Eu buntu nix

Do not turn on A/C immediately as soon as you enter the car!

noreply@blogger.com (Ehrwin) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:19:00 +0000

Do not turn on A/C immediately as soon as you enter the car!

Please open the windows after you enter your car and do not turn ON the
air-conditioning immediately. According to a research done, the car dashboard,
sofa, air freshener emits Benzene, a Cancer causing toxin (carcinogen- take note
of the heated plastic smell in your car). In addition to causing cancer, it poisons
your bones, causes anemia, and reduces white blood cells. Prolonged exposure
will cause Leukemia, increasing the risk of cancer may also cause miscarriage.

Acceptable Benzene level indoors is 50 mg per sq. ft. A car parked indoors with
the windows closed will contain 400-800 mg of Benzene. If parked outdoors
under the sun at a temperature above 60 degrees F, the Benzene level goes up
to 2000-4000 mg, 40 times the acceptable level... & the people inside the car will
inevitably inhale an excess amount of the toxins.

It is recommended that you open the windows and door to give time for
the interior to air out before you enter. Benzene is a toxin that affects your
kidney and liver, and is very difficult for your body to expel this toxic stuff.

"When someone shares something of value with you and you benefit from it,
you have a moral obligation to share it with others"

The top five cancer-causing foods

noreply@blogger.com (Ehrwin) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:29:00 +0000

Live Life Without Limits!

The top five cancer-causing foods are:

1. Hot dogs
Because they are high in nitrates, the Cancer Prevention Coalition advises that children eat no more than 12 hot dogs a month. If you can't live without hot dogs, buy those made without sodium nitrate.

2. Processed meats and bacon
Also high in the same sodium nitrates found in hot dogs, bacon, and other processed meats raise the risk of heart disease. The saturated fat in bacon also contributes to cancer.

3. Doughnuts
Doughnuts are cancer-causing double trouble. First, they are made with white flour, sugar, and hydrogenated oils, then fried at high temperatures. Doughnuts, says Adams , may be the worst food you can possibly eat to raise your risk of cancer.

4. French fries
Like doughnuts, French fries are made with hydrogenated oils and then fried at high temperatures. They also contain cancer- causing acryl amides which occur during the frying process. They should be called cancer fries, not French fries, said Adams .

5. Chips, crackers, and cookies
All are usually made with white flour and sugar. Even the ones whose labels claim to be free of trans-fats generally contain small amounts of trans-fats.

BRAIN DAMAGING HABITS

1. No Breakfast
People who do not take breakfast are going to have a lower blood sugar level.
This leads to an insufficient supply of nutrients to the brain causing brain degeneration.

2. Overeating
It causes hardening of the brain arteries, leading to a decrease in mental power.

3. Smoking
It causes multiple brain shrinkage and may lead to Alzheimer disease.

4. High Sugar consumption
Too much sugar will interrupt the absorption of proteins and nutrients causing malnutrition and may interfere with brain development.

5. Air Pollution
The brain is the largest oxygen consumer in our body. Inhaling polluted air decreases the supply of oxygen to the brain, bringing about a decrease in brain efficiency.

6. Sleep Deprivation
Sleep allows our brain to rest. Long term deprivation from sleep will accelerate the death of brain cells.
7. Head covered while sleeping
Sleeping with the head covered increases the concentration of carbon dioxide and decrease concentration of oxygen that may lead to brain damaging effects.

8. Working your brain during illness
Working hard or studying with sickness may lead to a decrease in effectiveness of the brain as well as damage the brain.

9. Lacking in stimulating thoughts
Thinking is the best way to train our brain, lacking in brain stimulation thoughts may cause brain shrinkage.

10. Talking Rarely
Intellectual conversations will promote the efficiency of the brain

The main causes of liver damage are:

1. Sleeping too late and waking up too late are main cause.
2. Not urinating in the morning.
3. Too much eating.
4. Skipping breakfast.
5. Consuming too much medication.
6. Consuming too much preservatives, additives, food coloring, and artificial sweetener.
7. Consuming unhealthy cooking oil. As much as possible reduce cooking oil use when frying, which includes even the best cooking oils like olive oil. Do not consume fried foods when you are tired, except if the body is very fit.
8. Consuming raw (overly done) foods also add to the burden of liver.
Veggies should be eaten raw or cooked 3-5 parts. Fried veggies should be finished in one sitting, do not store.

We should prevent this without necessarily spending more. We just have to adopt a good daily lifestyle and eating habits. Maintaining good eating habits and time condition are very important for our bodies to absorb and get rid of unnecessary chemicals according to 'schedule.'

DO TAKE CARE ABOUT YOUR HEALTH...... ......... ....
AND PASS THIS TO ALL WHOM YOU LOVE & CARE FOR. ............ ..........

Ten Reasons to Throw out your Microwave Oven

noreply@blogger.com (Ehrwin) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:26:00 +0000

I have known for years that the problem with microwaved anything is not the radiation people used to worry about, It's how it corrupts the DNA in the food so the body can not recognize it. So the body wraps it in fat cells to protect itself from the dead food or it eliminates it fast. Think of all the Mothers heating up milk in these 'Safe' appliances. What about the nurse in Canadathat warmed up blood for a transfusion patient and accidentally killed them when the blood went in dead. But the makers say it's safe. But proof is in the pictures of living plants dying.

FORENSIC RESEARCH DOCUMENT

Prepared By: William P. Kopp

A. R. E. C. Research Operations
TO61-7R10/10-77F05
RELEASE PRIORITY: CLASS I ROO1a

Ten Reasons to Throw out your Microwave Oven

From the conclusions of the Swiss, Russian and German scientific clinical studies, we can no longer ignore the microwave oven sitting in our kitchens. Based on this research, we will conclude this article with the following:

1). Continually eating food processed from a microwave oven causes long term - permanent - brain damage by 'shorting out' electrical impulses in the brain [de-polarizing or de-magnetizing the brain tissue].

2). The human body cannot metabolize [break down] the unknown by-products created in microwaved food.

3). Male and female hormone production is shut down and/or altered by continually eating microwaved foods.

4). The effects of microwaved food by-products are residual [long term, permanent] within the human body..

5). Minerals, vitamins, and nutrients of all microwaved food is reduced or altered so that the human body gets little or no benefit, or the human body absorbs altered compounds that cannot be broken down.

6).. The minerals in vegetables are altered into cancerous free radicals when cooked in microwave ovens.

7). Microwaved foods cause stomach and intestinal cancerous growths [tumors]. This may explain the rapidly increased rate of colon cancer in America .

8). The prolonged eating of microwaved foods causes cancerous cells to increase in human blood.

9). Continual ingestion of microwaved food causes immune system deficiencies through lymph gland and blood serum alterations.

10). Eating microwaved food causes loss of memory, concentration, emotional instability, and a decrease of intelligence.

Have you tossed out your microwave oven yet? After you throw out your microwave, you can use a toaster oven as a replacement. It works well for most and is nearly as quick.. The use of artificial microwave transmissions for subliminal psychological control, a.k.a. 'brainwashing', has also been proven. We're attempting to obtain copies of the 1970's Russian research documents and results written by Drs. Luria and Perov specifying their clinical experiments in this area.

God's Pharmacy is Amazing! (re-Published)

noreply@blogger.com (Ehrwin) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:51:00 +0000

(This article has been across the Internet a dozen times, but it is worth repeating.)

It's been said that God first separated the salt water from the fresh, made dry land, planted a garden, made animals and fish... all before making a human. God made and provided what we'd need before we were born. These foods are best and more powerful when eaten raw. God left us a great clue as to what foods help what part of our body!

	A sliced Carrot looks like the human eye. The pupil, iris and radiating lines look just like the human eye... and YES, science now shows carrots greatly enhance blood flow to and function of the eyes.
	A Tomato has four chambers and is red. The heart has four chambers and is red. All of the research shows tomatoes are loaded with lycopine and are indeed pure heart and blood food.
	Grapes hang in a cluster that has the shape of the heart. Each grape looks like a blood cell and all of the research today shows grapes are also profound heart and blood vitalizing food.
	A Walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemisphere, upper cerebrums and lower cerebellums. Even the wrinkles or folds on the nut are just like the neo-cortex. We now know walnuts help develop more than three (3) dozen neuron-transmitters for brain function.
	Kidney Beans actually heal and help maintain kidney function and yes, they look exactly like the human kidneys.
	Celery, Bok Choy, Rhubarb and many more look just like bones. These foods specifically target bone strength. Bones are 23% sodium and these foods are 23% sodium. If you don't have enough sodium in your diet, the body pulls it from the bones, thus making them weak. These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body.
	Avocadoes, Eggplant and Pears target the health and function of the womb and cervix of the female - they look just like these organs. Today's research shows that when a woman eats one avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight, and prevents cervical cancers. And how profound is this? It takes exactly nine (9) months to grow an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit. There are over 14,000 photolytic chemical constituents of nutrition in each one of these foods (mo dern science has only studied and named about 141 of them).
	Figs are full of seeds and hang in twos when they grow. Figs increase the mobility of male sperm and increase the numbers of Sperm as well to overcome male sterility.
	Sweet Potatoes look like the pancreas and actual ly bal ance the glycemic index of diabetics.
	Olives assist the health and function of the ovaries
	Oranges, Grapefruits, and other Citrus fruits look just l ike the mammary glands of the female and actually assist the health of the breasts and the movement of lymph in and out of the breasts.
	Onions look like the body's cells. Research shows onions clear waste materials from all of the body cells. They even produce tears which wash the epithelial layers of the eyes. Garlic also helps eliminate waste materials and dangerous free radicals from the body.

THE AMAZING CUCUMBER

noreply@blogger.com (Ehrwin) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:50:00 +0000

THE AMAZING CUCUMBER

This information was in The New York Times several weeks ago as part of

their "Spotlight on the Home" series that highlighted creative and fanciful

ways to solve common problems......

1. Cucumbers contain most of the vitamins you need every day, just one

cucumber contains Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B3, Vitamin B5, Vitamin

B6, Folic Acid, Vitamin C, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium

and Zinc.

2.Feeling tired in the afternoon, put down the caffeinated soda and pick

up a cucumber. Cucumbers are a good source of B Vitamins and Carbohydrates

that can provide that quick pick-me-up that can last for hours.

3. Tired of your bathroom mirror fogging up after a shower? Try rubbing

a cucumber slice along the mirror, it will eliminate the fog and provide a

soothing, spa-like fragrance.

4. Are grubs and slugs ruining your planting beds? Place a few slices in

a small pie tin and your garden will be free of pests all season long. The

chemicals in the cucumber react with the aluminium to give off a scent

undetectable to humans but drive garden pests crazy and make them flee the

area.

