Jimmy's weblog

Fedora Core 4 (currently at Test 2 release) is the first version of Fedora Linux to include native support for the PowerPC architecture. I’ve just finished installing the PPC version on to an old G4 400 and the process was only slightly more complex than a standard x86 installation.
Points to note:

Disk 1 is not [...]

I’ve spent the last couple of days testing the latest Fedora Core 4 release (FC4 test 2) on both x86 and PPC platforms. Overall it seems to be pretty solid for a test release though I have noticed some problems with Winbind continually dropping its Active Directory authentication channel.
Starting with FC3, the Fedora team [...]

Today marks the release of Fedora Core 3, the latest of the Fedora community Linux distributions. Downloads are available from the Fedora mirrors or via a Torrrent.
Fedora Core 3 includes the 2.6.9 kernel, Firefox 1PR, GNOME 2.8, KDE 3.3, Thunderbird 0.8, and Ximinan Evolution 2.
One warning - the default GNOME installation seems to be [...]

Just back from listening to a two-hour talk by Dr Richard Stallman on the danger of software patents. RMS, as he is more commonly known, is one of the fathers of the Free Software Foundation and author of many of the GNU tools including the Emacs editor.
Below is my summary of his talk. [...]

Ha, I knew it! Not only did NASA fake the moon landing in 1969, but they are now making preparations for a fake Mars landing. This time the footage will be completely computer generated, meaning no pesky actors with secrets to spill.

Silicon Graphics (NYSE: SGI) today announced that NASA has chosen SGI® Altix® [...]

RedHat and the Fedora community today announced the final release of Fedora Core 2 after several delays and postponements. Fedora Core 2 features the 2.6 kernel, GNOME 2.6 and KDE 3.2.2. Subversion is also as a future replacement for the popular but aging CVS.
Fedora’s website is under a fair amount of strain right [...]

To reset the MySQL root password under Red Hat Linux:
[root@host root]# service mysqld stop
[root@host root]# /usr/libexec/mysqld -Sg –user=root &
[root@host root]# mysql
Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or g.
Your MySQL connection id is 1 to server version: 3.23.58

Type ‘help;’ or ‘h’ for help. Type ‘c’ to clear the buffer.

mysql> USE mysql
Reading table [...]

After several months of using qmail to provide email services for hotham.net, I had grown frustrated with my inability to configure it to work with SpamAssassin and other spam fighting tools. Rather than making yet another attempt, I decided to change Mail Transport Agents (MTAs) and try Postfix instead. My decision was based [...]

SCO Group has begun targeting Australian Linux users in its legal campaign to claim ownership of some code in the open-source operating system.
SCO has engaged lawyers to “contact Linux users” about its controversial Linux licensing scheme, after its US legal counsel reached 1500 of the world’s largest Linux users in May.

More at news.com.au.
Considering that SCO [...]

I’ve been pretty busy this week working on a presentation titled “Firewalls by example” for The University of Melbourne’s SecureCon conference tomorrow.
It’s a ninety minute presentation that will cover the features of Windows XP’s Internet Connection Firewall, Mac OS X’s (client and server) ipfw and Linux’s iptables. I will also be discussing typical traffic patterns [...]