Friday, November 22, 2002

Newbie Mandrake 9.0 Review -- 5:12 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

TweakHound posted a review of Mandrake 9.0. The unique part of this review is that the reviewer is very familiar with Windows XP, but a total newbie to Linux. I think that the comments he makes are dead-on, especially the trouble configuring Samba (which is a big nightmare). If you are familiar with Windows and are considering taking the Linux plunge, check this out. Thanks Linux Today.

J.t.Qbe comments: Interesting. . . A few minutes ago I finished up Soldier of Fortune on my Mandrake 9 box. Normally I'm a Slackware fan, but I picked Mandrake 9 because I wanted an "install and go" system for Linux games. I had to install some drivers for my video card (a GeForce 2), but otherwise Mandrake 9 lived up to my expectations: I installed it and it was ready for games. It was also rock-stable while playing the game--as it is for everything else I throw at it.

The reviewer is right: if you're a newbie and want a system to install and start using right away, Mandrake is the way to go. On the other hand, if you want to learn Unix from the ground up go with Slackware or BSD.

Thursday, November 21, 2002

More on the 64bit UT2K3 -- 5:06 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Ryan "icculus" Gordon, the man behind the Linux port of Unreal Tournament 2003, made a post on the UT2K3 Linux mailing list about the recent 64-bit demo of the game (story) by Epic and AMD at Comdex. Here's the scoop:

It took a little more than a week, but yes, we showed UT2003 running as a native 64-bit application on the Hammer during AMD's keynote.

The game was running on a 64-bit version of SuSE Linux 8.0. We do not have a 64-bit Windows version at this moment, but we will by the time Hammer is officially launched next year.

I am told that the demo has been moved to AMD's booth now that the keynote is over, so if you happen to be in Vegas, you can play with it yourself for the next day or so.

New ATi Linux Drivers -- 1:39 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

ATi has released new Linux drivers for the Radeon 8500 and higher. These drivers enable S3TC, meaning that Radeon owners can now play Unreal Tournament 2003 in Linux! Thanks Slashdot.

Q3A/TA 1.32b Linux Patch -- 1:36 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

id's Robert Duffy updated his .plan with word that the 1.32b patch for Quake III Arena/Team Arena in Linux has been released. It seems to address some problems with newer versions of XFree86. It is still network-compatible with 1.32.

Microsoft IE/IIS Vulnerabilities -- 9:25 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

There's a new problem that's been discovered with a Microsoft ActiveX control that allows anyone to run arbitrary code on any non-XP version of Windows. A fix is available here. The problem is that since the old control is signed by Microsoft, a website could knowingly or unknowingly give you the old, vulnerable version right back. The only solution? Remove Microsoft from your list of trusted publishers. Eeek.

This comes on the heels of another IE security hole that would allow someone to run arbitrary code on any Windows box. The really bad thing here is that Bugtraq posted working code showing how to exploit that bug to reformat someone's hard drive. Sheesh. That article has a link to a patch that may or may not completely fix that bug. Get patching! Thanks Slashdot.

J.t.Qbe comments: Speaking of Microsoft, there was an interesting article at The Register this morning: an internal Microsoft document about the (attempted) switch of Hotmail from FreeBSD to Win2K. Microsoft recognizes the benefits Unix fans have been touting for years, but of course can't publicly present them as benefits. Very interesting reading.

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