5. Looking for a fast and easy way to remove cellulite before going out or

to the pool? Try rubbing a slice or two of cucumbers along your problem

area for a few minutes, the phytochemicals in the cucumber cause the

collagen in your skin to tighten, firming up the outer layer and reducing

the visibility of cellulite. Works great on wrinkles too!!!

6. Want to avoid a hangover or terrible headache? Eat a few cucumber

slices before going to bed and wake up refreshed and headache free.

Cucumbers contain enough sugar, B vitamins and electrolytes to replenish

essential nutrients the body lost, keeping everything in equilibrium,

avoiding both a hangover and headache!!

7. Looking to fight off that afternoon or evening snacking binge?

Cucumbers have been used for centuries and often used by European trappers,

traders and explores for quick meals to thwart off starvation.

8. Have an important meeting or job interview and you realize that you

don't have enough time to polish your shoes? Rub a freshly cut cucumber

over the shoe, its chemicals will provide a quick and durable shine that

not only looks great but also repels water.

9. Need to fix a squeaky hinge? Take a cucumber slice and rub it along the

problematic hinge, and voila, the squeak is gone!

10. Stressed out and don't have time for massage, facial or visit to the

spa? Cut up an entire cucumber and place it in a boiling pot of water, the

chemicals and nutrients from the cucumber will react with the boiling water

and be released in the steam, creating a soothing, relaxing aroma that has

been shown the reduce stress in new mothers and college students during

final exams..

11. Just finish a business lunch and realize you don't have gum or mints?

Take a slice of cucumber and press it to the roof of your mouth with your

tongue for 30 seconds to eliminate bad breath, the phytochemcials will kill

the bacteria in your mouth responsible for causing bad breath.

12. Looking for a 'green' way to clean your faucets, sinks or stainless

steel? Take a slice of cucumber and rub it on the surface you want to

clean, not only will it remove years of tarnish and bring back the shine,

but is won't leave streaks and won't harm you fingers or fingernails while

you clean.

13. Using a pen and made a mistake? Take the outside of the cucumber and

slowly use it to erase the pen writing, also works great on crayons and

markers that the kids have used to decorate the walls!!

Pass this along to everybody you know who is looking for better and safer

ways to solve life's everyday problems..

Have a GR8 day !

"It works like that my brother; without Jesus you are nothing in this world"

noreply@blogger.com (Ehrwin) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:45:00 +0000

Two donkeys were in the field nearby Jerusalem . The one donkey said;

"I don't understand it, just yesterday everyone was throwing their clothes and palms on the road when I was carrying Jesus on my back but now I am back to being a nothing. Those people don't even see its me who was carrying Jesus."

The other donkey said: "It works like that my brother; without Jesus you are nothing in this world"

AFTER YEARS OF TELLING PEOPLE CHEMOTHERAPY IS THE ONLY WAY TO TRY (TRY THE KEY WORD) AND ELIMINATE CANCER.

noreply@blogger.com (Ehrwin) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:41:00 +0000

AFTER YEARS OF TELLING PEOPLE CHEMOTHERAPY IS THE ONLY WAY TO TRY (TRY THE KEY WORD) AND ELIMINATE CANCER, JOHN HOPKINS IS FINALLY STARTING TO TELL YOU THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE WAY.

1. Every person has cancer cells in the body.These cancer cells do not show up in the standard tests until they have multiplied to a few billion. When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after treatment, it just means the tests are unable to detect the cancer cells because they have not reached the detectable size.

2. Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person's lifetime.

3. When the person's immune system is strong the cancer cells will be destroyed and prevented from multiplying and forming tumors.

4. When a person has cancer it indicates the person has multiple nutritional deficiencies. These could be due to genetic, environmental, food and lifestyle factors. �

5. To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies, changing diet and including supplements will strengthen the immune system.

6. Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly growing cancer cells and also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow, gastro-intestinal tract etc, and can cause organ damage, like liver, kidneys, heart, lungs etc.

7. Radiation while destroying cancer cells also burns, scars and damages healthy cells, tissues and organs.

8. Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will often reduce tumor size. However prolonged use of chemotherapy and radiation do not result in more tumor destruction.

9. When the body has too much toxic burden from chemotherapy and radiation the immune system is either compromised or destroyed, hence the person can succumb to various kinds of infections and complications.

10. Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to mutate and become resistant and difficult to destroy.
Surgery can also cause cancer cells to spread to other sites.

11. An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer cells by not feeding it with the foods it needs to multiply.

CANCER CELLS FEED ON:

a. Sugar, is a cancer-feeder.

By cutting off sugar it cuts off one important food supply to the cancer cells. Sugar substitutes like Nutrasweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc are made with Aspartame and it is harmful. A better natural substitute would be Manuka honey or molasses but only in very small amounts. Table salt has a chemical added to make it white in colour. Better alternative is Bragg's aminos or sea salt. ( THE WEST MADE US 2 CHANGE FROM SEA 2 WHITE IODISED SALT )

b. Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the gastro-intestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus.

By cutting off milk and substituting with unsweetened soya milk cancer cells are being starved.

c. Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment.

A meat-based diet is acidic and it is best to eat fish, and a little chicken rather than beef or pork. Meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites, which are all harmful, especially to people with cancer.

d. A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains, seeds, nuts and a little fruits help put the body into an alkaline environment. About 20% can be from cooked food including beans. Fresh vegetable juices provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to cellular levels within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance growth of healthy cells. To obtain live enzymes for�
building healthy cells try and drink fresh vegetable juice (most vegetables including bean sprouts) and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a day. Enzymes are destroyed at temperatures of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).

e. Avoid coffee, tea, and chocolate, which have high caffeine.

Green tea is a better alternative and has cancer-fighting properties. Water- best to drink purified water, or filtered, to avoid known toxins and heavy metals in tap water. Distilled water is acidic, avoid it.

12. Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the intestines become putrified and leads to more toxic buildup.

13. Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refraining from or eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the protein walls of cancer cells and allows the body's killer cells to destroy the cancer cells.

14. Some supplements build up the immune system (IP6, Flor ssence,Essiac, anti-oxidants, vitamins,minerals, EFAs etc.) to enable the body's own killer cells to destroy cancer cells. Other supplements like vitamin E are known to cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, the body's normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted, or unneeded cells.

15. Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. A proactive and positive spirit will help the cancer warrior be a survivor.

Anger, unforgiveness and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic environment. Learn to have a loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax and enjoy life.

16. Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment. Exercising daily, and deep breathing help to get more oxygen down to the cellular level. Oxygen therapy is another means employed to destroy cancer cells.

PLEASE READ ON

1. No plastic containers in micro.
2. No water bottles in freezer.

3. No plastic wrap in microwave.

Johns Hopkinshas recently sent this out in its newsletters. This information is being circulated at WalterReedArmyMedic alCenteras well. Dioxin chemicals causes cancer, especially breast cancer.

Dioxins are highly poisonous to the cells of our bodies. Don't freeze your plastic bottles with water in them as this releases dioxins from the plastic. Recently, Dr. Edward Fujimoto, Wellness Program Manager at CastleHospital was on a TV program to explain this health hazard.

He talked about dioxins and how bad they are for us. He said that we should not be heating our food in the microwave using plastic containers. This especially applies to foods that contain fat.

He said that the combination of fat, high heat, and plastics releases dioxin into the food and ultimately into the cells of the body.

Instead, he recommends using glass, such as Corning Ware, Pyrex or ceramic containers for heating food.

You get the same results, only without the dioxin. So such things as TV dinners, instant ramen and soups, etc., should be removed from the container and heated in something else. Paper isn't bad but you don't know what is in the paper. It's just safer to use tempered glass, CorningWare, etc. He reminded us that a while ago some of the fast food restaurants moved away from the foam containers to paper. The dioxin problem is one of the reasons.

Also, he pointed out that plastic wrap, such as Saran, is just as dangerous when placed over foods to be cooked in the microwave. As the food is nuked, the high heat causes poisonous toxins to actually melt out of the plastic wrap and drip into the food. Cover food with a paper towel instead.

This is an article that should be sent to all in your life,

I am doing so now.

PAP2T or SPA2102 FAX OVER IP

noreply@blogger.com (Ehrwin) — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 09:37:00 +0000

To my Fellow (Filipino's) and the People Around the World, who need to configure their ATA. See below settings.

Step 1 Upgrade the ATA firmware to the latest version

Step 2 Ensure that you have enough bandwidth for uplink and downlink.

•For G.711 fallback, it is recommend to have ~100Kbps. (PAP2T)

•For T.38, allocate at least 50 kbps. (SPA2102)

Step 3 To optimize G.711 fallback fax completion rates, use the following settings on the
Line tab of the Linksys ATA:

•Network Jitter Buffer: very high

•Jitter buffer adjustment: disable

•Call Waiting: no

•3 Way Calling: no

•Echo Canceller: no

•Silence suppression: no

•Preferred Codec: G.711

•Use pref. codec only: yes

Step 4 If you are using a Cisco media gateway for PSTN termination, disable T.38 (fax relay) and enable fax using modem passthrough.

For example:

modem passthrough NSE payload-type 110 codec g711ulaw

fax rate disable

fax protocol pass-through g711ulaw

Step 5 Enable T.38 fax / Passthru_Method on the PAP 2T by configuring the following parameter on the Line tab for the FXS port to which the FAX machine is connected:

FAX_Passthru_Method: ReINVITE (for PAP2T while in SPA2102 = NSE)

Note If a T.38 call cannot be set-up, then the call should automatically revert to G.711 fallback.
Asterisk or any VOIP proxy server applicable but Need changes and updates in asterisk for you able to use FOIP.

I hope this information will help you to configure the ATA device.

ehrwin

After Installing Debian 4 in HP Integrity RX 1600 - Upon reboot, the system will show up the message "Loading initrd...."

noreply@blogger.com (Ehrwin) — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 03:42:00 +0000

I discovered in Itanium HP server that EFI will not permit the VGA
to be the console so I made some changes with EFI Manager.
This document will help others to solve their issue in installing
linux or any OS with their HP integrity RX 16XX servers.

I will just explain to all the readers of this blogs what
I'd experience and work around.

After the successful installation and Upon reboot, the system will show up
the message "Loading initrd...." but it will stop there.

Solution and work around:

**************************************************************
In this link you will see the reordering of serial devices and
explaination why HP will not use the VGA.

http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/ia64/release-notes/ch-upgrading.en.html

4.6.5 Serial device reordering

If you have an HP machine and you're using the MP serial console port (the connector labelled "console" on the 3-headed cable), this kernel upgrade will break your console!

