The Wandering Geek

Cracking buggy wireless drivers. Makes you glad some operating systems don’t ship with binary-only drivers.

Debian Administration tells us about stack-smashing protection (SSP) now in Debian Sid. Also a good overview of shellcode exploits.

Yet another person who doesn’t understand the false dichotomy between Free and commercial software. I’m glad that in the end, he saw the value in and was able to make use of GNU Privacy Guard (GPG).

Steve Yegge tells us about some of the new features in the development version of Emacs. I’ve been using CVS Emacs for a while (what will become Emacs 22) - in fact I’m typing this post in a version I compiled last week, it really is a pleasure to use. Here is a detailed feature list, and instructions for checking out your own copy. Read the ‘INSTALL.CVS’ file after you checkout the source. Be sure to report any bugs you find (I haven’t found one yet in daily use).

Fedora Core 5 is one of the better Linux distributions around, according to this opinion piece. I still think most of these articles and distro reviews need to distinguish between desktop and server use (but see my next link). I guess a shell prompt doesn’t make a good screenshot.

TechTarget talks about Ubuntu Dapper’s bid for the enterprise server market. A good quote:

“The problem with the subscription model is that they feel a lot like licenses,” Zachary said. “For Ubuntu to be different, it needs to focus on enterprise support deals. Whether Ubuntu is installed on five or more computers and they charge X amount a year on support, it doesn’t matter because it decouples the install from services and makes the customers feel that they are more in control of their choices,” he said.