Tuesday, August 12, 2003

Money Where My Mouth Is -- 12:10 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Well, I've officially done it. I'm putting down money to buy a Linux distribution for the first time. What one did I determine to be worthy of my cash? Slackware 9.0. I've been using it full-time since May 27. I've been very happy with it. It may seem strange to pay for something that is "free," but I want to support Patrick Volkerding as he keeps developing Slackware. He needs to eat too. Plus, I could buy four or five copies of a Linux distro before I would equal one Windows XP Professional upgrade.

J.t.Qbe comments: Wow, congratulations on officially becoming a Slacker! Ladies and gentlemen (or whatever), this is the same guy who, when I told him about Linux back in '97 (when I was using Slackware 3), said, "What use do I have for a Unix clone?" I knew that he'd see the light, though--he's a true computer geek. Slackware is a great distribution and a truly worthy cause.

Windows Worm Spreads -- 9:18 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

A new worm called MSBlast by its author (aka W32.Blaster and W32/LuvSan) is taking advantage of a vulnerability in Windows' RPC code to attack systems all over the Net. The details are here on News.com.org.net.info.cx. Microsoft reacted pretty quickly to this vulnerability. There's been a patch for this since July 21. If you run Windows NT, 2K, 2K3, or XP, you'd best get patching if you haven't already (see the first link for details). Symantec has created a removal tool if you've already been infected.

The Master comments: Let me tell ya. There is a TON of this on RoadRunner's network. I'm seeing nearly constant traffic to port 135 on my firewall. This thing has got to be out of control on broadband networks.

Monday, August 11, 2003

Fun with XFree86 -- 3:16 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

There is a bug in the way that XFree86 4.3 does underlining which means that Mozilla builds without XFT support cannot properly underline links. The only solution? Make a minor change to one file and recompile all of XFree. Rah! Thankfully, Slackware made it easier than I expected it to be. Basically what I did is this:

1. Downloaded the /xfree source directory from my favorite local Slackware mirror.
2. Untarred the X430src-1.tar.bz2 tarball and backed up the original in another directory.
3. Edited the file mentioned in this Mozilla Bugzilla entry. I did it by hand since it only meant adding two characters.
4. Make a fresh bzip2 tarball via tar cvf X430src-1.tar xc/ and bzip2 X430src-1.tar
5. Copied my new tarball to the /xfree directory and ran XFree86.build
6. Wait
7. Once the script was done I reinstalled the NVIDIA drivers, went to /etc/X11/xinit and made the necessary symbolic link thusly: ln -s xinitrc.kde xinitrc, and ran startx
8. The only thing I had to do beside that is reinstall my TrueType fonts in KDE's font installer.

So far, everything seems to be working and the links are properly underlined now. I've stopped using the XFT build because there seems to be a kind of nasty memory leak (or something) that severely degrades performance if the program is running for more than a few hours.

Hordes of the Underdark Info -- 10:07 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Gamespy managed to get a few details about Hordes of the Underdark, the upcoming second expansion for Neverwinter Nights. The game will focus around the drow (*the crowd cheers*) and will be for higher level characters, enabling your character to get up to 30th level. Thanks Blue's News.

Past Two Days' News

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