Upon reboot, the system will show up the message "Loading initrd...." but it will stop there. Notice that systems with outdated firmware will show similar symptoms, although the issue is related to kernel incompatibilities (see Upgrading to a 2.6 kernel, Section 5.2).

Please read the following information before upgrading.

The console device will change from ttyS0 to ttyS1, ttyS2, or ttyS3 so
- Edit /etc/inittab to add a getty entry for /dev/ttyS1 (rx4640, rx5670, rx7620, rx8620, Superdome), /dev/ttyS2 (rx1600), or /dev/ttyS3 (rx2600).
- Edit /etc/securetty to add ttyS1, ttyS2, or ttyS3.
- Leave the existing ttyS0 entries in /etc/inittab and /etc/securetty so you can still boot old kernels.

Edit /etc/elilo.conf to remove any "console=" arguments.

Run elilo to install the bootloader with new configuration.

Reboot and use the EFI boot option maintenance menu to select exactly one device for console output, input, and standard error. Then do a cold reset so the changes take effect.

For the MP console, be careful to select the device with "Acpi(HWP0002,700)/Pci(...)/Uart" in the path.

More details about these changes and troubleshooting hints are available at http://lists.debian.org/debian-ia64/2005/01/msg00008.htm

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Document how Linux/ia64 names serial devices and how to use them
as console devices.

Signed-off-by: Bjorn Helgaas 

--- /dev/null 2003-09-17 12:43:43.000000000 -0600
+++ linux-2.5/Documentation/ia64/serial.txt 2004-12-08 10:36:38.893573600 -0700
@@ -0,0 +1,144 @@
+SERIAL DEVICE NAMING
+
+    As of 2.6.10, serial devices on ia64 are named based on the
+    order of ACPI and PCI enumeration.  The first device in the
+    ACPI namespace (if any) becomes /dev/ttyS0, the second becomes
+    /dev/ttyS1, etc., and PCI devices are named sequentially
+    starting after the ACPI devices.
+
+    Prior to 2.6.10, there were confusing exceptions to this:
+
+ - Firmware on some machines (mostly from HP) provides an HCDP
+   table[1] that tells the kernel about devices that can be used
+   as a serial console.  If the user specified "console=ttyS0"
+   or the EFI ConOut path contained only UART devices, the
+   kernel registered the device described by the HCDP as
+   /dev/ttyS0.
+
+ - If there was no HCDP, we assumed there were UARTs at the
+   legacy COM port addresses (I/O ports 0x3f8 and 0x2f8), so
+   the kernel registered those as /dev/ttyS0 and /dev/ttyS1.
+
+    Any additional ACPI or PCI devices were registered sequentially
+    after /dev/ttyS0 as they were discovered.
+
+    With an HCDP, device names changed depending on EFI configuration
+    and "console=" arguments.  Without an HCDP, device names didn't
+    change, but we registered devices that might not really exist.
+
+    For example, an HP rx1600 with a single built-in serial port
+    (described in the ACPI namespace) plus an MP[2] (a PCI device) has
+    these ports:
+
+                                  pre-2.6.10      pre-2.6.10
+                    MMIO         (EFI console    (EFI console
+                   address        on builtin)     on MP port)    2.6.10
+                  ==========      ==========      ==========     ======
+      builtin     0xff5e0000        ttyS0           ttyS1         ttyS0
+      MP UPS      0xf8031000        ttyS1           ttyS2         ttyS1
+      MP Console  0xf8030000        ttyS2           ttyS0         ttyS2
+      MP 2        0xf8030010        ttyS3           ttyS3         ttyS3
+      MP 3        0xf8030038        ttyS4           ttyS4         ttyS4
+
+CONSOLE SELECTION
+
+    EFI knows what your console devices are, but it doesn't tell the
+    kernel quite enough to actually locate them.  The DIG64 HCDP
+    table[1] does tell the kernel where potential serial console
+    devices are, but not all firmware supplies it.  Also, EFI supports
+    multiple simultaneous consoles and doesn't tell the kernel which
+    should be the "primary" one.
+
+    So how do you tell Linux which console device to use?
+
+ - If your firmware supplies the HCDP, it is simplest to
+   configure EFI with a single device (either a UART or a VGA
+   card) as the console.  Then you don't need to tell Linux
+   anything; the kernel will automatically use the EFI console.
+
+   (This works only in 2.6.6 or later; prior to that you had
+   to specify "console=ttyS0" to get a serial console.)
+
+ - Without an HCDP, Linux defaults to a VGA console unless you
+   specify a "console=" argument.
+
+    NOTE: Don't assume that a serial console device will be /dev/ttyS0.
+    It might be ttyS1, ttyS2, etc.  Make sure you have the appropriate
+    entries in /etc/inittab (for getty) and /etc/securetty (to allow
+    root login).
+
+EARLY SERIAL CONSOLE
+
+    The kernel can't start using a serial console until it knows where
+    the device lives.  Normally this happens when the driver enumerates
+    all the serial devices, which can happen a minute or more after the
+    kernel starts booting.
+
+    2.6.10 and later kernels have an "early uart" driver that works
+    very early in the boot process.  The kernel will automatically use
+    this if the user supplies an argument like "console=uart,io,0x3f8",
+    or if the EFI console path contains only a UART device and the
+    firmware supplies an HCDP.
+
+TROUBLESHOOTING SERIAL CONSOLE PROBLEMS
+
+    No kernel output after elilo prints "Uncompressing Linux... done":
+
+ - You specified "console=ttyS0" but Linux changed the device
+   to which ttyS0 refers.  Configure exactly one EFI console
+   device[3] and remove the "console=" option.
+
+ - The EFI console path contains both a VGA device and a UART.
+   EFI and elilo use both, but Linux defaults to VGA.  Remove
+   the VGA device from the EFI console path[3].
+
+ - Multiple UARTs selected as EFI console devices.  EFI and
+   elilo use all selected devices, but Linux uses only one.
+   Make sure only one UART is selected in the EFI console
+   path[3].
+
+ - You're connected to an HP MP port[2] but have a non-MP UART
+   selected as EFI console device.  EFI uses the MP as a
+   console device even when it isn't explicitly selected.
+   Either move the console cable to the non-MP UART, or change
+   the EFI console path[3] to the MP UART.
+
+    Long pause (60+ seconds) between "Uncompressing Linux... done" and
+    start of kernel output:
+
+ - No early console because you used "console=ttyS".  Remove
+   the "console=" option if your firmware supplies an HCDP.
+
+ - If you don't have an HCDP, the kernel doesn't know where
+   your console lives until the driver discovers serial
+   devices.  Use "console=uart, io,0x3f8" (or appropriate
+   address for your machine).
+
+    Kernel and init script output works fine, but no "login:" prompt:
+
+ - Add getty entry to /etc/inittab for console tty.  Look for
+   the "Adding console on ttyS" message that tells you which
+   device is the console.
+
+    "login:" prompt, but can't login as root:
+
+ - Add entry to /etc/securetty for console tty.
+
+
+
+[1] http://www.dig64.org/specifications/DIG64_PCDPv20.pdf
+    The table was originally defined as the "HCDP" for "Headless
+    Console/Debug Port."  The current version is the "PCDP" for
+    "Primary Console and Debug Port Devices."
+
+[2] The HP MP (management processor) is a PCI device that provides
+    several UARTs.  One of the UARTs is often used as a console; the
+    EFI Boot Manager identifies it as "Acpi(HWP0002,700)/Pci(...)/Uart".
+    The external connection is usually a 25-pin connector, and a
+    special dongle converts that to three 9-pin connectors, one of
+    which is labelled "Console."
+
+[3] EFI console devices are configured using the EFI Boot Manager
+    "Boot option maintenance" menu.  You may have to interrupt the
+    boot sequence to use this menu, and you will have to reset the
+    box after changing console configuration.


------------------------------------------------------------------
***********To make it easier to understand do the following below. *********

When the EFI console path contains exactly one device (either serial or VGA).
EFI console devices are configured using the EFI Boot Manager
+    "Boot option maintenance" menu.  You may have to interrupt the
+    boot sequence to use this menu, and you will have to reset the
+    box after changing console configuration.

Reboot and use the EFI boot option maintenance menu to select exactly one device for console output, input, and standard error. Then do a cold reset so the changes take effect.

For the MP console, be careful to select the device with "Acpi(HWP0002,700)/Pci(...)/Uart" in the path. or if you VGA (choose it)

A Step by Step Setup of a Trixbox Server and Polycom Soundpoint IP 501 SIP

noreply@blogger.com (Ehrwin) — Sat, 19 May 2007 15:47:00 +0000

A Step by Step Setup of a Trixbox Server and Polycom Soundpoint IP 501 SIP

( Click the Advertise Logo Icon to help blogger in expense of time and effort in R and D)

1. Login into you new trixbox server with the username: root and the password you selected during installation (command console or remote connection via ssh client like putty).

2. When you log in the system will tell you what IP address it received from your DHCP server. You can give the system a permanent address now by typing netconfig. If you reconfigured the IP address restart the network by typing service network restart.

2.1 In executing the command help-trixbox, the Help commands and descriptions are printed in the screen.

2.2 The command passwd-maint, is a help command that set master password for web GUI.

Note: You need to execute this command before switching a user mode (in the web GUI).

2.3 The command Setup-polycom, is a help commands that creates Polycom default files in /tftpboot.

Note: You need to execute this command after switching mode and after assigning ip addresses to all Polycom Phones.

2.4 To continue configuration connect to your system with a web browser, Enter the web GUI URL address.

2.5 Click on Switch next to User Mode this will open the Admin GUI. Login with user:maint pass:password

2.6 Admin GUI screen will open. Click on Asterisk -> FreePBX. This will open the FreePBX configuration GUI Admin Screen

2.7 Click Setup -> Administrator Fill the required fields for

Username: Sample
Department: IT
EXTension Range: 6211 to 6299
Admin Access: For default settings highlight ALL SECTIONS

Click Submit Changes and when you are done click the red commit bar at the top of the screen Apply Configuration Changes , then Click Extension to open Extension screen.

2.8 In Add an Extension Menu -> Generic SIP Device -> click Submit -> another screen will be extended and Fill the required fields for

User Extension: 6211
Display Name: Ehrwin Mina
Secret: 6211 <- Just put the extension number too
Leave other setting in default

Click Submit and when you are done click the red commit bar at the top of the screen Apply Configuration Changes. Continue adding extension until completing the ranges that you need.

2.9 You have a PBX now you need a phone to configure.

Configuring the Polycom SoundPoint IP 501 SIP Device. At this point, I recommend you go in through the interface on the phone itself to configure as much as you can. Why? Because as I mentioned earlier, the web interface takes forever to become active after a reboot, and it has to reboot a LOT if you do all this on the web. Fortunately, most of the settings can be done on the phone itself...in fact, only tweaks for setting up the Message Waiting Indicator (MWI) light functionality and registering the Asterisk server under the individual lines need be doneon the web interface.

