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Normally, when a program runs under Linux, it inherits the permissions of the user who is running it, thus if I run a program under my account, the program runs with the same permissions that I would have if that program were me. Thus, if I cannot open a certain file, the program I am running also cannot open the file in question. If I set the SUID or SGID bit for a file, this causes any persons or processes that run the file to have access to system resources as though they are the owner of the file.

NVIDIA has graced us with new drivers that support their latest and greatest GPUs. Here are the release notes and relates links.

[I really don't see anything gracious about non-free drivers. However, since we seem to be so dependent on the driver gods, here's the latest non-free driver from Nvidious. - dcparris]

Mandriva has announced the launch of the beta program of Corporate Desktop 4.0, the brand new version of its enterprise-dedicated work station, which it punts as ergonomic, secure, comprehensive, easy to use and easy to administer.

Bug stamp-out list for March 9, 2007

Sun launches products for web infrastructure on Solaris 10. Sun Microsystems has announced a new set of products and services targeting developers, startups, and internet companies seeking to build and deploy their web infrastructure on Solaris 10.

ATI released their latest Linux drivers toward the end of February..

When you start learning the source code of an unfamiliar project, you don't have the knowledge of its structure or the meaning of specific functions, classes, and units in the project. You can use tags to browse for definitions, but it's hard to get an overall picture by just looking through every definition one by one. Cscope and SilentBob are two tools that can help you analyze unfamiliar source code. They help you find symbol definitions, determine where specific functions are used, determine which functions are called by other given functions, and search for strings and patterns throughout the code base. With them, you can save time by doing fast, targeted searches instead of grepping through source files by hand.

Red Hat Inc. plans to create a Web store to boost sales of its own open-source software and of compatible open-source products from other companies, a person familiar with the plan said on Thursday. The company plans to announce the strategy next week when it releases the first major upgrade in two years to its core Linux-based operating system, according to the source.

If, for whatever reason, you have done some digging on me you will have discovered a dark secret. Well, not quite a secret as I do not hide it, nor is it that dark, more of a information non publiée. I am involved in local politics, and my political party is the Tories. There, I have said it. I have come out of the closet. I have admitted it. I can now wander around the Free Software Magazine pages without hiding my true nature. I am free!

Now, this is one cool project (and video) from Alan Carvalho de Assis (and friends), as announced on the LinuxBIOS mailing list: LinuxBIOS with X Server Inside.

STMicroelectronics (ST) is sampling a pair of configurable SoCs (system-on-chip processors) powered by ARM9 cores and 600K-gate configurable logic blocks. The SPEAr (structured processor enhanced architecture) Head600 and dual-core SPEAr Plus600 run Linux, support DDR/DDR2 external memory, and target printer, fax, and POS (point-of-sales) devices.

A new report from the U.K. Office of Government Commerce about Open Source Software Trials in Government, has found that servers running Linux could combat the rising problem of e-waste because they last up to twice as long as machines running Windows.

In the battle to spread the use of GNU/Linux, it is often forgotten that education has to be the starting point. People need to be educated to the point where they come to demand decent behaviour from an operating system; companies need educated admins to keep GNU/Linux systems running.

Learn how to configure Apache to tag XHTML documents with the media type application/xhtml+xml for browsers that support it, while still sending text/html to nonconformant browsers.

LXer Feature: 09-Mar-2007

Don Parris looks at the Debian Installer, providing something of an overview of the installation process, revealing one or two potential pain points and what the Debian Installer team is doing to improve it.

If you've ever worked with MySQL databases, you are probably familiar with phpMyAdmin, a PHP-based tool that allows you to create and manage MySQL databases via a browser. It is an indispensable tool for anyone building a PHP/MySQL-based Web application. But while phpMyAdmin eases the task of creating and managing the back end of your Web application, it is of no help when it comes to designing a Web-based interface. To simplify creating PHP-based front ends, try phpMyEdit, an ingenious piece of software that can generate a functional Web interface in a matter of minutes -- no PHP programming skills required. Although phpMyEdit hides the complexity of generating a PHP-based interface, it still offers an easy-to-use yet powerful mechanism to customize virtually any aspect of the created front end.

On March 6, the 1001st Widget was announced by Opera Software. Widgets, which are created by Opera users, are small, powerful Web applications that add unique and useful functionality to Opera's eponymous browser.

This article covers the basics of Ajax and shows some Ajax design patterns that have become proven best practice with Web 2.0 development.

Ubuntu is a strong desktop distro, but it falls short for some users in a few areas. Where are the multimedia codecs and DVD support, and what's with all the brown, for heaven's sake? If you'd like multimedia support with a minty fresh theme, try Linux Mint 2.2, an Ubuntu-based distro that throws in support for Flash 9, Windows Media Format, DVDs, MP3s, and troublesome wireless cards.

As of this morning, I found that ssh logins into my Debian etch boxes were monumentally slow. Using the -vvv switch it looked like the problem was down to a very long wait for gssapi-with-mic authentication. Trying with the -o GSSAPIAuthentication=no switch on the command line helped, although some boxes were also pausing for a very long time when dealing with public-key auth.