Processor built with Transistor-Transistor Logic - Hack a Day

This is the kind of thing that makes save all my old non working Electronics for Parts... Maybe some day...;)

Processor built with Transistor-Transistor Logic
posted Oct 30th 2009 11:02am by Mike Szczys
filed under: classic hacks, pcs hacks

cpu-built-from-ttl

[Donn] wanted know exactly what is going on inside of a processor so naturally he built a CPU out of TTL components. He had previously built a couple of versions of a computer based on the Z80 processor. Using the troubleshooting skills he learned and a second-hand textbook, he set to work using 74LS series chips connected using the wire-wrap method we’re familiar with from other cpu projects.

The finished product runs well at 1.8 megahertz, but he also included a 2 hertz clock and a step clock for debugging. At the slower speeds, the register board (seen at the left in the picture above) lights LEDs and can be used to tell what the CPU is currently working on. Programming is accomplished through either  a dumb terminal or a PC running a terminal emulator.

His writeup is from about five years ago but that didn’t prevent us from getting that fuzzy feeling in the geek-center of our brain when we read about it. It is well written and thorough so if you’re into this kind of thing there’s plenty to enjoy.

[Thanks Raleigh]

Go there...
http://hackaday.com/2009/10/30/processor-built-with-transistor-transistor-logic/

The Projects Home Page...

My Home-Built TTL Computer Processor (CPU)

This is about my homebuilt TTL computer processor. TTL stands for "transistor-transistor logic" and refers to a set of first-generation integrated circuits (I.C.'s) that contain simple logic gates, buffers, a binary adder, flip-flops, registers, decoders, multiplexors etc. These series 7400 I.C.'s are carefully designed so they can be connected together in patterns to make larger logic circuits. I built a computer central processing unit (CPU) of my own design out of these I.C.s.

I am not an engineer or computer scientist. I am a computer hobbyist. My first computer was a Sinclair ZX-80. I learned BASIC, and later Z-80 assembly language. Using the BASIC PEEK and POKE statements I wrote simple assembly language programs on this little machine. Later, I wrote some simple video games on a TRS-80.

Page 2, Design and Construction Simple Right???:O

Design and Construction

The completed computer is shown below. The central three boards (ALU, main board and control) make up what is commonly thought of as a computer processor, or central processing unit (CPU). The processor takes instructions and data from the memory-input/output, processes them, and puts data back into the memory-input/output.

Each board is a separate functional unit. The four outside boards (ALU, display, control and memory) could be tested thoroughly using a simple test board before being connected to the central main board.

Before I built this computer, I had to design it. My priority was simplicity. I did not want a processor that was fast, or complex. I wanted it to work. This processor that I designed and built is an accumulator-memory machine, that is, a single register is used in programming. I wanted an instruction set similar to those of the 8-bit microprocessors I was used to. However, the Z-80 and 6502 CPUs had complex instruction sets, with variable instruction lengths. I knew from experience that a programmer uses only a subset of these, so I designed an instruction set that was similar to this commonly-used subset. It has 16 instructions in all, with eight arithmetic-logical operations, and eight data movement and jump instructions. In retrospect, it is probably too heavy on the arithmetic-logical instructions, but I wanted to design and build a full ALU. Here is the instruction set.

Read more...
http://cpuville.com/design.htm

Don

PIC MCUs with nanoWatt XLP(tm) technology for extreme low power and battery applications

Accidently found this in a Google Add... Interesting new Processors....

Extreme Low Power Microcontrollers

PIC MCUs with nanoWatt XLP Technology for low power embedded
applications bring you:
■ Sleep / Power-down current down to 20 nA
■ Brown-out Reset down to 45 nA
■ Watch-dog Timer down to 400 nA
■ Real-time Clock/Calendar down to 500 nA

Go there and see videos...
http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=1484&gclid=COOx9Pj65Z0CFQ4MDQod1z6tQQ
<http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=1484&gclid=COOx9Pj65Z0CFQ4MDQod1z6tQQ>

Don

Processor built with Transistor-Transistor Logic - Hack a Day

Processor built with Transistor-Transistor Logic posted Oct 30th 2009 11:02am by Mike Szczys
filed under: classic hacks, pcs hacks

[Donn] wanted know exactly what is going on inside of a processor so naturally he built a CPU out of TTL components. He had previously built a couple of versions of a computer based on the Z80 processor. Using the troubleshooting skills he learned and a second-hand textbook, he set to work using 74LS series chips connected using the wire-wrap method we’re familiar with from other cpu projects.

The finished product runs well at 1.8 megahertz, but he also included a 2 hertz clock and a step clock for debugging. At the slower speeds, the register board (seen at the left in the picture above) lights LEDs and can be used to tell what the CPU is currently working on. Programming is accomplished through either  a dumb terminal or a PC running a terminal emulator.