Press the Menu button, then go to "3. Settings..." and then "2. Advanced...". Enter in the admin password of 456 again. Choose "Admin Settings..." and then "Reset to Default" and "Reset Local Config." IF YOU DO NOT DO THIS, SOME OF THE SETTINGS YOU MAKE BELOW WILL NOT BE SAVED. You need to overwrite the data that was in the XML configuration files on the TFTP server. (By the way, you can use the Format File System option under this menu to completely wipe everything away, including all ROM files and most settings, and start over from scratch.)

After rebooting, go back to Menu/Settings/Advanded and put in the following important settings:

1. Admin Settings
1. Network Configuration
This is the same as you edited during boot, for reference.

DHCP Client: Disabled
Phone IP Addr:
Subnet Mask:
IP Gateway:
for now leave other setting for default/Disabled
Save config -> Reboot phone

3. Using the EndPoint Manager screen, to configure the Polycom phone extension. Click on Asterisk -> EndPoint Manager (a screen will open like the screenshot ehrwin mina below).

3.1 Click Polycom Phones -> FreePBX Device ID {choose for extension with username} -> Phone Type {IP 501} -> Mac Address {0004F2059676} -> click Submit button.

3.2 click Submit button. A list of Manage Polycom Phone are present in the screen (this feature also applicable in cisco’s voip units)

3.3 Using EndPoint Manager Map Devices features. Click on Asterisk -> EndPoint Manager (a screen will open like the screenshot below) -> GO button and wait for the list of Map Devices.

3.4 Using EndPoint Map Devices features, to configure the extension line of every Polycom Phones. Click on IP Address (a screen will open like the screenshot below).

3.5 Configuring the extension line of every Polycom Phones. Click on Line1 or Register1, Login with user:Polycom pass:456 (a screen will open like the screenshot below).

3.5 Fill all required information need list below (a screen will open like the screenshot below).

Line1: ...

This sub-menu is one of three, with Line2 and Line3 allowing you to add up
to three different extensions to the phone. There are three soft buttons
along the left of the display which show these lines. For the purposes
of this config (and what most people will do anyway), you'll have all
three of these lines show up as the same extension, so people can receive
and make multiple calls simultaneously.

Display Name

A mostly useless feature; does not override caller ID. Just put the person's name there.

Address

This is the extension number in Asterisk. To continue the example,
we'll set this as 510 to match our Asterisk config.

Auth User ID

Put the extension number in here again.

Auth Password

This is where you put the "password=" or "secret=" value from your
sip.conf file. In our example, this was "polycom" or the extension number.

Num Line Keys / Third Party Name

Here is where you tell the phone how many soft buttons to assign
this line. As mentioned above, we'll put 3 here so that we have
three instances of the line.

Server Address

Put the Trixbox server IP address in here.

Server Port

Put 5060 in here.

Server Expires

Put 3600 in here.

Server Register

Put the 1in here. Enable to register lines with the Asterisk server under the Line1

3.6 Click Submit (a screen will open like the screenshot below).

Leave other setting in default that are not listed here.

Wait for the Polycom Phones finish rebooting, You can now start using the trixbox with Polycom phone extensions.

copyright of ECM register

phpmyadmin authentication timeout

noreply@blogger.com (Ehrwin) — Sat, 19 May 2007 15:41:00 +0000

I'm just an occasional user of phpmyadmin, but some colleagues who heavily works on databases told me that they were really annoyed by the fact that after a quite short amount of time they needed to authenticate again.

The problem is that the cookie authentication set the lifetime of the cookie itself to 1800 seconds (30 minutes); after 30 minutes you need to login again.

If you like to change this behavior, edit the file /etc/phpmyadmin/config.inc.php and add the following line:

$cfg['LoginCookieValidity'] = 18000;

this will set the lifetime of the cookie to 5 hours (18000 seconds).

Note: this solution came from

http://www.dotticontra.org/blog/post/phpmyadmin_authentication_timeout.html

Its working fine with my phpmyadmin.

An error occurred opening that folder on the FTP Server, Make sure you have permission to access that folder

noreply@blogger.com (Ehrwin) — Sat, 19 May 2007 15:14:00 +0000

The error is 'An error occurred opening that folder on the FTP Server, Make sure you have permission to access that folder. Details: The connection with the server was reset'. Here's a few behaviours we've seen so far:

Case 1: Going to ftp.nospy.com gave the error but going to ftp.nospy.com/nospy was fine. Then going back to ftp.nospy.com was fine too.

Case 2: Opening ftp.nospy.com in IE was fine, but then opening it in Windows explorer gave the error.

Case 3: Browsing ftp.nospy.com/nospy was working fine, but then browsing into the /content sub-folder or /shareware sub-folders gave the error. Browsing into the /builds folder worked fine, and then browsing back into the /content or /shareware subfolders were fine too.

Solution:

Update the proftp packages by hitting the commands apt-get dist-upgrade then it will prompt for a step by step instruction (default setting is still the best for it)

Reclusive Linux founder opens up

noreply@blogger.com (Ehrwin) — Mon, 22 May 2006 11:38:00 +0000

Friday, May 19, 2006 Posted: 0954 GMT (1754 HKT)

(CNN) -- Portland, Oregon is the unlikely capital of a global software revolution. The revolution is called Open Source. And its leader? Linus Torvalds, the reclusive founder of Linux.

Friday, May 19, 2006 Posted: 0954 GMT (1754 HKT)
Linux founder Linus Torvalds now makes his base in Portland, Oregon.

Linux is the free software code developed by a global community of programmers. It's also the world's fastest growing operating system and number two behind Microsoft.

Torvalds works full time overseeing the development of Linux which he created back in 1991 while at university in Helsinki.

Usually media shy, the 36-year-old Finn invited Kristie Lu Stout and the Global Office team into his home for an insight into life at the helm of the operating system that is giving Microsoft some serious headaches.

Kristie Lu Stout: What role do you play in the development of Linux today?

Linus Torvalds: Well today what I do mostly is actually communication. I started out as the main developer but these days what I do is act as the central point for other people who do a lot of development and I gather it all together and basically communicate with people what needs to be done and so on.

KLS: What's your ballpark figure in terms of how many Linux developers there are out there?

LT: I actually only work with a few handfuls so I tend to directly interact with maybe 10 - 20 people and they in turn interact with other people. So depending on how you count, if you count just the core people, 20 -50 people. If you count everybody who's involved; five thousand people -- and you can really put the number anywhere in between... Almost, pretty much all, real work is done over e-mail so it doesn't matter where people are.

KLS: So you have the core people, you have the developers and you have the testers. What do you think motivates everyone, drives everyone to create the best work possible to create a good product?

LT: A lot of the core people just feel excited about the technology. And that's why a lot of people just start; that's where I started from, it was just the excitement of doing something yourself. It's kind of like a hobby. You can tinker with cars, you can tinker with computers. There are a lot of technical issues that are just very exciting if you're that kind of person...At least from the developers' standpoint, nobody does it because they hate Microsoft. None of the people I work with do it for that reason. They do it because they love doing what they do.

Tremendous growth

KLS: In the last year we've seen tremendous growth in Linux usage especially on desktop computers, especially with stuff out there like Open Office, especially the Firefox browser. Do you think we're nearing a tipping point where Linux is becoming mainstream?

LT: Well as far as I'm concerned it's actually been pretty mainstream. Already I've been doing this for 15 years and you have to realize that I've got a slightly different viewpoint on the whole thing.

KLS: I understand, but let's say your mom or my mom, they're surfing the Internet but maybe they're not surfing with Firefox just yet or they don't really know what Linux is just yet.

LT: Open source is definitely getting to the point where a lot of people who don't actually know about the technology start to know about the notion of open source and start to use the products. Not just Linux, I mean Firefox is certainly the one that a lot of people will have seen because they prefer it, because it's better or because it's more secure or for any other number of reasons.

KLS: Another reason, because it's an alternative to Microsoft?

LT: Well that is, I think, played up more than it necessarily needs to be. Because there is a very vocal side to this which is the whole anti Microsoft thing. I think it makes a better story than is necessarily true in real life.

KLS: Now let's go back to the beginnings when Linux first started in the early 1990s. What motivated you to give away the source code?

LT: I didn't start thinking I want to give out the source code. What I started doing, already at that point I was 21, I was at Helsinki University and for half my life I'd been doing programming. All the projects I'd ever done had been projects for my own enjoyment -- technical challenges, but also to just solve issues that I had. And Linux really was nothing different from that. So open source was not really a conscious decision of "I want to make this open source." To a large degree open source was just a way to allow others to look at this and say, "Hey, this is what I've done -- I'm proud of this."

KLS: Do you think there was a little bit of bragging involved?

LT: Absolutely. There was a bit of bragging, there was also a bit of, hey, I still, the way I do my work is I sit these days downstairs in my basement alone. And it's nice to just talk to people and a lot of it was probably just social, just saying, hey this is a way to interact with other geeks who are probably also socially inadequate in many ways.

KLS: And you have a mascot for all this which is the penguin. How did that happen?

LT: I felt that Linux wanted and needed a very nice kind of friendly mascot to kind of offset some of the geekiness and the hard technology. So selecting an animal was a pretty obvious thing to do. And at the same time you want something that is exotic; you don't want a dog or a cat because that's just too everyday. And everybody likes penguins, so I actually decided I want a penguin as my mascot. I want it to be cuddly, I want it to be a plush toy kind of penguin and I could do that myself. So we actually farmed out that design too and we just had a small competition for who could make the nicest penguin. Now you can see the winning end result everywhere on the web.

KLS: Did you ever think about getting into the money game, getting insanely rich from the operating system, which is now the fastest growing operating system in the world that you created?

LT: Well I got rich enough. This isn't bad. It wasn't what I was interested in. In many ways I am very happy about the whole Linux commercial market because the commercial market is doing all these things that I have absolutely zero interest in doing myself. The commercial market is how I actually get a pay check every month. And I get it for doing what I want to do and that is the technical side. I don't want to have anything to do with the commercial marketing stuff. I think everybody is actually quite happy about this arrangement, that people can do what they specialize in, not just on the technical side but overall.

KLS: Over the years, Linux has spawned other open technologies and even an open source spirit or open source philosophy. It has engendered stuff like Wikipedia, the online open source encyclopedia or even, some could argue, citizen journalism. What are your thoughts about that?

