You may remember something a bit paranoid written in these diaries a few days ago; turns out it wasn't paranoid enough--there is indeed a cyberwar coming this way, and best to lock down your boxes.
But there's a bright side to every dark cloud, and in this case it's the news that the RIAA is being counter-sued for malicious prosecution; oddly enough, the RIAA was the role model for SCO Linux (formerly Caldera Linux) when they sued IBM for stealing their code (they are now in court with Novell, and sinking fast).
If you are new here, then here is some reading you can do; other sources are here, and here.
If you are concerned about security, then this is a nice distribution to try on your older machine; while not a Linux distribution, it is based on FreeBSD, and rock solid stable and secure, with the added benefit of being easier to install then just about anything, commercial OSes included. Some other thoughts on securing your connections through open source can be found here.
Another possible choice is Fedora 7, which comes with SE Linux enabled; it's probably the easiest and most pleasant Linux installer around, and really works well with most hardware.
Linux has been called a cancer by the fellows at Microsoft, as well as communist; there may some merit to those charges after all; first, there is Debain WrEtch, a truly awful system:
It is rumored that as many as 110% of terrorists are Debain developers, and that the WrEtch release, occurring as it does so closely to the Vista launch, is a sign that the terrorists wish to leave their mark on Microsoft's profits in particular, and on the US economy in general. Given all of this, it's no surprise that Debain's logo is red and that Debain itself is an ancient African word meaning Down with America.
And if that's not enough, another quasi-communist government (actually socialist), the Venezuelans have come up with their own distro, called, aptly enough, Bolivarian Linux, or is that just Bolivarian computers? Richard M. Stallman was in Venezuela (and later Cuba) to witness the success of these new systems. He may soon be returning to Cuba for a more permanent stay.
Fully actualizing Microsoft's claims, the Chinese communists have now wholeheartedly embraced Linux, so much so that
In 2006, in the domestic market, seven million computers in the domestic market were signed up for pre-installation of Linux, making up 35 percent of the computers in the Chinese market.
Dell has a bit of catching up to do with their Ubuntu computers.
Further bad news for the telco/media giant/MS triumvirate comes with a counter-suit filed by one of the victims of the RIAA's sue anybody tactics; after losing their case against a grandma (and then losing the right to depose a 10-year-old), they may face a potentially huge fine, as well as setting a precedent for any further threats of legal action they try in the future.
And the real reason that Microsoft won't allow virtualization of Vista? It turns out that it may have nothing to do with DRM, but simply a fear of losing control of their precious desktop dominance:
All of this paints a picture in which Apple could use OEM pricing to offer Windows for its Macs at greatly reduced prices and running in a VM. The latter is absolutely crucial; telling users that they need to reboot into their Windows OS isn't nearly as sexy as, say, Coherence in Parallels. If you've never seen Coherence, it's quite amazing. You don't need to run Windows apps in a VM window of Vista. Instead, the apps appear to run in OS X itself, and the environment is (mostly) hidden away. VMWare also has similar technology, dubbed Unity.
That would certainly explain why they originally were going to allow it for the two most expensive versions of Vista, before they backtracked at the last moment. Update: Ouch! Vista games will now run on XP. Really zero reason to 'upgrade' now. Story here. Double ouch! Even the French parliament want nothing to with Microsoft anymore; they're switching to Ubuntu.
It seems that the monopolists may have many reasons to fear the Tux, but none more compelling than this:
Penguins about the size of humans roamed South America some 35 million years ago, and they didn't need ice to survive.
But enough about that. If you are using Ubuntu, you may well not know that the two eye-candy desktop enhancements Beryl and Compiz have now merged, and that the way to put the ultra eye-candy on your desktop is as simple as can be, now that the fused version has made it to the software repositories. Instructions can be found here.
Michael Moore and Richard M Stallman in Cuba, the RIAA being counter-sued, Microsoft getting yet more bad press (not actually news), the bad guys and the Chicoms and Venezuela adopting Linux, human-size penguins walking the Earth, throw in the French, and open source has taken a seriously weird turn. I'll be in Second Life, learning to fly.
Updated to make more coherent the rantiness. Oh, and the Debain WrEtch article is a parody, written by the Etch (Debian) developers. And the comment about RMS going to Gitmo was snark. At least for now. Just so you know.