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EnGarde Secure Linux is a server-based distribution developed with security in mind. It comes with a minimal set of services so that the server is not unnecessarily exposed, and no superfluous software -- including no X Window-based window manager. Even compilers, such as GCC, are not included. Yet EnGarde enables you to run any sort of Web presence, from a simple mail server to a complete e-commerce site.

Security architecture is a new concept to many computer users. Users are aware of security threats such as viruses, worms, spyware, and other malware. They have heard of, and most use, anti-virus programs and firewalls. Many use intrusion detection. Architectural security, though, remains a mystery to most computer users.

How do you run video to four different video rooms at an anime convention without having a staff member change tapes or DVDs at regular intervals? How do you run a video room where viewers can choose what to watch and when to watch it? You hire an open source developer to code a video keg and video jukebox.

Two days ago, in a post called ODF Update: What Will Happen Next on Beacon Hill and When I reported that it looked like the Massachusetts legislature would adjourn without adopting a bill that would enable the enemies of ODF to block its implementation in Massachusetts.

The good news is that I was right. The bad news is that everything else decided on Beacon Hill today is bad news. Even the good news may not amount to much, on which more below.

It's a dangerous Internet out there, kids. If you are going to work on remotely connected machines, do it safely. Simple file transfers and interactive sessions have scp and ssh respectively; in fact there is hardly a commercial Web hosting provider left that doesn't support them. For more complicated scenarios we have VPN tools. But what if you need to work with files on a remote server, but find scp tedious in repetition and FreeS/WAN too cumbersome? You might find just what you're looking for in sshfs -- a tool for mounting a remote filesystem transparently and securely as if it were just another directory on your local machine.

Welcome to this year's 47th issue of DistroWatch Weekly. There is no rest for the developers of most distributions - following new development releases of SUSE and Ubuntu last week, the first test release of Fedora Core 5 is also expected shortly. What do you think of the new Mandriva 2006 and how does it compare with other KDE-centric distributions, such as Kubuntu 5.10? A long-time Mandriva user offers his views. Also in this issue: a new release of TheOpenCD, a quick look at RR4 Linux and an observation about the changing attitude of Microsoft towards Linux. Last but not least, the GNU Image Manipulation Program, affectionately known as GIMP, is exactly 10 years old today. Happy reading! Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch

At ccMixter, musicians and DJs are using Creative Commons licensing to share music content and build a community of artists, thanks to the open source back-end system ccHost, an infrastructure designed to facilitate storage, tracking, and sharing of multimedia content.

This week is all about simplicity. Mirdir provides a quick and easy way to make an ad hoc backup of important data. With it you can copy a file or directories to your keydisk, or save redundant copies of data you can't afford to lose. It tries to do only one thing, and do it well: mirror a directory.

Magnatune is the Internet record company that rejoices in the slogan "We are not evil." One of the key planks of Magnatune's business model has been its commitment to what it calls "Open Music":

LinuxDevices.com is pleased to publish the proceedings from the Seventh Real-Time Linux Workshop held in Lille, France, November 3-4, 2005, at the University for Science and Technology of Lille (USTL). The papers span a broad range of topics, ranging from fundamental real-time technologies to applications, hardware, and tools.

As usual, the conference was organized by the Real-Time Linux Foundation. The links below will lead you to a summary of each talk, and to a link for downloading the associated paper (PDF file). Enjoy . . . !

One of the nice things about open source software is that it gives developers the ability to reuse and re-purpose code. Take, for example, the Flock Web browser, recently released as a pre-beta developer preview based on the Firefox code base. Flock sports a layout similar to Firefox, with a navigation toolbar, bookmark toolbar, a search tabbed interface, and so forth. But it has been dubbed a "social browser" because it integrates with weblogs, photo and bookmark sharing, and other "social" services on the Web.

SPIP stands for Système de Publication Pour l'Internet, which can be loosely translated as Publishing System for the Internet. Although the first version of SPIP appeared in 2001 and the software continues to evolve rapidly, it remains relatively unknown outside France, despite the fact that SPIP is available in multiple languages and is well documented.

This week, advisories were released for awstats, kdelibs, acidlab, AbiWord, uim, ftpd-ssl, phpsysinfo, phpgroupware, lynx, rar, sylpheed, gtk, egroupware, cpio, lm_sensors, and gdk-pixpuf. The distributors include Debian, Gentoo, Mandriva, and Red Hat.

Buying Web hosting for your business is an important decision. Trying to choose a hosting company can be confusing, especially when you're reading the companies' advertisements. But understanding Linux hosting ads can be easy, once you know how.

With a few notable exceptions, such as the Massachusetts directive in favor of OpenDocument, government agencies usually do not experiment or promote technological innovation in their own offices. However, a small and scattered group of public employees in Italy is trying to join forces to reverse this flow.

If you use charts to represent relationships between data or objects in presentations or project reports, try Graphviz. Licensed under the Common Public License Version 1.0, Graphviz is visualization software, designed to help you easily create structural information. You can use it to visually represent database and table relations in a project report or a simple Web site hierarchy.

Various studies on the total cost of ownership (TCO) of Windows versus Linux have arrived at vastly different conclusions. How is this possible? The short answer is that if you are abstract enough with your goals and methodology, are selective with the costs that you include, and ask the right questions, then you can arrive at any conclusion you want.

[Ed. Maria asks some astute questions here. As Microsoft ramps up its "Get the Facts" campaign this week, more articles like this will hopefully get on the wires. -tadelste]

Related Story:
Linux News Questions Microsoft's Need for a "Get the Facts" campaign?

Many years ago, while directing IT operations for a small company on the West Coast, I became aware that our network security was particularly weak. The company was growing at a rapid pace, IT was understaffed, the network was at capacity in a number of ways, and the demands were brutal both in terms of time and technology needs. While I didn't mind the long hours, I did mind that I didn't feel "up to snuff" in terms of selecting technologies that would enable us to expand the network and secure it. I had responsibility for IT and security, but I felt that there were holes in my knowledge. I wanted to fix that. So began my quest to become an information security professional.

Ubuntu Linux patrons will notice a new installation option in the boot menu of the current 5.10 Breezy Badger release: OEM mode.

So you need a lot of computing power but don't want to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a commercial cluster? Or maybe you just have a lot of machines sitting idle that you would like to put to good use? You can build a powerful and scalable Linux cluster using only free software and off-the-shelf components. Here's how.