of different Linux distributions. Mozilla starts to contemplate a future without Google and Derek Knowlton shows us The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of the The EeePC and Aspire One. Oh and by the way Happy 15th Birthday, Linux!

My trusty Oxford Dictionary defines a kernel as "a softer, usually edible part of a nut" but offers as a second meaning: "The central or most important part of something." (Incidentally, it's this first definition that gives rise to the contrasting name 'shell', meaning, in Linux-speak, a command interpreter.) In case you're a bit hazy on what a kernel actually does, we'll start with a bit of theory. The kernel is a piece of software that, roughly speaking, provides a layer between the hardware and the application programs running on a computer. In a strict, computer-science sense, the term 'Linux' refers only to the kernel - the bit that Linus Torvalds wrote in the early 90s.

It's that time of the year again - the Debian GNU/Linux project is in election mode with the process for electing a leader for 2009-10 having begun. The campaigning period goes on till March 28 and the online voting process will be conducted between March 29 and April 11. The new leader will begin his term on April 17. This year there are just two people contesting, the lowest since elections began in 1999. One is the current DPL, Steve McIntyre. The other is Stefano Zacchiroli, developer since 2001. Only two developers, Wichert Akkerman and Martin Michlmayr, have been re-elected to the post.

Time for our weekly distro release roundup. We have another slew of Ubuntu-based alpha releases and numerous other new distro releases.

The new SheevaPlug device at $100 offers a 1.2 GHz CPU, 512 MB RAM, 512 MB flash, Gb Ethernet, 1x USB, 1x SD and a mini-USB serial connector. It's the true hackers device. Photos within!

Laugh until you, ultimately, cry ;)

There's been a certain amount of discussion about behavioural differences between ext3 and ext4[1], most notably due to ext4's increased window of opportunity for files to end up empty due to both a longer commit window and delayed allocation of blocks in order to obtain a more pleasing on-disk layout. The applications that failed hardest were doing open("foo", O_TRUNC), write(), close() and then being surprised when they got zero length files back after a crash.

Recently, I blogged that every good IT technician really needs Linux in their toolkit – even if you're strictly a Windows shop. Here are more good reasons why a bootable Linux CD can really save your bacon including indispensable tools you must have.