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Solaris 10 packet sequence numbers. Are they still bullet-proof? Were they ever? Does It Matter Anymore? A study in gross oversimplification. Today, we're going to look at a subject that gets plenty of attention (but, maybe not as much publicity) in the world of Unix and Linux network computing: TCP packet sequence number prediction, how it's used to protect network transmissions and whether or not, with the advent of packet checksumming, etc, it's even a factor in basic network security anymore.

The global economic crisis is taking its toll on many technology companies and Mandriva, the Linux company based in France, has now taken a hit. Last week, the company announced that it would be terminating the services of all its external contractors, that is those who work from remote locations.

For the first time, Apple is recommending the use of anti-virus tools to protect Mac systems. Long something of a phantom menace, strains of malware capable of infecting Mac machines have gradually been increasing in prevalence over recent months. In addition, VXers are making more use of web-based attack and applications specific vulnerabilities to infect PCs whatever their underlying operating system might be. Windows-specific malware attacks are still orders of magnitude greater than assaults on Mac machines, but the risk to Apple fans is now enough for the Church of Jobs to admit a risk exists.

[Steve says the vaunted Apple OS needs an anti-virus, but I thought it was secure? Sorry, couldn't stop myself..;-)- Scott]

Earlier this month we saw the military ban the use of USB drives and other removable media. Apparently the virus outbreak that lead to this measure affected 75% of all systems at the largest U.S. military base in Afghanistan....... This is really quite frightening.

This is WFTL Bytes!, your occasiodaily FOSS and Linux news show for Wednesday, December 1, 2008, with your host, Marcel Gagné. Today's stories include a list of what's wrong with Linux (and how to fix it), a kinder, gentler, more open, Microsoft, a kinder, more open, Atheros, Linux on the iPhone, Intel didn't know netbooks would go like this, and more.

Valve Software was in the market a little over a year ago for a software engineer who would, among other duties, work with porting Windows-based games to Linux. No word on who got the job, or how that engineer's first anniversary review went, but evidently, this year was productive. It seems, according to Phoronix, the "Left 4 Dead" demo (Windows client version) shipped with some very suspicious sounding Linux libraries. The file names (such as steamclient_linux.so) lend some weight to the theory that these files have little to do with the Linux server build.

Last year a new Linux distribution came about and immediately began appearing on some budget PCs within retail establishments. Good OS, the company behind the gOS Linux distribution, that launched the conceptual Google OS last year has had a quite successful 2008.

A few months ago I started sensing the need for a replacement for my aging and ailing HP Omnibook 4150. That machine's audio capabilities were negligible even with external hardware, but it had been serviceable for writing articles and as a portable MIDI composition environment. Alas, after years of travel and abuse the Omnibook's hard drive gasped its last breath of life. I had no fear for my data, the drive had been backed up, but clearly the time had come to buy a new portable computer.

Google has published its plan to build into Chrome what is arguably its most requested feature: the ability to accept extensions that can customize how the open-source Web browser operates. And guess what? Google's dependence on advertising notwithstanding, one of the extension examples the company points to is the ability to block advertisements.

What is the D-Bus? From the D-Bus documentation: "D-Bus is an inter-process communication mechanism—a medium for local communication between processes running on the same host. (Inter-host connects may be added in the future, but that is not what D-Bus is meant for). D-Bus is meant to be fast and lightweight, and is designed for use as a unified middleware layer underneath the main free desktop environments" So for the non technically inclined (why are you reading this anyway) ;) basically a simple way to think of D-Bus, is that it's a way for processes on an operating system to communicate with each other. That's probably a simple and non accurate enough wording, but it should help grasp the concept. Many utilities nowadays are implementing D-Bus connectivity. It is especially interesting (well for me anyway) to script some GUI elements like for example my KDE-4 desktop from the command line. This would help automate some tasks and is cool anyways. Let's see how to begin talking on the D-Bus

Microsoft informs computer shops that if they put some Vista advertising in their newspaper advertisements (or other forms of ads), there will be money in the bank for them, paid in the form of marketing money from Microsoft.