LT: We shouldn't give credit to Linux per se. There were open source projects and free software before Linux was there. Linux in many ways is one of the more visible and one of the bigger technical projects in this area and it changed how people looked at it because Linux took both the practical and ideological approach. At the same time I don't think this whole "openness" notion is new. In fact I often compare open source to science. To where science took this whole notion of developing ideas in the open and improving on other peoples' ideas and making it into what science is today, and the incredible advances that we have had. And I compare that to witchcraft and alchemy, where openness was something you didn't do. So openness is not something new, it is something that actually has worked for a long time.

KLS: What is your favorite offshoot of the open source philosophy?

LT: That is an unexpected question. I don't even know. I think the nicest part of it is not really the open source side but the whole community side which was to me not really expected at all. But it is really what keeps me motivated these days.

KLS: Now you are something of a rock star in tech circles...

LT: I don't notice that in normal life. I don't actually go to that many conferences. I do that a couple of times a year. Normally I am not recognized, people don't throw their panties at me. I'm a perfectly normal person sitting in my den just doing my job.

KLS: How often do you get the chance to see your fellow Linux contributors face to face?

LT: Not very often. There are a few of them that are local. I meet with them very occasionally. We go out for beer or breakfast or something. We have two conferences a year that people go to and those are largely social. I mean sometimes you also work out issues face to face during the conferences. Maybe it is easier to agree, but most of it really is about the social side when you go to conferences and you will find people sitting at the same table with laptops and they will send each other emails, because it is often a better way to communicate when you have a technical issue; you can write it down more, you can point to the code.

KLS: So the face to face thing is a little bit overrated?

LT: I think so. For example I long ago decided I will never go to meetings again because I think face to face meetings are the biggest waste of time you can ever have. I think most people who work at offices must share my opinion on meetings. Nothing ever gets done. When things get done, you usually have someone come into your office to talk about it. But a lot of the time the real work gets done by people sitting, especially in programming, alone in front of their computers doing what they do best.

KLS: What are your thoughts about the future of Linux and whether or not it can continue to survive without you?

LT: It has grown so much bigger than me. Ten years ago it needed me, both personally and as a figurehead. These days, there are tons of companies, there are lots of people who know the technology. I end up being the central gathering point but it's because people know me, people trust me. I am neutral. I really like doing Linux. I like the technical challenges, I like the interaction and as long as I am the best person for it I want to do it.

KLS: So it sounds like, going forward you are still going to do the job, be the as you put it, the central focus point of the Linux development process?

LT: Right. At the same time I will also try to farm out as much as possible. I still want to be the central point, but I don't want to be the bottleneck for anything and that does require that you trust a lot of other people and you just say, "hey, you make the decision, I am not going to micro-manage," because that really doesn't work. That drives people wild and when you don't even pay them they won't accept it, so I can't afford to be that type of bottleneck either.

KLS: Is there anything else you want to accomplish going forward?

LT: No, but on the other hand I am not the kind of person that really plans ahead a lot. When I started Linux it wasn't because I wanted to be where I am today. I am more of an "everyday as it comes" type of person. I am very happy that I feel like I do something meaningful, that has made a difference, that actually a lot of people use. But at the same time I don't have and I never have had any big visionary goals.

FreeBSD 5.5-RC1 Available

noreply@blogger.com (Ehrwin) — Wed, 17 May 2006 12:13:00 +0000

Ken Smith kensmith at cse.Buffalo.EDU
Tue May 16 17:11:33 UTC 2006

FreeBSD 5.5-RC1 is now available for testing. Things had been going
well with the 5.5 BETAs up to the point we suspended making them so we
could focus on the balance of the 6.1 release so we think 5.5 is pretty
much ready to go. Unless big problems are reported with this RC we will
start the 5.5 release builds this coming weekend and do the release
early next week.

The ISOs and FTP install bits for pc98 and sparc64 were loaded on
ftp-master shortly before I posted this message so it may take a little
time for them to propagate to the FTP mirror sites. The other
architectures had been there for a while now so they should be available
on all the FTP mirror sites by now.

If you find problems while testing please submit a PR or post a message
to this list.

Thanks.

Checksums:

MD5 (5.5-RC1-alpha-bootonly.iso) = caf1d3d28d77e20fdda428d324ec17e2
MD5 (5.5-RC1-alpha-disc1.iso) = 40a4f2126292e858a76f8f492e6475bb

MD5 (5.5-RC1-amd64-bootonly.iso) = 32ae3ff6f6e02d5bb678f283f26c716e
MD5 (5.5-RC1-amd64-disc1.iso) = 89bb2f990478f10c1bbd45fda7162f34
MD5 (5.5-RC1-amd64-disc2.iso) = b99774504be6a8ac806cc8ea486c969a

MD5 (5.5-RC1-i386-bootonly.iso) = 8104d1b291d0f6d63457eec28d35919f
MD5 (5.5-RC1-i386-disc1.iso) = caf16c0dc8739fa262e82b6f13feae2d
MD5 (5.5-RC1-i386-disc2.iso) = cbfdfc71879177040263cf7f8dd25a2b

MD5 (5.5-RC1-pc98-disc1.iso) = 64f282ad2b715ca0748576b0cb70b939

MD5 (5.5-RC1-sparc64-bootonly.iso) = b378e59df11540773c68092e7d7cc63a
MD5 (5.5-RC1-sparc64-disc1.iso) = 76c28110dba53b6173dc602f4b988d8d
MD5 (5.5-RC1-sparc64-disc2.iso) = 66eda6b1de93e20d82c6fcfaaf957d85

SHA256 (5.5-RC1-amd64-bootonly.iso) = 0e3f533b44698c1786360379ad03b9845dc31db37de65d39455735e6a8a5907c
SHA256 (5.5-RC1-amd64-disc1.iso) = adda63a1fbec183b9c29e3a00486718163f1371a3c5d914062fc258e6449f080
SHA256 (5.5-RC1-amd64-disc2.iso) = 69a24872f6ca41800b3137c0064bfb1a8d0d71e7f3aa18d3cdca1b74167370f0

SHA256 (5.5-RC1-i386-bootonly.iso) = d682cb4b10f4cfe18175a21798d98a57be3f38f64772940bda2cc679e7848ba0
SHA256 (5.5-RC1-i386-disc1.iso) = c258782b0967924762e5d623febe90ab269f36babc0f76a663704baf625bb0c6
SHA256 (5.5-RC1-i386-disc2.iso) = 8ee6a26013f567b78c81300930d130f200e2f4b105cf1ef9ffff34ea2e15d582

SHA256 (5.5-RC1-pc98-disc1.iso) = 780ae906de6858da2df6481ec8869fa42171977d8fc59d26ad1b6537a30bb12b

SHA256 (5.5-RC1-sparc64-bootonly.iso) = 22f46ff799f5d473e319f6be838fba834d9408838b68170cc637990082e0df5a
SHA256 (5.5-RC1-sparc64-disc1.iso) = 72c334d0a44c76735c51c91fe545b39e5ad199fc52ad92b5ba20e25666dc5c05
SHA256 (5.5-RC1-sparc64-disc2.iso) = afcedf692bfeab13442a262b6cbdc2db1e1fc986e8a1c7247b16efa6fcb402c0

My Profile

noreply@blogger.com (Ehrwin) — Wed, 10 May 2006 08:56:00 +0000

Author: Ehrwin C. Mina
Date: Wednesday, 10 May 2006
Topic: Linux/Unix

My name is Ehrwin C. Mina. I was born on the 16th of April in 1975, at the Medical Centre in Las Pinas City, Philippines. Currently I live in Makati City, one of the City Business District of Philippines Republic. I've finished B. S. in Computer Engineering at the Saint Francis of Assisi College System in Las Pinas City (birthplace of the famous BAMBOO ORGAN CHURCH).

My interest in computers started in 1990, when my parents bought their first computer (a 80286). After that we had several computers. Currently I own a fine selection of machines; two x86 (network), an IBM Laptop and HP compaq nx9010 (service unit from my current employer). I also have a O2 XDA 2 - PDA. My primary operating system is a Debian OS and dual boot with OpenBSD, the second computer runs CENTOS Linux and dual boot with Solaris 10 (this changes every once in a while).

Other than computers, my biggest hobbies are my family, friends and my two dogs (fhuray and bhulak). I'm also a huge music-lover, having a large collection of (legal) CDs and LPs. My taste in music is very diverse, ranging from The Beatles, Eagles to Bruce Springsteen, to Garbage and Roxette, all the way up to Frank Sinatra and Oasis (suck). And much, much more. I'm currently a Network Operation Center Manager of company here in Makati, and I have a side-job of teaching linux and other IT stuff.

Im a task oriented leader that often creates guidelines to get the job done in time,also let the members to know what i decided and always inform them exactly how the job will be accomplish.

Im a concerned leader that keeps people on track by facilitating their work, but not monitoring every detail. Conduct a regular meeting, monthly General Assembly report that ensure have the tools they need to get a job done.

Act as a well-balance leader that cultivates their awareness of inclinations toward one orientation of becoming more skilled and to adjust their behavior to suit both the situation needs of the group members, also doing what comes naturally needs to yield to more conscious decision-making in order to lead most effectively.

Generally I administers heteregenous network consisting of mixed flavors of OPEN SOURCE and Microsoft in developing and designing NETWORK and SERVERS. Im responsible for the maintenance and the 24/7 monitoring of all mission critical servers, leased line, CISCO routers, local directors, ORACLE and other Database server, and all the SMSC connection from both carriers (smart, globe). Handles server installation/upgrade (In-depth knowledge of installing and modifying UNIX OS and kernels) and maintenance, assisting programmers to their application programs (testing, troubleshooting and make programs/ scripting if needed. I also handles cisco routers setup, planning and designing, local director for network designing and firewall. Administers the server with Perl and shell scripting (
for backup, maintenance), and responsible for the administration of MAIL server, NETWORK SECURITY( system security management, vulnerability assessment and maintenance, implementation of security policies, breach prevention and intervention).

Kernel Panic: Defining System Inconsistencies

noreply@blogger.com (Ehrwin) — Tue, 09 May 2006 13:24:00 +0000

Author: Puru Govind
Date: Wednesday, 03 May 2006
Topic: Linux/Unix

(Review) - Kernel panic is a web comic started and maintained by Christopher Wright. The main characters of this comic are a group of UNIX and Linux server administrators ordered to change the server farm over Nifty Doorways. It’s a humorous way of looking at otherwise complicated, mundane and dry topics, especially for those of you who deal with such scenarios constantly.

