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This document describes how to install a vsftpd server that uses virtual users from a PostgreSQL database instead of real system users. I could not find any tutorial like that on the internet, so when that configuration finally worked for me, I decided to publish it. The documentation is based on FreeBSD 6.2 which I was recently forced to use (I usually use Debian). Nevertheless the document should be suitable for almost any Linux distribution as well (may require very small amendments).

Ubuntu 7.04, aka "Feisty Fawn," has been out for several weeks now and it's already very popular. Heck, Michael Dell was running it even before he chose it to become Dell's Linux of choice. But, how good is it?

The End User License Agreement is, as its name shows it, a contract between the software developer and a potential user. Whenever you install software on a computer, you will have to face the inevitable: agreeing to the EULA. The question is, how important is it and what is the impact of it?

Getting anything into the mainstream news cycle is tough. The old adage "If it bleeds, it leads", has proven to be an apt proverb in the case of the Tux500.com Project. While the only thing that may be bleeding in this effort are a few egos, that sort of injury isn't enough to get the attention of the big guys in the mainstream press.

Fluendo's Elisa is a free software media center application that can play your DVDs, video files, music, and pictures. Since it is designed for extensibility, Elisa has the potential to do much more. It does not handle television or video recording functions, but it is a slick and promising project.

Scientific Linux, a project based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 source packages enhanced with a variety of additional applications, released its v5.0 i386 live DVD on May 7. The SL5 live DVD features a 2.6.18 kernel, includes all client/workstation RPMs, and uses GNOME as its default desktop.

Configure and use Beryl on the new Mandriva 2007 Spring is really easy, and you do not even need to open the console, as everything could be done from the graphic interface (GNOME in the case of this guide)

We are here today to talk about the Strigi project - the indexing and search technology of KDE 4 - and to interview Flavio Castelli, a key developer of Strigi.

The developer documentation in the Second Life client takes the form of a wiki, making documentation easier. In Part 2 of the ongoing exploration of the Second Life software, take a look at that documentation, and use it to jump-start some modifications to the client.

Snap Links is a great Firefox extension that makes it possible to open multiple links on a web page by simply dragging around them. Excellent for opening multiple search results.

The Gentoo Linux project team today announced its first release of the year: Gentoo Linux 2007.0, code-named "Secret Sauce." GL 2007.0 comes as an installable/live CD, features a 2.6.19 Linux kernel, and offers a choice among KDE, GNOME, and Xfce desktop environments.

Mandriva recently released its first distro of the year, dubbed Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring. Like previous releases, Spring is available in five editions, two of which can be freely downloaded. I installed and worked with the $76 Powerpack edition, which includes support and several gigabytes of packages. Not only does Powerpack score over other multiple CD/DVD free-of-cost distros, it also makes competing non-free distros eat dust.

A lot of why I requested this book for review was sheer curiosity. Like many people, I'm used to thinking "Rootkit = bad". Why the heck would any author or publisher want to take on the liability of teaching their readers how to behave unethically and criminally? The little voodoo doll on the cover did nothing to allay my concerns. However, once I had the book in my hands and began to work through it, I saw it with different eyes.

Although OpenOffice.org doesn't allow you to create self-running Impress presentations, there is a tool that can help you with that. Using IndeView, you can convert your Impress presentations into a self-contained package that can run off a CD or DVD on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.

Red Hat developers have begun merging the Fedora Core and Extras repositories. The new merged Fedora repository is one of the major changes for the upcoming Fedora 7 release, and marks the first time a major distribution supported by a company has allowed members of the community to modify *core* packages inside a distribution.

The actual email was nothing spectacular. Just no...our budget has already been set for the year...yada, yada, yada. Then yesterday, the entire thing crystalized before our dis-believing eyes. Now I think I understand.

Jörn Engel announced LogFS, "a scalable flash filesystem." The project's home page notes that LogFS aims to be the successor of JFFS2, "the two main problems of JFFS2 are memory consumption and mount time. Unlike most filesystems, there is no tree structure of any sorts on the medium, so the complete medium needs to be scanned at mount time and a tree structure kept in-memory while the filesystem is mounted. With bigger devices, both mount time and memory consumption increase linearly. JFFS2 has recently gained summary support, which helps reduce mount time by a constant factor. Linear scalability remains. YAFFS also appears to be better by a constant factor, yet still scales linearly."

Xandros today launched Xandros Server Standard Edition 2, a complete, enterprise-grade SMB Linux server package including Xen virtualization and more than 30 other services. The new Xandros Linux server is compatible with existing Windows domain and networking topologies.

Automatix2 Setup in Debian Etch

With the release of Microsoft's new Windows operating system (Vista), more and more people are looking for alternatives to Windows for various reasons. This tutorial shows people who are willing to switch to Linux how they can set up a Linux desktop (Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn in this article) that fully replaces their Windows desktop, i.e. that has all software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops. The advantages are clear: you get a secure system without DRM restrictions that runs also on older hardware, and the best thing is: all software comes free of charge.