LodeRunner writes "The GoboLinux team, featured about a year ago for creating a distro that does away with Unix paths such as /usr/bin and /lib and uses things like /System/Settings/X11 instead, just released a new release where they introduce their own alternative to Portage and similar systems: Compile. But is yet another source-based compilation system needed?" Read a bit more below on why the GoboLinux folks think so.

leerpm writes "Someone has managed to put together a Touchscreen BoomboxPC. It can function as both a boombox and PC. They mention plans to make it run Linux too, by making it dual-boot to Debian."

ubiquitin writes "Existence of the Secure Architectures with OpenBSD text was first made public on the OpenBSD Journal in early April 2004. The OpenBSD Journal, also known as deadly.org and now undeadly.org, recently changed hands from James Phillips to Daniel Hartmeier amid several more or less obscure references to Pogues lyrics. The peaceful transfer of the site is a good thing, as it means that the several-hundred articles posted to the journal will remain in publicly-accessible archives for the foreseeable future and the occasion gave Hartmeier, known for his development of packet filtering (pf) and network DVD playing (kissd) software, a reason to try his hand at building a content management system. Jose Nazario is both an author of the book under review here and a contributor to the OpenBSD Journal web site, which seems to be a watering hole for unix hackers, having something of the flavor that Slashdot had in the late nineties." (Jose is also an occasional Slashdot book reviewer, and a good cook.) Read on for the rest of ubiquitin's review.

gnuman99 writes "Debian just released the 4th beta of the new debian-installer, this time for 9 architectures. Some of the improvements include experimental support for the 2.6 kernel, on i386 only. The 2.4 kernel remains the default and recommended kernel for most hardware. Detection of existing operating systems. The following operating systems can be detected and will be added to the boot menu of the installed system: Windows, Mac OS, Linux, GNU Hurd, DOS. Note that by experimental support for 2.6.x kernel simply means that it is experimental in the installer, NOT the actual OS. Debian supported 2.6.x in the Sarge/Sid before 2.6.x was even officially released."

An anonymous reader submits "Debian's Release Manager Anthony Towns announced that after the Grand Resolution to amend the Social Contract has been successful (it does not only apply to software any more), vital parts to modern Linux systems, such as important documentation, firmware needed for proper hardware support will have to be removed from the distribution before the next release. Moreover, the upcoming installer will need to be changed. He goes on to say that he does not expect this to happen by the end of this year which means that Sarge will not be released in 2004."

Slashback tonight brings some updates and clarifications to previous stories, including news of the successful production of both a BBS documentary and an open-source directory. Read on for more!

mbanck writes "The Debian Linux kernel maintainer has announced that he will remove firmware from GPL'd drivers which obviously lack source code in its preferred form (i.e. something more appropriate than a hexdump inside a char[]), in accordance with the release manager's decision. The alternatives are user-space loading of the firmware via hotplug's request_firmware() API or making the vendors aware of the issue. How do the other distributions handle this?"

Frustrated and Disappointed asks: "I have been using Linux for a decade, but sometimes I just don't know how to solve a problem. What's more, I don't have the time (or interest) to teach myself enough about some obscure subject to debug it myself. Are there companies or freelancers out there willing to provide paid support for individuals on a problem-by-problem basis? I don't need yearly maintenance or weekly support, just a couple times a year. This time around, for example, I can't get a desktop box to play sound. The HOWTOs are years out of date, there are no man pages, the mailing lists are silent, and the #debian channels were nothing but insults. While I don't mind doing some of my own problem solving -- I'm a very technical person -- I have a job and other responsibilities, and I'm not interested in hacking sound drivers to begin with. I don't have the option of installing a whole new distro just to qualify for a vendor's support plan."

JigSaw writes "Well known Lycoris person Jason Spisak left the company to join Element Computer, a new hardware company which now strives to offer the Apple experience on PCs: they sell Linux-certified modern hardware with their own flavor of Debian, ION Linux. ION is a desktop distro and it is developed specifically to work perfectly with the accompanied hardware. Other highlights include usage support (as opposed to installation-only support other distros provide) and system upgrades specific to the exact hardware the user runs. The KDE-based distro will only sell with their hardware as Mike Hjorleifsson says in his interview." (The company was previously mentioned on Slashdot.)

jaybonci@d.o writes "Congratulations to Martin Michlmayr on his re-election to Debian Project Leader (his platform). Another year of service, one that will hopefully see the release of Sarge."