Kernel panic, in this article, however, will refer to a message displayed by an operating system after detecting a system inconsistency from which it cannot recover completely (Linux displays the Kernel Panic, while Windows displays the Blue Screen of Death - soon to become Red in Vista). These errors occur in kernel space and not in user space. These kernel messages are often too cryptic to comprehend rationally, but they clearly provide enough information that’s important for developers in order to resolve a particular problem. Generally, these messages aid developers by recording all information that appeared during the Kernel Panic, for example recording the status of each process and hardware.

The Kernel panic message is there since early versions of UNIX. Multics developer Tom van Vleck recalls a discussion of this change with UNIX developer Dennis Ritchie:

"I remarked to Dennis that easily half the code I was writing in Multics was error recovery code. He said, 'We left all that stuff out. If there's an error, we have this routine called panic, and when it is called, the machine crashes, and you holler down the hall, 'Hey, reboot it.' ‘"

Kernel panic can occur due to various reasons.

1.
Kernel panic occurs whenever the operating system attempts to read an invalid address or addresses that are not permitted for access.
2.
A panic may also occur if the hardware settings are changed considerably.
3.
As a result of a hardware failure.
4.
Panics can also occur during the boot sequence, if the processes needed are not running properly or conditions for a successful boot are not met.
5.
File system errors. Most of these errors can be done with by running file system error recovery programs like fsck for Linux and ScanDisk for Windows. These error results in panic when these errors are unrecoverable.
6.
Failure of memory allocation.
7.
Task exit during an interrupt handler.
8.
When the whole memory is exhausted.
9.
Unexpected destruction of kernel structures like struct task_struct.
10.
Failure to load essential drivers.

Linux kernel defines the mechanism for a panic in function panic() in kernel/panic.c file. Actually, the panic() function call of the Linux kernel is prone to a buffer overflow vulnerability.

The vulnerability is reported when an unbounded vsprintf() call within panic() copies user supplied data into a fixed buffer. But some reports say this vulnerability is not exploitable to any means.

You can gather, save, and analyze information about the kernel when the system dies due to software failure using few utilities. One such utility is LKCD (Linux Kernel Crash Dump). We’ll delve into these utilities in the near future.

The only thing you can do after a kernel panic is to restart your machine.

The "GNU/Linux" and "Linux" Controversy

noreply@blogger.com (Ehrwin) — Tue, 09 May 2006 13:21:00 +0000

(Column) - This famous controversy is there ever since I became aware of operating systems known as GNU/Linux. The GNU General Public License (GPL), which is used by Linux as well as most GNU software, armors both characters.

GNU/Linux is the term coined by the Free Software Foundation (FSF), Richard Stallman (FSF founder) and people who support FSF, for operating systems composed of the FSF's GNU software and the Linux kernel; such systems are generally called "Linux." In 1985, Stallman published the GNU Manifesto, which outlined his motivation for creating a free operating system called GNU, which would be compatible with UNIX. The name GNU is a recursive acronym for "GNU is Not Unix." Soon after, he incorporated the non-profit Free Software Foundation (FSF) to employ free software programmers and provide a legal infrastructure for the free software community.According to Wikipedia.org, the main argument for "GNU/Linux" is that Linus Torvalds' kernel was only a small, albeit final part of an otherwise complete system, GNU, written and assembled over many years with the explicit goal of creating an integrated free operating system.

This is what Richard Stallman said, "Actually no, that is not what we say. What we say is that this system is basically the GNU operating system, with Linux added."

In fact, one of Richard Stallman’s criteria for giving an interview to a journalist was that the journalist agrees to use his terminology throughout his article. Sometimes he even makes sure that the journalist has read the GNU philosophy before interviewing him, for "efficiency's sake." He has been known to turn down speaking requests over some terminology issues.

He says that the interconnection or coexistence between the GNU project's philosophy and its software is broken when people refer to the combination as merely "Linux." This practice is described as "just ridiculous" by Linus Torvalds (more about this later) in the documentary Revolution OS. Nevertheless, Torvalds is also quoted as saying: "Think of Richard Stallman as the great philosopher and think of me as the engineer."

Now let us see the other side of the coin, i.e. people who say that Linux is more than enough for a name. Linux is by far the most widespread name, and most people therefore simply adopt this usage, while references to the naming controversy appear only infrequently in mainstream sources. "Linux" has the most historical momentum because it is the name Torvalds has used for the combined system since 1991, while Stallman only began asking people to call the system "GNU/Linux" in the mid 1990s, some time after the "Linux" name had already become popular. "Linux" is shorter and easier to say than "GNU/Linux," particularly given Stallman's suggested pronunciation Guh-NÜ-slash-Linux or Guh-NÜ-plus-Linux.

In reply to Stallman, Linus Torvalds stated: "Well, I think it's justified, but it's justified if you actually make a GNU distribution of Linux ... the same way that I think that "Red Hat Linux" is fine, or "SuSE Linux" or "Debian Linux," because if you actually make your own distribution of Linux, you get to name the thing, but calling Linux in general "GNU Linux" I think is just ridiculous."

A person on this side thinks that RMS is taking this controversy to new heights because he is frustrated that he did not get the same recognition as Linus Torvalds.

When I wrote my first article on "Is Linux-like Environment for Windows Really Required?," I received an e-mail from David Kastrup and we had a small discussion. Then he told me that there are few places where GNU/Linux name isn’t applicable. There are actually Linux systems that are not GNU: embedded systems using the Linux kernel, but basically none of the GNU libraries and utilities. Some rescue disks and systems, too.

But the problem is that much of what people have come to associate with "Linux" is in reality rather "GNU" or third-party associations. All this needs maintenance, work, funds, and a lot of work in that area is done, organized and paid for by the FSF. It’s not easy for the FSF to raise funds for that kind of work, since public perception is that they are just leeches on Linux fame and have never been able to come up with a system of their own even though they are, in fact, responsible for keeping much of the services running that people call "Linux."

How-To: Compile a Linux Kernel

noreply@blogger.com (Ehrwin) — Tue, 09 May 2006 12:51:00 +0000

Author: Puru Govind
Date: Monday, 08 May 2006
Topic: Featured Story

(Review) - According to Wikipedia.org, "the kernel is the core piece of most operating systems. It is a piece of software responsible for the communication between hardware and software components. As a basic component of an operating system, a kernel provides abstraction layers for hardware, especially for memory, processors and communication between hardware and software. It also provides software facilities such as process abstractions and makes interprocess communication easier."

Now that I have written so much about Linux kernel, I realize that many people reading those articles do not even know how to compile them. There are obviously many reasons why you need to compile your Linux kernel, such as:

- To patch your kernel.
- You have a university assignment.
- You are doing a course "Linux Kernel" as an undergraduate.
- You have coded your own device driver a device that isn’t supported yet.
- You think that there is some better way of process scheduling or memory management technique and you want to implement it.
- To try a new version of Linux kernel.

To start, you should have kernel code to compile (a fairly logical step). You can download it or copy it from /usr/src directory, make modifications and save it back to some directory.

Then, if you have ncurses installed on your system and working on normal console, type in "make menuconfig," or "make xconfig" if you are using X server.

Whatever you type in, you will be presented with a box with numerous yeses, so to speak, but no options. It asks the user to input a number of options. If he chooses yes, then that functionality would be compiled right into the kernel. This makes its execution quite faster. If you choose module as your option, then that functionality will be compiled as a module. For example: you can make your sound card or printer drivers as modules, but you can’t make your memory manager or file system a module. These things must be compiled into the compiler. After you get over with this, save the configuration and run make dep. These will resolve all dependencies needed to compile the Linux kernel. According to James Andrews in one of his articles, make dep builds the tree of interdependencies in the kernel sources. These dependencies may have been affected by the options you have chosen in the configuration step.

After make dep, you need to type in ‘make clean.’ This will remove all old object files and will take little time compared to other steps.

After this, you need to do make bzImage. This will rename your kernel to bzImage and gets stored in /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage. The current kernel is generally /boot/vmlinuz. You must copy your new kernel to the /boot directory and give it a new name. For example, you can put the following:

cp /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.xx

Make bzImage will take lot of time compared to other steps. On my AMD 2100+ system with 256MB of RAM, it took 18 minutes.

You are coming near the final destination. You now need to "make module" and "make module_install" after this. This statement will install all modules in directory /lib/modules. Next, edit /etc/lilo.conf to add a section:

image = /boot/ vmlinuz-2.6.xx

label =MyKernel

read-only

Run LILO after this. This will update your LILO boot loader. At the next reboot, select the kernel ''MyKernel" from the LILO list; and it will load your new kernel.

So, isn’t it easy to recompile your kernel? I advice you to make a boot disk before you do anything silly with your kernel. And also remember to never modify or recompile kernel at /usr/src/linux kernel version.

Linux gains enhanced WiFi stack

noreply@blogger.com (Ehrwin) — Tue, 09 May 2006 12:36:00 +0000

May 01, 2006

The day when WiFi cards "just work" under Linux may be fast approaching. WiFi software stack specialist Devicescape has released its "Advanced Datapath" 802.11 driver stack to the open source community under the GPL, and the Linux kernel developer community appears to be working to adapt it for mainline inclusion.

The Devicescape WiFi stack was previously only available to device vendors, under license.

WiFi card support is currently spotty in Linux, at best. Bright spots include Intel's Pro/Wireless or "Centrino" radios, and lots of essentially obsolete, difficult-to-find cards such as those based on Prism chipsets. Meanwhile, cards widely available at major retail outlets typically do not work at all, or do not work fully under Linux.

Devicescape specializes in selling WiFi stacks to device vendors, and it says that Linux's poor WiFi card support is limiting Linux uptake in wireless multimedia devices. It hopes its contribution will help developers quickly adopt the latest WiFi silicon technology into their wireless product designs, without having to wait for silicon vendors to release Linux drivers.

Additionally, Devicescape says its WiFi stack enables the Linux kernel to distinguish and properly handle different media streams, such as voice and video. It hopes these new capabilities will encourage open source developers to create new multimedia devices, such as voice-over-WiFi phones, streaming video clients, and devices that interact with Web-based services.

If merged into the mainline Linux tree, Devicescape's driver could provide native kernel implementations of a variety of things that currently make it challenging for companies and community developers to write WiFi device drivers. The driver includes an 802.11 stack with software MAC (media access controller), hostapd, wep, wpa, wme, a "link-layer bridging module," and a QoS (quality of service) implementation. Marketing VP Glenn Flinchbaugh comments, "[Our driver] makes it easier for someone to add a WiFi driver, because they only have to write a thin, low-level driver that maps to the API, in order to enable the latest and greatest WiFi chipsets."

Flinchbaugh says the Datapath driver stack was written largely by Simon Barber, chief scientist at Devicescape, along with Jouni Malinen, a Devicescape engineer well known for maintaining the open source HostAP/hostapd/wpa_supplicant code.

