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Recently there has been significant discussion of Linux's TCP SACK implementation, and its weakness within the Linux TCP stack. SACK is an optional feature of TCP necessary for effective use of all available bandwidth of some networks. However, processing this type of acknowledgment can be CPU intensive for the TCP sender, and thus a weakness which can be exploited by a malicious peer.

The same thing has happened to me more than once. I install a FreeBSD-derived operating system on the $0 Laptop (the Gateway Solo 1450) and I marvel at the way it manages the noisy CPU fan right out of the box. Then, the next day, it's all over. The fan blows. And blows. Even a complete reinstall won't get back my fan-managed bliss.

Which brings us to my favorite groupware and messaging server, Citadel BBS. Citadel is 100% GPL, and doesn't play games with making either binary or source downloads easily available. If I had to describe Citadel in a word, it would be "simplicity". It is a complex application with a lot of power and flexibility, but it's easy to install and administer. It has an excellent installation script that builds the whole works from source code, and the same script is also an upgrader. Unnecessary complexity may wow the PHB set, but we real people know that simplifying the management of a complex application takes some real engineering skills.

Live CDs are still something that are relatively new to the Fedora Project, but because of their integration to the build system and the user facing tools such as livecd-tools allowing for easy re-spinning, they’re a fairly central part of what Fedora can offer people. Could you give us a bit of background on this and explain the current state of live spins in Fedora 8?

Microsoft today lifted the lid on 14,000 pages of sketchy versions of tech documentation for core software code. On show for the first time in public are underlying protocols for Office 2007, Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2007. This is Microsoft's latest effort to satisfy anti-trust concerns of the European Union, which is possibly a tougher adversary for the company than Google.

Web Console 0.2.5 beta has been released – that is a second public release of the Web Console. Web Console is open source application that provides access to a web server command prompt from an Internet browser. Furthermore, it includes file manager, files upload/download feature and text files editor, which allows to edit files directly on a web server through browser.

Today at the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit, VIA Technologies, Inc., a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, announced a new initiative to improve support for the Open Source development community. As the first step in this initiative, VIA will open its official VIA Linux website at http://linux.via.com.tw this month.

Over at Seeking Alpha, uber-schmoozer Joe Panettieri (left), now running Nine Lives Media, has one of those pieces that makes me go “waah?” Short version: open source is Microsoft’s secret weapon. Billgatus of Borg close-upThis is not another paeon to Firefox or OpenOffice. Panettieri is talking about Microsoft’s Windows Server business, its true crown jewel, and the effort to make sure open source projects work on it. Specifically he’s talking about working with Spikesource, whom I wrote about earlier today, in certifying programs to work with Windows Server. Open source, he says, is how Windows will kill Linux.

How do I like WordPress 2.5? In a word, "wow." Its developers promised that WordPress 2.5, released last month, was more than just "a fresh coat of paint." Instead, they said, 2.5 was a "from the ground up" redesign. The goal was to create a new WordPress that would be powerful but easy to administer. After upgrading my WordPress installation and using the new format, I found that the WordPress development team has done a fabulous job of making WordPress even better than it was. It's not perfect, but it's darn close.

Ampro will begin distributing a Ubuntu Linux derivative with its x86-compatible single-board computers this month, it said. "Ampro Embedded Linux" (AEL) combines a choice of standard or real-time kernel.org Linux with a standard Ubuntu 7.10 filesystem, giving customers a well-tested open-source leg up on evaluation and development, the company suggests.

VirtualPC and VMWare have a new (and 100% free contender) called VirtualBox. I took this new piece of software for a spin, and just may be completely removing VMWare and VirtualPC from all of my development machines.

An API should refrain from making promises that it cannot keep. A recent episode involving the kernel's in_atomic() macro demonstrates how things can go wrong when a function does not really do what it appears to do. It is also a good excuse to look at an under-documented (but fundamental) aspect of kernel code design. Kernel code generally runs in one of two fundamental contexts. Process context reigns when the kernel is running directly on behalf of a (usually) user-space process; the code which implements system calls is one example. When the kernel is running in process context, it is allowed to go to sleep if necessary. But when the kernel is running in atomic context, things like sleeping are not allowed. Code which handles hardware and software interrupts is one obvious example of atomic context.

MARENA, the government agency responsible for the environment in Nicaragua, has asked us to use a biofilter waste water treatment system instead of a traditional septic tank and drain field for the Geek Ranch. The reasoning is that as we are building in a nature reserve, we are being held to higher standards than is typical outside the reserve. While we don't claim to be waste water system experts, we are geeks so this sounded like a technology challenge. Beyond that, the good news, is that a local friend retired from being a wastewater engineer (even though there are many other titles associated with the job) so we have the resources to combine his knowledge of the, shall we say, material handling part of the system with our knowledge of control systems.

We are trying to gauge the level of interest consumers like you have in buying a new computer that features a Linux-based operating system. Help us to stay in touch with the needs of consumers by taking a quick moment to answer the following questions.

This document describes how to set up an installation environment with kickstart and NFS on Fedora 8. With the resulting system you will be able run unattended Fedora 8 installations on the client systems in your LAN - additionally, you will save lots of Internet bandwidth. The whole client configuration can be included into the kickstart file (especially the post-installation script) so you, the admin, will also save a vast amount of time.

Meet "Zorro, master of the night". Zorro is a Java developer for a major US bank that makes widespread use of open source software. Zorro is keen to participate in open source projects, too, except for one thing - his employer won't let him. "For me, to contribute back to open source, I'd have to become 'Zorro, master of the night' - you have to go underground," our programmer said during last week's MuleCon in San Francisco, under condition of, yes - you guessed it - anonymity. "You have to understand the risk that we take."

There are many ways of peering into the future. This page lists 163 of them, including cephalonomancy (divination by boiling an ass head), coscinomancy, (divination using a sieve and a pair of shears), ololygmancy (fortune-telling by the howling of dogs) and tiromancy (divination using cheese). Me, I prefer to stick with the tried-and-trusted method of reading between the lines of Microsoft press releases.

Google has opened its cloud to outside developers. Last night, while eating S'mores at an intimate developer gathering dubbed Campfire One, the world's largest ad broker unveiled App Engine, a free service that lets anyone to build and run web apps on Google's very own distributed infrastructure. The cool kids call this cloud computing.

GNOME’s Totem Movie Player now includes a plugin for searching and playing YouTube videos without leaving the player, and without Flash. It’s installed by default in Ubuntu 8.04, and works fabulously!

Imagine the next time you are trying reading a great list of Ubuntu programs. One of them catches your eye, and you want to try it. Instead of either using Add/Remove or opening a terminal to install the program, you simply click a link. A message box pops up asking you if you want to install the program, and then you enter your password. Before you could have found the program in Add/Remove, the program is installed! With Apturl, this is now a reality.