Linux News from O'Reilly Network

Ah Spring, when New Englanders' thoughts turn to where they put the sandbags from last year's flooding. Thankfully, Chez Turner sits up at the top of a hill, and I spent the bucks to have a sump pump put in the basement a few years ago, so the annual floody season is more of a distraction than a real problem. No so for the poor slumps who live at the bottom of said hill, next to the stream. I've seen the water level above their first floor windows on several occasions, and have been told they put their furnace in the attic to avoid having it become a submersible furnace. If I get a chance, I'll snap a shot of it next time the waters rise and give you all a link to it.

Meanwhile, I demonstrated my parenting skills by sitting in the rain (see above), and watching my son's lacrosse team get creamed 12-zip on Sunday. This year is shaping up to be a character-building year for the team, we'll see how much character those lil bodies can hold before they explode. It's also going to be my son's last year playing lacrosse, because there's nothing but the high-school team once you graduate from middle school, and it's highly competitive to get on.

Puffy and the Cryptonauts: What's New in OpenBSD 4.3
Something else graduating is OpenBSD, which celebrates the 4.3 release at the beginning of the month. And, of course, Puffy couldn't have a birthday without Federico Biancuzzi around to take the photos and dish out the cake. Or, in our case, his latest set of comprehensive interviews with the OpenBSD developers about what's new and important in the 4.3 release. I know I said we'd be having the Ubuntu 8.04 "What's New" this week, that's still pending alas, so consider this a bit of POSIX bait and switch.

Like This Strip Needs More Chaos
Ruby is taking a little Geek's Tour of Europe, having lost out on being the Ubuntu "J" poster child.

US GSA Understands Open Source Software Value
Todd Ogasawara is glad that the GSA likes Open Source, but wishes they understood that Open Source <> Noncommercial.

Hyper-V: Integrated and Ready to Roll.. Over Windows
Does Windows coming out-of-the-box with virtualization software actually hurt Windows, asks Dustin Puryear?

Python Algorithms: Greedy Coin Changer
Noah Gift is giving us some Python solutions to classic computer problems. This week, he teaches your computer to give change.

PyMOTW: functools
Want to rap about functions? Oh, wait... Want to WRAP your functions? Then use functools, Doug Hellmann's Python module of the week.

Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud [EC2]: Initial Thoughts on Security Implications
We'll be having an article on using Amazon's EC2 and S3 cloud computing resources in a few weeks. Nitesh Dhanjani has a thought or two on the security implications.

Microsoft Virtual PC/Virtual Server Workarounds for Installing Red Hat and Ubuntu
Todd has some cookbook solutions for getting various operating systems (including Ubuntu) working on Microsoft's Virtual PC.

The MySQL Appliance
Why would you want a MySQL appliance? Because it screams, according to Dustin.

Surprising Contender: NetBeans as a Ruby+MySQL IDE
Timothy O'Brien brings news of a surprising new contender for a Ruby and MySQL IDE... Netbeans!

A Ruby WTF
And even Ruby geeks have What-The-Frack moments every once in a while, including Gregory Brown.

Next week, you'll get the news on what's new in Ubuntu 8.04, really, promise! We've also got upcoming articles on EC2 (as mentioned above) and Google's App Server. Got a topic you'd like to see covered? Drop me a line and I'll see if we have someone to tackle it. Meanwhile, keep your head above water and your server farm dry!

Click to Expand

James M. Turner
Site Editor, ONLamp.com
turner@oreilly.com