Will the driver be accepted? Flinchbaugh says the driver has been well-received in the kernel community, and acceptance appears likely.

Jonathan Corbett, of LinuxWeeklyNews, appears to concur; he attended the 2006 Wireless Networking Summit earlier this month, and wrote, "[The Devicescape driver] is regarded by many as being the best of the available free stacks," adding, "Nobody at the summit was heard to argue against merging Devicescape."

Currently, a version of the Devicescape stack "fixed up for the kernel" by Jiri Benc has been merged into an experimental tree maintained by John Linville, who was recently appointed maintainer of Linux's wireless networking stack, Corbett reports. Several WiFi chipset drivers, including those for Broadcom chipsets requiring a software MAC, have been backported to this experimental stack, and Linville "seems poised to merge this stack for a future kernel release," Corbett writes.

According to Flinchbaugh, a merged Devicescape driver would also immediately offer full support for Atheros chipsets, something long hoped-for by many in the Linux community.

Still, the merger would cause some redundancy with other parts of the kernel, Corbett notes, and additional work needs to be done to bring the driver into compliance with current kernel coding standards. At the same time, the driver's clever handling of QoS could be generalized for use with other types of networking, Corbett reports.

Flinchbaugh comments, "Devicescape is committed to unlocking the full potential of Wi-Fi. We view Devicescape as a quintessential open source company: our company and product heritage are based on open source; we leverage code from the community to develop product; and we regularly donate code back. We have dedicated resources that support open source projects, and we look forward to additional contributions that will drive service-enabled devices."

VDC Analyst Chris Lanfear stated, "This contribution provides the open source community with tested and proven Wi-Fi technology that can be leveraged in the development of Linux-based converged smartphones, wireless personal media players, and digital media adapters, among other multimedia devices. With this contribution, Devicescape aims to expand Linux as a core technology foundation for next generation devices."

Additional details about the 2006 Linux Wireless Summit can be found in Corbett's report at LinuxWeeklyNews.

In other news, Devicescape on May 1 added standards-based self-configuration capabilities to its commercial WiFi stacks for consumer electronic devices and wireless infrastructure products, including those based on Linux. The "Easy Access" capabilities are based on Wi-Fi Alliance standards, and make setting up secure, WPA2-encrypted wireless networking trivial, the company claims.

Devicescape, formerly Instant802.11, sells WiFi client and access point stacks for a variety of platforms, including Linux, Windows CE, and Windows Mobile embedded operating systems.

Open source specialists offered tech support bounty

noreply@blogger.com (Ehrwin) — Tue, 09 May 2006 12:34:00 +0000

Open source specialists offered tech support bounty
Ingrid Marson
ZDNet UK
May 09, 2006, 11:10 BST

Talkback
Tell us your opinion
OpenLogic will pay developers to provide high-level support for scores of open source products, but not everyone is convinced by the idea

OpenLogic, an open source software and services provider, has launched a programme to offer commercial support for more than 150 open source products, including the Apache Web server, the PostgreSQL database and the Python programming language, the company announced on Monday.

The company already offers first and second-line support for these products, but plans to work with the open source community to get help with more complex issues.

Steven Grandchamp, the chief executive of OpenLogic, claimed the initiative will help companies that want to get support for multiple open source products from one provider.

"We have heard loud and clear from our larger enterprise customers, some of whom are using more than 400 open source products, that they want one throat to choke for open source support," said Grandchamp in a statement.

"OpenLogic's Expert Community programme is being launched to help address this need in a new, creative way. Enterprises get the support they require and open source committers and contributors can earn money to support the work they love to do," he said.

Developers joining the scheme will be paid for each issue they resolve, and can choose whether they want to be paid in cash or through prizes such as a Microsoft XBox console. Alternatively, they can have the money donated to an open source organisation.

James Governor, an analyst at RedMonk, said the programme is an interesting idea that could encourage participation in open source communities.

"Vibrant communities are far more important to technology adoption than cool tools or technologies," he said. "Combining community efforts with getting paid can effectively act as a double-whammy incentive. 'You mean I get paid for this too? Awesome!'"

Open source service providers have often hired open source developers to provide support to customers, but OpenLogic claims to be the first company to reward community members directly for their support efforts without requiring them to switch jobs.

Simon Riggs, a developer on the open source database PostgreSQL, was not convinced by OpenLogic's proposal. Riggs claimed that it is difficult to get third-line support from the open source community in a timely manner, and that payment in game consoles was unlikely to help.

"I don't know anyone who knows anything worthwhile about third-level enterprise support who would be interested in being paid in XBoxes," said Riggs. "My view is if you want reliable support, you need to arrange that in advance from dedicated staff with dependable service level agreements. Open source communities are very good at providing basic support, but in general, trusted, timely, high-quality support isn't available when you need it from that route."

OpenLogic will not have service level agreements with community developers, but claimed that it has built-in redundancy for each project to assure timely responses.

More information on OpenLogic's Expert Community programme can be found on the company's Web site.

Don't pirate MS-Office: use ours, says OpenOffice.org

noreply@blogger.com (Ehrwin) — Tue, 09 May 2006 12:31:00 +0000

Don't pirate MS-Office: use ours, says OpenOffice.org
Ingrid Marson
ZDNet UK
May 04, 2006, 12:35 BST

Talkback
Tell us your opinion
'Get legal -- Get OpenOffice.org' is the tagline of a new campaign taking advantage of the recent clampdown against unlicensed software by Microsoft and the BSA

OpenOffice.org has launched a campaign to persuade companies worried about software compliance to move to its open source productivity application.

The project has launched a Web site for the 'Get Legal -- get OpenOffice.org' campaign, and hopes to drive traffic to the site by encouraging Webmasters and bloggers to display the campaign banner on their sites.

The Web site highlights the recent drive by Microsoft and the Business Software Alliance to clamp down on unlicensed software, including Microsoft's purchase of asset-tracking company AssetMatrix and the expansion of its Genuine Advantage program, as well as the the BSA's decision to offer a £20,000 reward for anyone informing against the use of unlicensed software in UK organisations.

"If you have a copy of MS-Office at work, at school, at home -- are you sure where it came from?" asks the campaign Web site. "Fortunately, there is a completely legal and free alternative. OpenOffice.org 2 is a fully featured office suite, similar in functionality to MS-Office. OpenOffice.org 2 does everything you need: word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and much more."

The success of the campaign is likely to depend on how much support the project gets from its user community. The Mozilla Foundation achieved considerable success with its SpreadFirefox campaign, which helped drive more than 100 million downloads of the Firefox browser in its first year.

Linux kernel 'getting buggier'

noreply@blogger.com (Ehrwin) — Tue, 09 May 2006 12:26:00 +0000

Linux kernel 'getting buggier'
Ingrid Marson
ZDNet UK
May 05, 2006, 16:35 BST

Talkback
Tell us your opinion
Linux kernel maintainer Andrew Morton may force developers to devote one kernel cycle to fix long-standing bugs in the Linux kernel

Andrew Morton, the lead maintainer of the Linux production kernel, is worried that an increasing number of defects are appearing in the 2.6 kernel and is considering drastic action to resolve it.

"I believe the 2.6 kernel is slowly getting buggier. It seems we're adding bugs at a higher rate than we're fixing them," Morton said, in a talk at the LinuxTag conference in Wiesbaden, Germany, on Friday.

Morton admitted he hasn't yet proved this statistically, but has noticed that he is getting more emails with bug reports. If he is able to confirm the increasing defect rate, he may temporarily halt the kernel development process to spend time resolving bugs.

"A little action item I've given myself is to confirm that this increasing defect rate is really happening. If it is, we need to do something about it." he said. "Kernel developers will need to reapportion their time and spend more time fixing bugs. We may possibly have a bug-fix only kernel cycle, which is purely for fixing up long-standing bugs."

One problem is that few developers are motivated to work on bugs, according to Morton. This is particularly a problem for bugs that affect old computers or peripherals, as kernel developers working for corporations don't tend to care about out-of-date hardware, he said. Nowadays, many kernel developers are employed by IT companies, such as hardware manufacturers, which can cause problems as they can mainly be motivated by self-interest.

"If you're a company that employs a kernel maintainer, you don't have an interest in working on a five-year-old peripheral that no one is selling any more. I can understand that, but it is a problem as people are still using that hardware. The presence of that bug affects the whole kernel process, and can hold up the kernel — as there are bugs, but no one is fixing them," said Morton.

During his talk, Morton discussed the 2.6 kernel development process, explaining that if people want to get their code into the kernel they should send it to him, not Linus Torvalds, who maintains the development kernel. Morton manages the "-mm" code branch, which is where patches are tested before being added to the development kernel.

"The way an individual can get their code into the kernel is by sending it to me. I will buffer it in my [mm] tree and send it to Linus. It's fairly rare for a person to send patch to Linus and get it in. In fact Linus is fairly random at patches at the best of times. Generally, Linus will cc: it to me because he knows I'll pick it up," said Morton.

"The mm tree is what Linus' tree is going to look like in three months time. A lot of stupid bugs get in. I wish people would send me code that compiles — probably about 75 percent do," he said. "Without mm all of these problems wouldn't be discovered until hit they hit the mainline tree and would impact everyone's ongoing development."

The LinuxTag conference goes on until Saturday. Talks that take place in the main conference room can be watched online via a free Webcast (instructions in German).

If Linus snubs new GPL, is that it for 'open source'?

noreply@blogger.com (Ehrwin) — Tue, 02 May 2006 10:21:00 +0000

Torvalds doesn't care. Trouble looms...

By Andrew Orlowski
Published Monday 6th February 2006 23:52 GMT

Analysis Linus Torvalds doesn't want to change the Linux kernel's software license, and he said so again last week. For good measure this time, he threw in some inflammatory remarks.

"I literally feel," wrote Torvalds, "that we do not, as software developers, have the moral right to enforce our rules on hardware manufacturers. We are not crusaders, trying to force people to bow to our superior God."

Since the crusades were a foreign adventure responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands, that's not the most diplomatic response, and FSF counsel Eben Moglen refused to be drawn into retaliation when we contacted him for comment.

Moglen did say that as part of the lengthy, worldwide consultation process for GPL v3.0 he'd be issuing further clarification on the two most controversial parts of the new license, Sections three and seven. We'll examine the particulars in a moment.

But stressing that he was speaking in general terms, Moglen told us this -

"Freedom is not about what works well. It's about what defends freedom when it can be given an intellectually rigorous and internally rigorous conception. We want to have a conversation on whether we are drafting it in a way to achieve this," he said.

"The question presented by DRM is not whether it can have good purposes, or whether it serves socially useful ends sometimes. It's whether user disempowerment - at a time when technology is moving to embrace the users' whole life - is a risk we can run to gain some particular benefit."