My experience with Fedora has not been bad at all. I think a big reason for that is that my laptop has practically no need for proprietary drivers. The intel graphics card open source driver has gotten quite good and provides painless and efficient compositing out of the box. In fact, every piece of hardware, including sound, works out of the box. So, that leaves me free to compare distros by their features and ease of use. So what have I found in using Fedora 10 KDE version?

One of the first things I do upon installing a Linux distribution is put the Network Monitor applet on my GNOME panel. Watching the blue lights twinkle on and off makes me aware of network traffic. But if you want more details about what's happening on your network, such as which application is hogging bandwidth or what each network interface is up to, you can turn to specialty tools like NetHogs and IPTraf. While NetHogs is a unique tool altogether, IPTraf can be used on a server as well as by a home user.

Fedora Linux has always pushed forward with an intense release schedule, and is usually the first major distribution to package new technologies and advances. Fedora 10 promises to be even a larger milestone than most, both for its development community and users; Bruce Byfield goes behind the scenes and uncovers some of the legal, development, and community issues that the Fedora team have to deal with.

For anyone who hasn't been paying attention to the software industry lately, I have some bad news. The open-source business model is broken. Companies have long hoped to make money from this freely available software by charging customers for support and add-on features. Some have succeeded. Many others have failed or will falter, and their ranks may swell as the economy worsens. This will require many to adopt a new mindset, viewing open source more as a means than an end in itself.

[Now Open Source is "broken" because it needs more value? Cohen was once the CEO of the OSDL and now he has this to say? Interesting. - Scott]

Large collections of MP3 files can be hard to manage. Organizing your music into directories helps some, but when you want to play just those tracks in a certain genre or from a certain year, no amount of directory organization will help -- but Zina, a powerful Web application, can. Zina is easiest to set up if you already have a home Web server. You must understand how to set up CGI applications on your Web server. If you're using Apache, you can read a nice tutorial for basic CGI setups. You must also have PHP in your Apache setup, as that is the language that Zina is written in.

Linux distributor Good OS and BIOS vendor Phoenix Technologies each have plans to make netbooks speedier devices, the vendors said at the Netbook World Summit in Paris on Monday. For Good OS, the browser is the operating system -- or at least, all you're going to see of it. While other companies have developed quick-start software that allows you to check mail or play music seconds after turning on your computer, Good OS has created "a wrapper that enables you to perform all your major rich client applications from within the browser," said Good OS founder and CEO David Liu.

Openmoko Inc, maker of the world's first totally open mobile phone, today announced that faberNovel, Inc has joined the worldwide distribution network for the FreeRunner open source mobile phone. Since launching the FreeRunner in July of this year, Openmoko has built out a network of more than 20 distributors covering North America, Europe and Asia. Paris, France based faberNovel,a design and innovation firm dedicated to engineering, strategic development and experimentation, will distribute the Openmoko phone in the US through faberNovel, Inc, their San-Francisco office.

You might just be thinking that we need another browser like Medieval Europe needed the Bubonic plague, but I’m always a great fan of the different and new, of people doing their own thing. Even Firefox had to start somewhere. H3v is a relative newcomer to the browser pack and it definitely falls into the “lean, mean” category. I think it deserves a little more exposure.

Fedora 10 was officially released on Tuesday November 25, 2008. Since its release I have installed and used it on a number of machines and been running it as my full-time desktop. One of the main complaints about Fedora 9 when it was released was their decision to drop the KDE 3.x desktop and go exclusively with the KDE 4.0.x desktop. Being a KDE user I can concur with the assessment that the version of KDE that shipped on the Fedora 9 install media was not very usable. As a result, I switched to GNOME for a few months until KDE updated to the 4.1.x series. How is KDE 4 in Fedora 10? Much, much better.