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I haven't linked to Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols of Desktoplinux.com in awhile, and he had a great opinion piece today about the $150 PCLinuxOS box and other cheap computer solutions called "How low can you go and still run Linux?" He does a good job of going through the distributions and recommending many low-spec software solutions for hardware of less than current vintage. He mentions many of my favorites, including Damn Small Linux, AntiX (which I haven't tried in awhile ...), Zenwalk, plus another I really should try: the PCLinuxOS "Mini-Me" spin.

If you're reading LinuxSecurity.com then it's a safe bet that you are already using SSH, but are you using it in the best way possible? Have you configured it to be as limited and secure as possible? The goal of this document is to kick in the new year with some best practices for SSH: why you should use them, how to set them up, and how to verify that they are in place.

DVD burners such as as K3b and GnomeBaker use standard commands for manipulating .ISO images, such as mkisofs. However, they give users only limited control over the resulting images beyond selecting their contents. Users cannot even save the image to an .ISO formatted file; instead the burners save in their own project formats. Fortunately, this functionality gap is bridged by ISO Master, a program that, despite a slightly awkward interface, is intuitive enough that most users can quickly learn its fundamentals without having to refer to online help. Only the adding of a boot record is likely to give average users any trouble.

This morning Christina Fullam states that it was decided just before Christmas to cancel the 2007.1 release and roll all the effort into Gentoo 2008.0 since there was little possibility of getting a well-tested 2007.1 release out before 2008.

Until recently, Linux PCs were about as easy to find in stores as a vinyl record. Now, personal computers with the Linux operating system pre-installed are becoming more readily available, thanks to new models from upstarts and established PC makers -- and disappointment with Microsoft's new Windows Vista OS. In just the past several weeks, a handful of new, low-cost systems have hit the market that are powered by Linux -- open source software first developed by Linus Torvalds and enhanced by enthusiast programmers around the world.

Lenovo has launched a range of laptops pre-installed with Novell's SuSE Linux operating system, which it announced in August last year. Originally marked for release in the fourth quarter of 2007, SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 is now available pre-installed on Lenovo's ThinkPad T61 and R61 models. The notebooks are aimed at typical business users, and are expected to be expanded as an option for some Intel Penryn-based ThinkPads in February.

PolishLinux.org has an unconventional review of SLAX 6.0 RC6 which focuses on exploring the nature of LiveCDs and the power of technologies like mounting devices, SquashFS and Union File System in regards to SLAX LiveCD distribution.

This document describes how to install a Postfix mail server that is based on virtual users and domains, i.e. users and domains that are in a MySQL database. I will also demonstrate the installation and configuration of Courier (Courier-POP3, Courier-IMAP), so that Courier can authenticate against the same MySQL database Postfix uses. The resulting Postfix server is capable of SMTP-AUTH and TLS and quota (quota is not built into Postfix by default, I will show how to patch your Postfix appropriately). Passwords are stored in encrypted form in the database (most documents I found were dealing with plain text passwords which is a security risk). In addition to that, this tutorial covers the installation of Amavisd, SpamAssassin and ClamAV so that emails will be scanned for spam and viruses.

Are you dazzled by the way you can drag Google Maps around or move from one place to another without having to reload the screen? Or maybe you're a fan of Gmail and its look and feel? If you want to develop Web sites with Google's signature user-friendly features but are afraid of the work involved, take a look at the Google Web Toolkit (GWT).

High-performance scalable servers add a new level of complexity to networking and system performance. In this article, learn how to optimize your high-performance Linux system as it uses system board gigabit Ethernet adapters from 1 to 4 nodes. Take a look at problematic networking scalability situations and get tips on how to avoid the pitfalls.

In the second of a three-part series, Alan Cox talks about community and the enterprise.

What follows is an idea that parents could use to focus their children's creativity in a solid way, promote teamwork and a healthy interest in Free Software. Read, think and comment

Red Hat, OpenBravo and the rest of the open source industry missed a huge opportunity this week to connect with eager technology customers in New York. Here's what went wrong, and why it's time for open source application providers to start targeting vertical markets.

StreamMyGame, a way to play PC games on across the internet on other devices, is now coming to Linux. Perhaps this is the best way to play Windows games without using Windows, except that you still have to have a Windows PC.

I remember when getting a decent PC would set you back at least a grand. Then it was $500. Now, it's $150!? That's the story that small vendor LinFX wants you to buy along with its PC with pre-installed Linux. How does LinFX manage to sell a fully operational computer with a 15-inch display for $150? Well, while the Linux distribution, PCLinuxOS 2007, is a state-of-the-art 21st century desktop Linux, the hardware, an IBM NetVista desktop with a 900MHz Intel Pentium III and 256MB of RAM, is right out of the year 2000.

As readers of the first part of this series will remember, your editor has set out on a project to digitize a set of old video tapes and turn them into properly-formatted DVD media suitable for handing out to the grandparents. Part 1 was about the task of capturing this data to disk; part 2 covers the video editors available for turning the captured data into something watchable, and part 3 covers the task of creating a DVD from the edited video.

The schedules for all three days of sessions at the So Cal Linux Expo have been posted to the SCALE web site. All the commercial booths are full and several non-profit groups were added as well. Enlightenment, rarely seen at conferences will be showcasing the work going into E17. This is your opportunity to learn about the desktop that first defined the term "eye candy". Also added were OpenMoko, Damn Small Linux and for the first time ever OpenBSD, NetBSD and FreeBSD will each have a booth on the Expo floor.

[If any LXer Readers are going, look for me on Saturday and Sunday reporting on the event for LXer. - Scott]

In the latest Ubuntu weekly newsletter the Ubuntu folks announced the release of the Ubuntu 7.10 Desktop Course. The modular course should take two days to complete all 10 of the lessons offered, but it is possible to cover topics and lessons independently of each other, learning whatever is of interest.

Last week we looked at the tempest over the "phone home" script in Fonality's trixbox CE (Community Edition). The problem has been resolved: A workaround was publicized right away, a fix released within a few days, and the current trixbox CE releases incorporate the fix. I said I would talk to the folks at Fonality, so here we are. I spoke to Chris Lyman, the CEO of Fonality, and Kerry Garrison, the trixbox Community Director, and their security engineers to get their perspective on these events. I also talked to my own little herd of helpful gurus, because while this incident is relatively minor, it's a useful lesson in sorting out conflicting information. The Open Source world is even freer with opinions than it is with code, so sometimes it takes a bit of work to sort things out.

Opus Healthcare provides Web-based software solutions for doctors, nurses, therapists, and healthcare support staff. Recently, Opus moved from Unix on Hewlett-Packard hardware to a mixture of different Linux distributions on Intel. Opus CEO and co-founder Tim Rhoads says it has been a "bottom-up" transition, driven by the company's development staff.