Eugenia Loli Archive

Ingo Molnar has announced a new kernel-based security feature for Linux/x86 called "Exec Shield". He describes the patch, which is against the 2.4.20-rc1 kernel, as, "The exec-shield feature provides protection against stack, buffer or function pointer overflows, and against other types of exploits that rely on overwriting data structures and/or putting code into those structures. The patch also makes it harder to pass in and execute the so-called 'shell-code' of exploits. The patch works transparently, ie. no application recompilation is necessary."

The 90th issue of Linux Gazette is out and it includes articles like "Software development for a Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 Linux PDA", "The CUPS printing system" and "Programming with User Mode Linux".

"With Windows Server 2003 behind us, it's time to turn our attention to the more exciting world of desktop computing, where Microsoft is slowly plowing through pre-beta milestones of Longhorn, it's follow-up to Windows XP. Due in late 2004 or early 2005, Windows Longhorn will offer sweeping changes over its predecessors and be the most significant release of Microsoft's desktop operating system since Windows 95. For developers, consumers, and business users alike, Longhorn is going to be huge." Read the article at WinSuperSite.

Red Hat announced the availability of our AMD64 technology preview. This preview is for those who are interested in early access to a Red Hat distribution for the AMD64 platform.

Microsoft will demonstrate its much debated Next-Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB) security initiative for the first time next week at an event in New Orleans, and will also provide further details on its plans for managing IT systems. Read the details at InfoWorld.

Microsoft is touting Windows Server 2003 as an operating system capable of pushing aside Unix and mainframes. But most customers will be upgrading from Windows NT 4--and at a slow pace, analysts say at News.com.

In a posting at ANN.lu, ex-Amiga, Inc. employee Bolton Peck breaks his silence. He reports about his time at Amiga Inc., the court trial against his former employer and informs us who is the real CEO of Amiga. Moreover, Bolton gives a general overview into what has happened behind the scenes during the past 3 years. Where does this situation leave the upcoming AmigaOS 4.0 remains to be seen. Update: AmigaWorld.net has a thread about the situation as well.

The L4Ka team is pleased to announce the first release of the L4Ka::Pistachio microkernel. L4Ka::Pistachio is the latest L4 microkernel developed by the System Architecture Group at the University of Karlsruhe, Germany, in collaboration with the DISY group at the University of New South Wales, Australia. It is the first available kernel implementation of the L4 Version 4 kernel API.

BSDForums reports that the FreeBSD Release Engineering Team has posted the schedule for the Release of FreeBSD 5.1 late spring. FreeBSD roadmap, posted earlier at BSDForums.org, outlines the future of FreeBSD-5 stable releases, specifically 5.1 and 5.2. Also, Maksim Yevmenkin has announced another set of updates to Bluetooth stack for FreeBSD. He has made many code fixes, added new firmware driver support for Broadcom BCM2033 based devices, updated man pages and more. The Bluetooth stack is developed only for the 5-CURRENT branch. OSNews featured an in-depth interview with the FreeBSD Core team a few days ago discussing the 5.x branch among other topics.

The verbal punches tossed in the clash between Java and .NET may never end -- but for now it seems that the app servers supporting these software environments both have a place. Evidence suggests that most large companies will support both Java and .NET. The 'battle,' in reality, falls short of the hype. The scene is almost like that in a heavyweight prizefight, where the weigh-in holds more terror than the fight itself. Read the rest of the article at ADTMag.

Big Blue denies SCO Group's allegations that it misappropriated Unix trade secrets, but it isn't giving hints about what its eventual strategy will be for battling the lawsuit.

The Debian-based Libranet 2.8 is finaly released. Order & download, read the feature-set or an intro.

OpenBSD 3.3 is out and more secure than ever. Get it while it's hot. Store, changelog.

Now it is possible to have hardware accelerated OpenGL with DirectFB.