lamont116 writes "The latest in the series of beta kernels was just released by the fine folks who have given us Linux. Enjoy!" The Changelog has a hefty 240K of miscellaneous changes... LWN has an overview of the updates.

impto writes "Whenever someone brings up the topic of replacing X, everyone always says that's nice, but where's the code? Well, Mark Thomas put his money where his mouth is and produced a replacement that maintains network transparency while adding many of the features that people desire from X such as alpha blending and a built-in toolkit. It still needs a bit of work to be as featureful as X but it's a fresh start that takes advantage of current technology and ideas. Read the paper here in PDF (1.7MB) or PS or grab the source and start hacking."

superid writes "Several years ago while reading comp.dsp I found a link to The Weak Signal Challenge. On that page is a .wav file of a morse code signal bounced off the moon. The page author Mike Cook is offering $100 to the next person to successfully decode the morse code. Since I was the one who originally solved this, I promised Mike that I wouldn't divulge the answer or provide any clues. I can say thought that I didn't use anything special other than traditional signal processing techniques, octave, matlab, and patience. I think that overall I spent about 24 hours total sitting at my '486. I think it would be great to generate some interest in this. Maybe someone could come up with a novel solution and win $100!"

LogError writes "Sebek is a piece of code the lives entirely in kernel space and records either some or all data accessed by users on the system. This paper is a detailed discussion of Sebek, how it works and its value."

ceejayoz writes "The source code for Relic Entertainment's 1999 Game of the Year, Homeworld, has just been released. Details are available at Homeworld Universe. Not GPL'ed, but pretty nifty all the same." Note that any sort of property aside from the source such as graphics or codecs have been stripped out, but it's still cool to look through the game engine.

langles writes "Perl 5.8.1 has been released. Read the official announcement, then download it from a CPAN mirror near you. If you've been following the Perl5 Porters List, you'll know this version was very well tested before they released it. However, there may be some modules that will need to be fixed before they will work with this release." The announcement also contains full details on incompatibilities and known issues, so give it a once over before upgrading, especially if from a pre-5.8 version.

An anonymous reader writes "Sep 27, 2003 is the 20th anniversary of Stallman's original Usenet post describing his vision of GNU. Good time for reflecting over GNU's successes and failures, about how it has changed our world."

An anonymous reader writes "LinuxDevices.com is reporting on a compression and differential proxy scheme for X that makes it practical to xhost rich applications like Mozilla or a whole UNIX desktop over a 9.6Kbps connection (think cell phone with GSM modem). The company developing NX has a neat test drive set up -- and it is way zippier than VNC. There'll be a paper about it at the next LinuxKongress in Saarbrucken, Germany, and a call is out to OSS programmers to build on the GPL'ed NX library."

CowboyRobot writes "My favorite Slashdot links are those that inspire me to embark on meaningless and time-consuming quests. This is one of them. Two Canadian game developers at Digital Eclipse have a thorough explanation of how to port a game using nothing but the binary stream coming out of the cartridge. They use the TRS-80 and Phantasy Star III as examples."

TwistedSquare asks: "I like to write small games from time to time, and have often wondered about adding sounds. Searching around on the internet, I can find loads of GPL sound libraries but no sound effects/samples that are both royalty-free and free (as in beer). Can anyone suggest how I could find such effects and does anyone else find it odd the contrast between the amount of GPL software and non-GPL-type items in areas such as sound effects?"

hondo77 writes "Joel Spolsky has finally moved Fog Creek Software into their new digs. Read about what went into the design of "the ultimate software development environment" from your (my) cube and drool."

PSF writes "The Python Software Foundation (PSF) has announced the release of version 2.3.1 of the Python programming language. This minor release introduces a number of enhancements based on two months of experience since release of version 2.3. For more information see www.python.org/2.3.1."

aliensexfiend writes ""PostgreSQL Beta Testing has begun. The more testers, the merrier. Read the announcement page as well as the Beta info page. Interesting new features include a new Binary I/O protocol, ability to inline simple SQL functions, and an error message wording scheme that provides 3 layers of detail!!.""

Jacco de Leeuw writes "I was checking the website of anti-virus vendor Sophos when I noticed a press release: " Sophos Acquires Anti-Spam Specialist ActiveState for $23 million in cash". I didn't even know ActiveState was into anti-spam! What will this mean for their ActivePerl or ActivePython products?"

univeralifepadre writes "Saw this scroll by quickly on the TechTV ticker; Nvidia has a new GPU for handhelds, the GoForce 2150. It supports image capture up to 1.3 megapixels, has hardware jpeg encoding, and a 64-bit 2d graphics engine."

Zangief asks: "Almost any gamer has, at some point, the idea of making their own game. I am no exception, so I've been playing around with SDL, which appears to be the logical decision over the craziness of DirectX. However I have also noticed that other alternatives, such as ClanLib. There is something else? Are there any other libraries, dev-kits, or tools that would be good for indie developers?"

Shipud writes " Bio-IT World is running a story on how Gene Codes corporation created the Mass Fatality Identification System (M-FISys) in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. The story goes into the details of processing large amounts of data, aiming for a 99.9% accuracy rate, and extreme programing."

ninejaguar asks: "Slashdot did an article on an Open Source product called Prevayler, which could theoretically resolve all the problems associated with OO's rough courtship with Relational databases. Slashdot covered Prevayler when it was still 1.x. Despite fear, doubt, and memory concerns, it has reached 2.0 alpha. Is anyone currently using this non-database solution in production? If so, has it sped development because of the lack of OO-to-RDBMS complexity? Was there a significant learning curve to speak of? The LGPL'd product could be incorporated into proprietary commercial software, and few might know about it. Is anyone considering using it in a transactional environment where speed is the paramount need? And, are there any objections to using Prevayler that haven't been answered at the Prevayler wiki? Would those who use MySQL find Prevayler to be a better solution because it's tiny (less than 100kb), 3000 times faster and is inherently ACID compliant?" Update: 09/24 19:25 GMT by C :Quite a few broken links, now fixed.

troed asks: "Anyone signing up to be the maintainer of an Open Source project and wishing to use the Perforce revision control server under their Open Source license seems to agree to being financially liable for the actions of others. The penalty is steep - a project consisting of 20 developers would mean that the person running the Perforce server might have to shell out $15000, if one of the developers release the code in an unfinished state. Read on for more details."

An anonymous reader writes "The OpenSSH team has uncovered multiple exploitable vulnerabilities in the days-old portable release of OpenSSH. That's right folks: time to patch *again*. 3.7.1p2 is now available. Instructions and mirror list here. Please note that this vulnerability only affects *portable* OpenSSH--so if you are running OpenBSD, you're safe. This vulnerability apparently has to do with PAM, so you can use the 'UsePam no' option in your config file. Info on the advisory here and here."