Several folks submitted the press release announcing the formation of the X.Org Foundation and the release of X11R6.7 of the X Window System. The XOrg Foundation is the successor to the X Consortium, formed by many of the most notworthy participants in the XFree86 Project. This code release is a tree forked from the last XFree86 release not troubled by that pesky license change. Since Mandrake, Gentoo, OpenBSD, and Debian have already rejected the new XFree86 license, this new code tree will likely become the default X11 for most Linux users. I've attached the press release that explains more details about the code release, as well as the X.Org foundation itself.

dave writes "GNU/Linux vendors Debian, Mandrake, Red Hat, and SUSE have joined together to give a common statement about the Forrester report entitled "Is Linux more Secure than Windows?". Despite the report's claim to incorporate a qualitative assessment of vendor reactions to serious vulnerabilities, it treats all vulnerabilities are equal, regardless of their risk to users. As a result, the conclusions drawn by Forrester have extremely limited real-world value for customers assessing the practical issue of how quickly serious vulnerabilities get fixed."

Andreas Tille writes "When the first Custom Debian Distribution - Debian Junior - started in the beginning of 2000 we did not expect that this would perhaps lead to a new way Debian could support its end users in general. The next step forward was done in DebConf3 in Oslo when several developers who care about Custom Debian Distributions met in person and decided to work together more closely. Finally at OSWC conference in Malaga took place a workshop aiming at exactly this issue. The result of the conference was to write a paper about Custom Debian Distributions to explain to the public what we had done and what we want to do. This is an implicit call for participation for all those people inside and outside Debian who work on the same goal: Enhance the role of Debian as the missing link between upstream software developers and end users."

yBshy4 writes "This article may interest the Slashdot folk. LinuxWorld Australia is reporting on Australia's largest satellite network, covering some 800,000 square kilometres, or most of the state of New South Wales, has gone live. The network consists of 75 Linux-based satellite routers that provide Wi-Fi (802.11b) connectivity to country towns that are unable to get DSL. The routers are engineered by Ursys and run Debian providing gateway services such as DNS and mail. According to the article, Ursys chose Debian 'because of its packaging support, which facilitates the ability to push updates to the routers remotely.' Ursys tried to use Windows but it was 'too unstable.' Hopefully this is an important step to providing better Internet access to regional areas across Australia. Anyone know of similar Internet access projects around the world?"

Ben Collins writes "Prothon is a new industrial-strength, interpreted, prototype-based, object-oriented language that gets rid of classes altogether in the way that the Self language does. It uses the sensible, practical syntax and add-on C module scheme from Python. This major prototype improvement over Python plus many other general improvements make for a clean new revolutionary breakthrough in language development. Prothon is simple to use and yet offers the combined power of Python and Self. Check out the first public pre-alpha release at prothon.org."

JayBonci writes "Not popcorn, popcon! (Short for popularity-contest) According to a recent message posted to debian-devel-announce, popcon numbers are being used to determine how things get arranged on the 13 CDs of the upcoming Debian stable release. Participation so far has been good, but the project could use more numbers from a broader user base. Please take a moment to install the package 'popularity-contest,' and help us make the distro better by allowing it to send us anonymous package usage statistics. You can see the results at Popularity Contest page."

An anonymous reader writes "MozillaZine reports that the Mozilla Foundation is cracking down on those selling unofficial Mozilla-branded merchandise. This takes the form of an open letter addressed to retailers of goods that bear the Mozilla name or logos. The letter suggests that the Foundation are willing to work with those selling Mozilla wares, as long as they get a cut and the retailer isn't operating in the US, Canada or Mexico, where they would be competing with the Foundation's own Mozilla Store. Threats of legal action for non-compliance are issued, albeit with friendly overtones. This open letter is part of the Mozilla Foundation's campaign to better enforce its trademarks, an effort that began when the Foundation was launched in July. In a related move, the Foundation announced that the new Firefox artwork is not open-source and can only be used in official builds or those sanctioned by the Foundation - this has led to debates about whether Firefox is free enough to be included in the Debian Linux distribution."

Marcus Thiesen writes "Debian Installer Beta 3 was released two days ago and I wrote a small review concerning the installation part. The new debian installer is good way to set up your favorite distribution. Nontheless there are a few usability things and I thought that it might be a good idea to write a walkthrough from another point of view: Bob 'average' User."

An anonymous reader writes "The platforms for the Debian Project Leader candidates are now available here with more information about how votes are tallied. The candidates this year are the incumbent DPL Martin Michlmayr, and developers Branden Robinson, and Gergely Nagy (but if you vote for him, his tamagotchi will sit on you.)" Nagy's platform is interesting reading.

TheFuzzy writes "Hey folks, thought you'd like to know that the guys at Cybertec.at have succeeded in porting PostgreSQL 7.4.1 to the Nintendo GameCube. Now you, too, can turn your former video console into the world's most underpowered database server. And before anyone asks... the Windows port is coming real soon now, so be patient - it says something that the GameCube was easier to convert to than Windows, don't it?" Elsewhere in GameCube homebrew development, it looks like the GameCube Linux project is moving along quite swiftly, with "a 22 MB Debian base system image" now available, and an "ARAM block device driver" also created, now allowing 40mb of space for Linux to run in.