Don't let the means dictate the ends, he seems to be saying.

Torvalds remarks have uncomfortable echoes of last year's BitKeeper episode, when Torvalds dimissed the concerns of his kernel developers and mocked the ethical dimension of software development.

But if Linux isn't about ethics, then what is its purpose? And if open source simply means 'free' (as in beer) code at the end of the day, and it's not about changing the world, then why is it different to a BSD?

Let's examine how we got here.

How GPL got Linux out of the lab

The Linux kernel which Torvalds controls (Torvalds also owns the Linux trademark) is the best known and most popular piece of software libre in the world, and owes its popularity and respect in no small part to the freedoms guaranteed by the FSF General Public License. This license gives the recipient the right to modify and distribute the code, but more importantly, ensures a downstream recipient fulfills the same obligations.

The FSF doesn't update this GPL very often. It last did so with version 2.0 in 1991, with a minor addendum (the LGPL) appearing a few years later, and version 3.0 has been racing our way with all the speed of a continental plate stuck in a tectonic traffic jam for several years now. Its ratification looks some way away too. As it turns out, this is quite deliberate, as Linux is big business now, and the FSF is engaging on a massive consensus building project to make sure everyone's on board.

The FSF also has an additional issue to deal with that it didn't have in 1991, which is that the words "free" and "open" are today often used as broad-brush term, with the implication that they're synonymous and interchangeable. They're not, but when Linux looked set to conquer all before it, and was finding its way into computer systems ranging from phones to mainframes, and world domination was only a matter of time, the difference could be blamed on semantic nit-picking. Didn't open and freedom just mean the same thing?

Something else happened, too. The phrase "open source" became an invitation for any opportunistic wanker to hitch a free ride, hoping some of this magic would rub off, and turn into a lucrative pay day.

We saw the influential, Blair-ite think tank Demos team up with Douglas Rushkoff to suggest "open source democracy", which amounted to little more than a catchphrase. A rag bag, free-for-all trivia website morphed into "Wikipedia", which laid claim to be the world's greatest encyclopedia (that's turning out to be exactly what you'd expect it to be). Some sophists claim to have created "open source" cookies - the baked, not coded kind. And even the GPL has been disastrously misapplied, to things that can be, but primarily don't need to be "modified" to be successful, such as works of art.

But while all this opportunism and sloppy thinking took place in public, the gears were slowing. Something was halting the momentum of this great project.

Microsoft began to apply its deep pockets to buy off litigious rivals. And nervous corporate and public sector customers, who'd been looking at Linux with great interest, began to waver. Maybe they got nervous about the fall-out from the SCO suit. Maybe Linux advocates failed to prove the total cost of ownership case, which had looked a slam dunk at one time. Maybe the notorious factionalism of the technical community (eg GNOME vs KDE) proved to be a turn off. Maybe Linux, and software libre, failed to generate big ideas of its own. Big ideas, even if they're nebulous and entirely without substance - and Web 2.0 is a great example of a load of nothing going nowhere, as you so eloquently point out - seem to be necessary to attract the glaze-eyed attention of the corporate media, if only for a few weeks. Or maybe too many nutballs climbed on board, hoping to catch a bit of the "New Open Thing".

We don't know, but in the end it wasn't Microsoft that fomented today's dispute about GPL 3.0, but of all things, a small consumer electronics company.

Enter TiVo.

Enter TiVo

The GPL always distinguished itself from other licenses by stressing a peculiar symmetry: the freedom to modify or distribute the source code would be passed to the end user in the form the upstream benefactor had intended. A perpetuity of sorts was established. You didn't have to tinker, but if you did, and made your tinkering available, you'd have to obey the terms on which you received the code.

This distinguished the GPL from BSD-style licensees, which were "open" in the sense you could look at the code, and "free" in the sense you didn't pay for it, but weren't, as in the now famous phrase, "free as freedom". And then a product was introduced that broke this social contract, while obeying the letter of the GPL version 2.0. This was TiVo.

When TiVo introduced its PVR time-shifting set top box, it did so using a Linux PC with a proprietary front-end. You could only tinker on the terms set by TiVo. This didn't deter a wave of enthusiasts, a small portion of the technical community (we'll unfairly, for convenience, call them the "O'Reilly crowd") who latch onto anything that demands your attention because it's "hackable", without quite seeing whether there are strings attached or where these strings might lead.

Linus Torvalds professed himself delighted, and naturally he's proud to see his kernel instantiated into real products. As you'd expect, he feels it's a validation of his adult life's work.

But GPL supporters who flocked to the cause because of "freedom" don't quite see it this way. What's the point of GPL, if it only turns out to be a rebranding of BSD? A sort of BSD with added, 21st century street cred? And a fat, drunken-looking Penguin as its mascot?

And doubly painfully, what's the point of a GPL product that ushers in a world of artificial technical restrictions on copyright material, DRM?

Linus actually had something to say on this, but we need to dive into the psychodrama that is Modern Copyright Discourse first, before we can understand why this debate looks so peculiarly lopsy, and so very heated.

Will the Matrix kill free software?

There are two sides to this argument, which we'll call "free" and "open", and both have good claims to make. But both sides like to throw off wild, metaphorical flares that light up the news pages, but are of no use to anyone. Let's separate the flames and see what lies behind their rationale.

If what I'm told by the GPL 3.0 advocates is true, then the world is about to end fairly shortly.

One proponent told me that the difference between now, 2006, and 2009, is that the value of your home in 2009 will be determined by the "freedom" your gadgets exhibit. This is a startling idea, one I'm sure today's real estate agents haven't yet pencilled in as a pre-printed tick-box on their forms. I'm paraphrasing, but the argument is that if the property owner didn't have "control" over all the technology in their home, then the home would have no value, or a lesser value than a comparable home on offer.

"I don't want to use the phrase 'Matrix'," said one, who went on to use the phrase Martrix - by saying, fairly emphatically, "it would be like living in the Matrix".

Utter nonsense, of course.

Your average property owner wants to get home, flick a switch, and find that "stuff" comes out - the stuff being, for example, light, heat or cooling if (s)he flicks a switch, or entertainment if (s)he flicks on the remote. Homes that don't fulfill these basic obligations have a tendancy not to get sold - they're probably car parks. In fact, you'd have to coral prospective home buyers in at gunpoint, and keep them there, to accept such a lousy proposition.

But Torvalds' solution is equally obtuse.

Faced with the moral problems posed by DRM, Torvalds opts for the 'stuckist' approach, of splendid isolation. Meaning he'd never watch The Sopranos, or anything worth watching except for a giggle, ever again.

Torvalds tells dissenters to go and build their own chips.

"Vote with your feet," he urges. "Join the OpenCores groups. Make your own FPGA's."

I'm right behind you with my soldering iron, Mr Torvalds.

Then he added the now notorious sign-off about the crusades.

" ... we do not - as software developers - have the moral right to enforce our rules on hardware manufacturers. We are not crusaders, trying to force people to bow to our superior God."

[Emphasis added, but hardly necessary].

As you can imagine, this accusation of moral laxity aimed at the developers who actually do the work on the Linux kernel, and many other projects across GPL land, has not been well received.

What appears to be moral, in Torvalds' own book, appears to be contingent on whatever Torvalds is feeling that day, and that's contingent on the market penetration of his kernel. Issues of morality are best left to genocidal "crusaders", who Torvalds feels are someone else entirely.

But if software libre isn't a moral crusade, what the heck is it? A 30 year old operating system, passing off as new one? A lifetime of dependency conflicts? A charity? The public can be cruel, and horribly judgmental, when it flicks the switch, and "stuff" doesn't come out. Torvalds may not imply that morality has no place in the Linux kernel, but the invitation to infer this doesn't really need our bold HTML markup. It's obvious.

A Linux without a moral element is a puzzling thing indeed. How would you or I begin to explain its value. Without "freedom" all one is left with is "free".

I don't think many Linux advocates would settle for this as the last line of defence. But in a swoop, Torvalds appears to have deprived "open source" advocates of arguing from a moral position.

Perhaps, by the time the long consultation process for GPL 3.0 reaches a conclusion, it will be clear that the word "open" was never really a substitute for "free". Until then, there's trouble ahead. ®

No GPL 3.0 for Linux - Torvalds

noreply@blogger.com (Ehrwin) — Tue, 02 May 2006 10:19:00 +0000

By Gavin Clarke in San Francisco

Published Thursday 26th January 2006 21:00 GMT

The Linux kernel is not moving to the next version of General Public License (GPL), following objections from Linus Torvalds to the license's stance on digital rights management (DRM).

Torvalds told a mailing list (http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0601.3/0559.html) on Wednesday the Linux kernel would remain under GPL 2.0, despite work underway at the Free Software Foundation for GPL 3.0. The sticking point is DRM.

According to the first draft (http://gplv3.fsf.org/draft) of GPL 3.0, published last week, the software it covers will "neither be subject to, nor subject other works to, digital restrictions from which escape is forbidden".

The license adds: "DRM is fundamentally incompatible with the purpose of the GPL, which is to protect users' freedom."

But Torvalds says it is "insane" to require people to make their private signing keys available. Such keys are typically used by individuals to generate a digital signature, or to decrypt messages and files. The creator of Linux won't make his own keys available.

"I don't think the GPL v3 conversation is going to happen for the kernel, since I personally don't want to convert any of my code," he says.

While some Linux kernel files can be licensed under GPL 3.0, Torvalds notes, the kernel in general is - and will - remain under GPL 2.0.

Joining a debate on the mailing list about the feasibility of conversion from GPL 2.0 to GPL 3.0, he says: "The default is to not allow conversion. Conversion isn't going to happen."

Torvald's stance will further dismay Linux diehards who are convinced the only good source is open source, and follows the controversy that followed last year’s revelation that Torvalds used the proprietary, closed-source Bitkeeper for Linux kernel development. ®

GPL v3.0: Linus replies

noreply@blogger.com (Ehrwin) — Tue, 02 May 2006 10:17:00 +0000

Linus Torvalds has replied to our analysis (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/02/06/torvalds_gpl_analysis/) of his rejection of GPL 3.0. Here it is.

Since you seem to be following the kernel mailing list, you could have picked a better email to comment on.

Anyway, look for the one that talks about "reciprocity" to get an idea for why I like the GPLv2, and not the GPLv3 (I don't know how you read the mailing list, but you can search for it at least on lkml.org).

It's not about "freedom". It's about "fairness".

Which, btw, is a lot more fundamental concept. "Do unto others.." and all that, you know.

Linus

Many more of your emails - and there are quite a few - tomorrow. ®