Eric the Cat wrote to us with one of the most amusing articles for the day. A Russian Security Consultancy has claimed that a plague of virii for Linux will be coming, thanks to Chinese hackers. Wait - it gets better. According to the security expert, *because* Linux is open source, the viruses will be even worse than in other systems. Thankfully, Jason Clifford, a Linux person, is also quoted in the article setting the story a bit straighter.

"X Company now supports Linux" announcements are coming in thick and fast these days. Examples: yesterday J Ellerbroek sent this link for Aureal's Linux drivers and Drakar wrote, "I e-mailed Sigma Designs asking them about Linux support for the RealMagic Hollywood Plus DVD Decoder, and they say they're working on supporting Linux for a future product." And Nicholas Tang turned us on to this announcement about an upcoming open sourced RPG with a Linux client. Very nice! But we're getting so many of these announcements that we can't possibly run them all. If you've spotted any others recently, please post them below. (Click for more.)

Anonymous Coward writes "I have a couple of Web servers (running RedHat 5.0) which I'm using to offer free Web hosting on, and I've been giving the users standard accounts, the only exception being that their HOME directory is also set to their HTML directory. This means that telnet is active, as well as ftp, which I didn't consider a problem (that's how I learned, after all), but I was wrong. One of these boxes was hacked, by someone telnetting in and installing a sniffer. We've had to take the box down and scrub it clean, and before I bring it back online, I'd like to know the best way to give users relatively unfettered access to their own files via ftp, while disabling their ability to do anything else, on a box running any brand of Linux." I know we've touched on this aspect of security before in several Slashdot forums, but this question has been asked (and will be asked again) many times. I figure it may as well have its own forum for discussion.

Speare asks a question which may be on the tongue of many Linux newbies: "Is there anyone working on a GNOME or X gui front-end that can help organize all of the known device configurators into one comprehensive front-end? Let me point-n-click at /dev/cua2 and see if it's got a modem on it, for example." He also has some valid comments about ways Linux Distributions can improve their configurators. I too feel that a single configurator is better than multiple configuration tools. Linuxconf is a move in the right direction, but it still has room to improve. (More)

Roy Sigurd Karlsbakk writes "Linux kernel 2.3.40 has just been released. You can find a description on what's new in it on kernelnotes.org. It's available on one of the ftp.kernel.org and on most mirrors." Remember, this is a development kernel.

Just as the title says, LinuxCare has filed for its IPO. Linux Weekly News has posted a summary of the S-1 filing. The full S-1 can be found here. Many people are waiting for Linuxcare to go public. I wish them very good luck.

Normally I avoid posting direct comments from mailing lists here, but since Linus posted this on Kernel-dev and says that he hopes Slashdot picks it up, I think that's permission. This message addresses the recent rumors that have been floating around about Linus' lawyers going after domain squatters abusing the Linux Trademark. It's an interesting issue, and one that I'm sure will divide you guys: we've always hated it when domain names are taken from people by others, but this is our beloved Linux Trademark.

Mr. Roboto writes "The tales of a guy trying to port Linux to his N-64. This page has source code and technical data, which should make lots of you happy." Not really, now I have to go out and buy one.

CgiJobs writes "SeriousDomains.com was going to try and auction off a bunch of Linux domain names. Looks like Linus Torvald's lawyers scared them off, though. I saw the domains before they yanked them and they weren't much to get excited about. Most were quite long. " So - is this a good thing? Or a bad thing?

GuardianKnight asks: "I am working for an organization who is going from WinNT to Linux. They have a fairly large database and I was wondering is there a way or does anyone know how to convert an Microsoft Access database to a MySQL database (other than retyping all the data)? Is there any software that can do this?" How difficult would it be to create a program for all SQL based databases that would create export scripts that you could import into any engine that would recognize INSERT statements? Does something like this exist?

Stuart Herbert asks: "I maintain Generic NQS, a successful, and long-standing, GPL'd project. I'd love to be able to work on this project (or perhaps other GPL'd stuff) as the day job (who wouldn't? ;-) but to do that I need to find funding from somewhere. I'm wondering how many Slashdot readers have been successful in achieving this holy grail without having to setup a company themselves to sell the product, and how they did it. "

solar writes "SecurityPortal.com is running a comparsion between RedHat, Microsoft, and Sun Microsystems on the response time between software bugs being found and patch releases. Find out if open-source is the champion bug squasher we all believe it to be. " Interesting bit.

Thanks to Deepak Saxena for forewarning us about the Feb. 17 Linux Demo Day Event. He writes "On February 17th, Microsoft will be releasing Windows 2000, the next version of their enterprise/business OS. I propose that the Linux community take this opportunity to inform as many people as possible about Linux by having demonstration/education events. To help in doing so, I have organized a group of Linux vendors who are willing to help LUGs and individuals by providing freebies that can be handed out. For more info on how to participate, go to www.linuxdemo.org "

Jestrzcap writes "The Hong Kong Linuxworld 2000 expo kicked off yesterday More than 30 exhibitors showed up to strut their stuff and show the world what opensource can do for you. Keynote speaker, Jon Maddog Hall, kicked things off, and showed off his new book, "Red Hat Linux for Dummies". This article also highlights the giant Cobalt Qube2 servers. "

brokeninside writes "Infoworld's 'Windows Manager' Columnist Bob Livingston named Linux his 1999 product of the year in his most recent column. I especially enjoyed his assertion that Microsoft was 'playing catchup' with Windows 2000. He said, '...Microsoft is catching up with Linux, not setting a higher standard.'"

Chris Frost writes "The Debian Project began the freeze of its next distribution release, 2.2, today." Hit the "Read More..." link to read the full press release. This has been a long time coming, and it's good to see another stable release in the future. I've been running potato for some time now, and I'm eagerly anticipating woody, the next unstable release.

juniorboy writes "This is an article reviewing 5 web-browsers that run on Linux. " Really not a lot of surprises, but its itneresting that the number of reviews of this nature focusing on Linux are increasing.

An anonymous reader writes "Red Hat has filed with the SEC for a followup offering of up to 4 million shares. The goal is 'To provide working capital and for other general corporate purposes including geographic expansion and possible strategic acquisitions or alliances.' The S-1 filing can be found here. "

sgml4kids asks: "Could a company that ships a Linux distribution achieve any of the ISO quality certifications? Since RedHat can't control how the bulk of its main product is built, could it pass one of these quality audits? Is there any way of using these industry standard quality standards for Linux development?" Interesting questions, and ones that may become important further on down the road. Any info?

Sara Chan writes "Red Hat is making its distribution of Linux available free to schools in the United Kingdom. This might mean that a whole generation grows up in the UK with very positive feelings about Linux: the long-term value could be really large. Red Hat will still charge for support (likely at a discount)--but this will probably just encourage schools to grow their own Linux gurus. "