His writeup is from about five years ago but that didn’t prevent us from getting that fuzzy feeling in the geek-center of our brain when we read about it. It is well written and thorough so if you’re into this kind of thing there’s plenty to enjoy.

[Thanks Raleigh]

Go there...
http://hackaday.com/2009/10/30/processor-built-with-transistor-transistor-logic/

Don

Caos NSA 1 Live Installer Walkthrough - Caos Linux Wiki

Caos NSA 1 Live Installer Walkthrough

From Caos Linux Wiki

Jump to: navigation, search

Introduction

This release of Caos Linux NSA takes the installation experience further by expanding on the classic Caos NSA automated installer by running it from within a live booted environment, Caos Linux Live. This enables the user to run Caos NSA 1 on their system for evaluation purposes without having to rewrite the hard disks. Of course this also makes Caos Linux Live media great for system repair, forensics, or other functions. This installation walkthough covers how to do a base installation of Caos NSA 1 to your system using the Caos Linux Live installer. The animated .gif slideshow below shows a complete installation of Caos Linux NSA 1, from boot to command prompt, in 15 steps. The step number can be seen in the lower right corner of the image, and a corresponding footnote describing that step can be found in the written description below the slideshow animation.

Caos Linux NSA in 15 steps

Go there...
http://wiki.caoslinux.org/Caos_NSA_1_Live_Installer_Walkthrough

Don

Main Page - Caos Linux Wiki

The Caos Linux Project

Caos Linux is a community-assembled operating system specially developed with nodes, servers, and appliances in mind. Caos Linux is fast, stable, and secure, versatilely scaling from HPC clusters to web appliances. It even functions well as a lean desktop workstation. Caos Linux is up to date, RPM compatible, Intel Cluster Ready, and integrates perfectly with Perceus, Infiscale's cluster provisioning software. Our Wiki is the instruction database for our user community. Everyday users are encouraged to create and edit instructions, descriptions, and "HowTo" walkthroughs of the installation, configuration, administration, and use of Caos Linux. Space is provided for developer collaboration as well as information on how to join in the effort. Getting Started Caos NSA 1 Live Installer Walkthrough (New!) Recipes and HowTo's Screenshots Wallpaper 15: Once booted you will be presented with the Caos NSA login prompt. Here is where you enter the default account created by the installer, that was recommended to be written down in step 12. The user name is 'admin' and the password is a randomly generated password of three numbers and four letters. Once that is entered you are fully logged into your new Caos Linux NSA system. Additional information about Caos NSA is located in the home directory. If additional system configurations need to be made or software packages added, sidekick is the best place to start. Sidekick works directly on the config files, so it can be used in addition to fully manual configuration techniques. To run sidekick enter 'sidekick' as root or 'sudo sidekick' from an admin account. Congratulations and best wishes with your experience using Caos NSA! To learn more visit the Caos Website

Go there....
http://wiki.caoslinux.org/Main_Page

• 5 System Configuration using Sidekick
• Written for Caos Linux 2 (but looks similar to NSA Sidekick screens).
  

System Configuration using Sidekick

In the next part you will be greeted with the system config called Sidekick as seen below:

I suggest you go in order. Press enter to do a Hardware detect of all the hardware on your computer. Simple Right? Next is the system name. Here you can define the Domain name and hostname of your computer. After this is the Network Device Config setup as seen below:

Press enter to configure the device listed above. Enter yes for the device to be active and select dhcp if you use a router (which uses the dhcp protocol) and static if you have a static ip. Select dhcp if you don't know which one to choose. Press d after you are done. Next is setting the date and time. I found that if I probe the current time over the internet it gives me the wrong time. But as usual there is the option to specify the date and time yourself. After that is setting the timezone. This screen is pretty self explanatory, if its not, pull up a map of the world and find out where you are. hehe ;)

Network Repository is the next option. You should see URL to mirror : http://mirror.caosity.org/cAos-2

Press enter to set this as your default repository. There is no need to change this...yet. In the next screen you will be given the option of choosing which repository to use. There are three options to pick from:

stable - repository where these packages are tested to be fully working with caos

current - repository is where the packages have no bugs but are not exactly fully deemed stable

testing - repository is the testing repository where you can get the latest cutting edge software but there may be bugs in them

System Roles is the next option in sidekick where you define what you want caos to do for you. Here you define the package options you want to install as seen below:

Select the package options you would like to install by selecting them with the spacebar and when you are done press d to continue installing the packages you selected. You will need the Default at least selected.

If you get a message on the screen that says Error: failure No more mirrors to try

don't panic, thats sidekicks way of telling you that you have a faulty connection and it disconnected while it was downloading. Press enter and it'll bring you back to the sidekick main screen. Now scroll up one back up to System Roles option on sidekick and select your options again and re-try.

