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Open Source News


January 22, 2004

bochs: The Open Source IA-32 Emulation Project

Bochs is a highly portable open source IA-32 (x86) PC emulator written in C++, that runs on most popular platforms. It includes emulation of the Intel x86 CPU, common I/O devices, and a custom BIOS. Currently, Bochs can be compiled to emulate a 386, 486, Pentium, Pentium Pro or AMD64 CPU, including optional MMX, SSE, SSE2 and 3DNow instructions.

Bochs is capable of running most Operating Systems inside the emulation including Linux, Windows® 95, DOS, and Windows® NT 4. Bochs was written by Kevin Lawton and is currently maintained by this project.

Five Tips for a Better sendmail Configuration

Craig Hunt gives some tips on sendmail configuration. "Unix vendors bundle sendmail with the operating system and ship it out preconfigured. It is very easy to install the OS and use the sendmail configuration delivered with the system. Don't be fooled by this apparent simplicity. In the long run, it is better to take charge of your fate. Creating a custom sendmail configuration using current software and features selected for your environment will give you better performance, reliability, security, and maintainability."

Going Upstream to Fight Spam

Wired covers a talk by Eric Raymond at a Spam Conference at MIT. "Raymond is promoting an antispam technology called SPF (sender permitted from), an open-standard SMTP (simple mail transfer protocol) extension that stops spam before ISPs have to download messages by rejecting those e-mails coming from forged addresses. Under SPF, e-mail users enter their valid domains and IP addresses into the SPF registry. More than 4,000 domains have published their SPF records, including AOL, said Raymond. The registry will also be supported by an upcoming version of SpamAssasin and other antispam applications."

Oracle's Linux Push: Mozilla Browser to Front Oracle Apps

eWeek looks at a push by Oracle to support Linux on the desktop as well as on the server. "Oracle Corp. is ready to extend its "Linux Everywhere" campaign to client systems. In the coming year, the company will enable the Mozilla open-source Web browser to run Oracle applications."