Welcome to the LinuxFocus September/October 2002 issue

In July, some members of the LinuxFocus team were at the Libre Software Meeting in Bordeaux (France). This meeting seems to improve through the time. This year, a new important topic has been added: computer security. It was a successful attempt since many people attended the conferences. Most of the contributors were well known in the security field: you can check the list at this URL. However, in the real world, computer security stays rather confidential, since a vast majority of users, either professional or not, do not really understand the challenge it represents. An example comes from France, where a magazine dedicated to security called MISC has been launched about a year ago and will probably have to stop its publication due to lack of readers. It is a pity since it was providing very high quality information. But the LSM was not only focusing on security. All the usual topics were represented: documentation, programming, communication, etc. For instance, the Linux Documentation Project announced its reorganization by language teams. Another very important topic that cannot be ignored was present: free software for visually impaired people.

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Last, we can also mention free software for education. These two last deserve a special thanks since they have to "struggle" against very big companies (or at least, a very big one) trying to convince people that they provide the only available solutions. There is, of course, much more to say about LSM. Unfortunately, the lack of space for the editorial and the lack of time in Bordeaux, prevents me from writing a longer report. Anyway, thanks a lot to the LSM people for organizing such a great event.

Georges Tarbouriech

LinuxFocus.org Articles

Hardware

Understanding HD44780 compatible LCD-displays , by Jan Svenungson

This article is trying to teach you how HD44780 compatible LCD-displays work at bits and bytes level.

Frequency counter 1Hz-100Mhz with LCD display and RS232 interface , by Guido Socher

This article describes how to design a frequency counter with the AT90S4433 Microcontroller and Linux.

System Administration

FreeBSD, a real alternative , by Georges Tarbouriech

This article is an overview over another free Unix system: FreeBSD.

Viruses: a concern for all of us , by Christophe Blaess

Viruses, Worms and Trojan Horses could also be a threat to Linux.

Articles at Linux Netmag

Articles at Linux Gazette

The MailBag
More 2-Cent Tips
The Answer Gang
News Bytes
Ecol
By Javier Malonda at escomposlinux.org
Qubism
By Jon "Sir Flakey" Harsem
Writing your own Toy OS - Part III
By Raghu and Chitkala
Kerberos: The watchdog of the Ether
By Raj Shekhar
My Guide To Digital Photography
By Rob Tougher
Adaptive Linux Firewalls
By Vasoo Veerapen
Multihead Systems under Linux and Windows
By Alan Ward
The Back Page

Applications

Using BibTeXML in DocBook XML to Write Scientific Articles , by Egon Willighagen

BibTex is an system which enables you to insert references from a (file) database into Tex documents. In this article I will show you how you can use a BibTex like reference system with DocBook XML.

L'heure du Jazz++ , by Katja Socher

Jazz is a midi sequencer with many interesting features for editing and composing your own music!

Midi with alsa , by Guido Socher

This article explains how to get Midi to work with Alsa. If you are really serious about sound and Linux then you need Alsa.

The LinuxFocus Tip

How to copy a large file onto several floppies? There is certainly more than one solution to this problem but the easiest solution is to use "split" and "cat". Both are standard UNIX commands.

split -b 1420k largefile

This will produce the 1420k big files xaa, xab, ...
Copy them to the floppy disks. To re-assemble them use:

cat xaa xab > largefile

This is even a portable solution. To re-assemble under DOS use:

copy /b xaa + xab largefile /b