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Linux has everything you need to do any kind of networking, plus it has eleventy-eight hundred different software utilities for network monitoring and troubleshooting. Today we'll learn how to pinpoint connectivity problems and how to map your network and all running services. This is handy not only for keeping tabs on everyday activities, but also to catch users running illicit hosts and services.

In part two of this interview, Dave Uhlman, CEO of Unversa Inc., names the apps he considers enterprise-ready, such as MySQL, and how IT managers can cash in on the savings to be gained reduced licensing and support fees by strategically pitching open source applications to higher-ups. Uhlman recommends targeting that IT managers target specific IT needs and choose the best possible fit for their environment.

A heavy spring rain was not enough to dampen spirits at Linuxfest Northwest this year. Despite the rain, an estimated 700-800 people converged on Bellingham Technical College in the Pacific Northwest for a day of informal presentations and a gathering of the local free and open source software (FOSS) communities.

Senior officials from TH-UNIS and Microsoft are now in talks with regard to the price and amount of TH-UNIS's procurement. Apparently, Linux will be the first choice for the company due to its competitiveness in price.

[This article bears in mind the compliance with the new regulation in China that PCs must be shipped with a "legal" OS. - dcparris]

TuxMobil, a knowledge base consisting of user-submitted guides on mobile computing issues, now lists more than 5,000 Linux laptop installation guides. TuxMobil is now the largest source for Linux help for mobile computing on the internet. That fact is all the more amazing considering the organic nature of TuxMobil growth.

BPU Banca Migrates From Sun Solaris To Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Steve Marsh, director of the U.K. government’s Central Sponsor for Information Assurance (CSIA), has announced that IBM, and its partners Tresys Technology and Belmin Group, are working with the U.K. Cabinet Office to demonstrate one of the first mainstream mandatory access control (MAC) environments. The design is based upon Security Enhanced Linux and IBM WebSphere.

LAS VEGAS –- The 18,000 visitors expected to descend on Interop this year will be tapping into an open source network that provides connectivity of all kinds.

MEPIS, also known as SimplyMEPIS, is a Linux Distribution that's the brainchild of Warren Woodford. First released in 2003, MEPIS was the culmination of its founder's frustration with the dominant desktop distributions provided by Red Hat and SUSE, which he felt lacked user-friendliness and seemed clumsy and awkward.

A careful examination of the facts regarding how open source development relates to software security.

[Not all new info, but interesting nevertheless... - dcparris]

IDC is advising IT services providers to wake up and smell the open source. A new report analyzes 11 service companies that compete in the open source services market, presents an open source services competitive map, and offers advice on business strategy. The analysts say open source is becoming a fundamental aspect of services portfolios for IBM Global Services, HP Services (HPS)), Unisys, Novell and other major services providers.

This is a detailed description how to set up a CentOS 4.3 based server that offers all services needed by ISPs and hosters (web server (SSL-capable), mail server (with SMTP-AUTH and TLS!), DNS server, FTP server, MySQL server, POP3/IMAP, Quota, Firewall, etc.).

May 2006 (#126):
# The Mailbag, by Kat Tanaka Okopnik
# News Bytes, by Howard Dyckoff
# Preventing DDoS attacks, by Blessen Cherian and Ben Okopnik
# Away Mission -- SDWest 2006, by Howard Dyckoff
# From Assembler to COBOL with the Aid of Open Source, by Edgar Howell
# Plotting time series data with Gnuplot, by Ron Peterson
# Digging More Secure Tunnels with IPsec, by René Pfeiffer
# Column: IT's Enough To Drive You Crazy, by Pete Savage
# HelpDex, by Shane Collinge
# The Linux Launderette

[ Sorry, I messed up the layout. Fixed it! - hkwint ]

<i>VOIP for Dummies</i> gets down to the nuts and bolts of VoIP, the hottest thing since the telephone. It is a good introduction for IT professonals and business people but don't expect too much for end-users.

Community has always played a central role in the Open Source landscape, and the term 'community' is bandied around almost as much as 'Web 2.0'. Unfortunately, as with 'Web 2.0', the term 'community' has become a vague descriptor for a collection of principles that represent similar things. As more and more disparate groups and organisations make use of any definition, meaning tends to be blurred by the exceptions to the rule.

"If you don't program, you may end up wondering why you should use free-software. Why not just buy Mac OSX and Microsoft word? Well, let us look at the potential negative consequences for choosing proprietary software. If you have used proprietary software at all, you have probably run into one or more of these problems that free software eliminates for you."

In a low-key announcement last week Microsoft South Africa launched Windows XP Starter Edition into the African market. Billed as a low-cost, "full-featured" alternative to XP, Starter Edition is little more than a stripped down version of XP with a smattering of marketing gloss. Alastair Otter suggests African-style wallpapers and bigger icons hardly make up for not being able to open more than three applications at once or the lack of networking capabilities.

[All I can say is, we don't treat people that way here (in the FOSS community). - dcparris]

A recent report by Russian cyber security outfit Kaspersky Labs says Linux saw the largest gains in malware, viruses and other malicious software targeting the operating system, compared to other non-Windows, Unix-based operating systems. Statistics from the report - titled "2005: *nix Malware Evolution" - show that there were 863 malicious programs targeting Linux in 2005, a jump from 422 in 2004.

Xandros Inc., a leading Linux desktop distributor, took its time but after almost two years, the company finally launched its server operating system, Xandros Server, on April 25 at the LinuxWorld Toronto. Rather than try to take on the likes of Red Hat's RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) or Novell's SLES (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server) head-on, Xandros is positioning its new server for SMBs (small-to-medium businesses) that want to cut down their Windows server management costs.