Tripwire is a little software package available for Linux as well as for other Unix variants and Windows. It is a file integrity tool and can prove to be very effective measure against malicious code, sniffers, trojans or any other software post installed to your system. Tripwire, effective as it is, cannot help you if your system has been compromised prior to the installation of Tripwire. So, in order to use it properly, install it just after you install and set up your system. A howto to help you install and use it.

The Government of Canada is launching the process for reforming Canadian copyright legislation over the years to come. This process has sparked the creation of this online forum, as well as a number of other forums. Most controversial may be the provisions similar to the USA's Digital Millennium Copyright Act which not only makes legal the circumvention by copyright holders of copyright's Fair Use provisions, but also makes the circumvention of this circumvention a crime.

"The method I'm going to describe for getting your virtual consoles logged in automatically consists of installing some software and changing a few lines in /etc/inittab. Before I do that, I'll take you on a mind-expanding journey through the land of getties and logins to see just how a Unix user gets logged in."

Linux users tend to fight religious wars over the proper distribution of Linux to install. I don't have time or space for the whole story, but it boils down to this: If you want Linux to do things the way most people do, it's probably easier to get there with Mandrake. Mandrake installs Linux and by default turns on a number of processes. It builds interfaces in a particular way. Most of the installation scripts have been prepared by people with considerable experience. The goal is to get running in a fairly standard way," says Jerry Pournelle.

Gaim incidentally is a perfect demonstration of open source at its best, originally started by one developer, it has evolved into a project involving several people, and which continues to develop further and further, despite the fact that the original developer has not worked on it for a long time. Gaim is also currently involved in dispute with AOL, the latter has served a notice on the authors for creating a name 'confusingly' similar to AOL's AIM. Catch up on the latest at their site.

The Australian office has decided to hold off on plans to remove Linux as an option in the pre-installation stage. Rob Small, corporate communications director at Dell Computer Australia, explained the US move was merely a result of customer demand, and not part of a global move to remove Linux.

"Ximian is proud to announce the availability of the Beta 2 release of Ximian Evolution, the integrated personal information management solution for GNU/Linux and Unix desktops. This is the second of four milestones on the road to the 1.0 release this fall."

Turbolinux has announced the general availability of the first fully supported Linux distribution for IBM eServer iSeries. Turbolinux 6.5 features complete Linux server distributions that provide functionality previously unavailable to iSeries customers, including Linux's firewall and Web server, and Windows-compatible file, print and email services.

In 1998, the Mexican government embarked on an ambitious attempt to equip its vast and underfunded school system with computers running the free operating system GNU/Linux. But three years on, the program has largely failed to get GNU/Linux into more than a handful of Mexican schools. Finding enough capable programmers and system administrators proved to be the primary obstacle for the project.

Dell has quietly stopped offering the Linux operating system as an option on its desktop and laptop PCs, saying low demand forced the Linux-advocate to pull the software from its online stores.