Now wait for it to finish and after its done it should bring you back to the sidekick main menu.

The next option on the menu is Start/Stop services. Default services are already checked but if you have a laptop i suggest apmd as well. If you are using caos as a firewall i suggest iptables and if you are running a Raid i suggest mdmonitor. I suggest everyone check the last option on that list, enable a daily run of yum.

Finished!

After that you need to set the Root password for caos. When you are done review your settings and press d to save and exit sidekick. You can always start sidekick again by typing sidekick at the prompt.

Pat yourself on the back for a job well done! now it will reboot and depending on what package options you picked in sidekick you will either be greeted with a console based user and password prompt(runlevel 3), or another GUI(graphical user interface) login screen(runlevel 5). You are now done ;) congrats!

Any typos or questions on this walkthrough please find me on irc.freenode.net in #caos

Written for Caos Linux 2 by Raymond Yip (Foxhacker) Revision Oct 26, 2006

Don

The SeaMonkey^® Project

The SeaMonkey project is a community effort to develop the SeaMonkey all-in-one internet application suite (see below). Such a software suite was previously made popular by Netscape and Mozilla, and the SeaMonkey project continues to develop and deliver high-quality updates to this concept. Containing an Internet browser, email & newsgroup client with an included web feed reader, HTML editor, IRC chat and web development tools, SeaMonkey is sure to appeal to advanced users, web developers and corporate users.

Under the hood, SeaMonkey uses much of the same Mozilla source code which powers such successful siblings as Firefox, Thunderbird, Camino, Sunbird and Miro. Legal backing is provided by the Mozilla Foundation.

Go there...
http://www.seamonkey-project.org/

Don

Linux Today - Ford Unveils Open Source Sync Developer Platform

Ford Unveils Open Source Sync Developer Platform
Oct 30, 2009, 00 :16 UTC (0 Talkback[s]) (377 reads)
(Other stories by Antuan Goodwin)

"The first test of Ford's open-application SDK will be in conjunction with a competition at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Students will compete to develop the best Sync application that makes use of the cloud. The winning team will have their app installed in Ford's first test mule, a Ford Fiesta, and will take a road trip from Ann Arbor to San Francisco to participate in the 2010 San Mateo Maker's Faire.

"Ford currently has no road map for when we can expect to see the Sync open platform in production vehicles, as it is still in the prealpha testing phases."

Complete Story

Go there..
http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2009-10-30-001-39-OS-BZ-DV

Don

Linux Today - Mozilla's SeaMonkey 2.0 Exits Cryptobiosis

SeaMonkey 2.0 Exits Cryptobiosis
Oct 29, 2009, 22 :54 UTC (0 Talkback[s]) (484 reads)
(Other stories by Austin Modine)

"Version 2.0 is rebuilt with the same internal platform as Firefox 3.5.4, bringing aspects like user interface, profiles, and functionality closer to what folks are familiar with in Firefox. The change also gives SeaMonkey an add-on manager in the same vein as Mozilla's popular browser for easier installation and management of plugins, themes, and extensions.

"Other new features include session restore, an undo close window option, and toolbars that are now fully customizable."

Complete Story

Go there..
http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2009-10-29-020-39-NW-SW-RL

Don

Caos-NSA 1 Installation

Introduction

You will be refreshed as to how painless installing Linux can be with Caos-NSA. This walkthrough describes a basic system installation of Caos-NSA using default options. Alternate configuration options will be described in other articles, although you will find our system configuration toolkit, Sidekick, to be easy to use for setting up your system. To begin you should have burned a downloaded ISO image from our mirror to a CD and placed it in your computer, with the BIOS settings set to boot from the optical drive before the hard disk.

[edit] Installation

After booting from the Caos-NSA 1 CD, you will see our boot prompt and installation information screen:

"autoinstall" is the command to use to install Caos-NSA to your system. You can also test your system for compatibility, demo Caos-NSA without installation, or boot into a rescue prompt. Know that "autoinstall" is a merciless automatic installer that will wipe out the data on your first hard disk and repartition it without any prompt or warning, so you must be sure that is what you want to do before issuing that command. If you need to install Caos-NSA to a specific hard disk or partition, append the "layout=manual" boot option to the "autoinstall" command, and you will be able to fdisk your drive and configure your fstab as you desire. This walkthrough covers the "autoinstall" command with no boot options used, as it is effective for most system installations.

The installation of Caos-NSA to your hard disk does not take very long. When it is finished you will be presented with an option to reboot your computer or enter a debug shell.

If all is well reboot the computer by pressing enter. The CD will be ejected and the computer will reboot. The bootloader Grub will launch Caos-NSA. Your network card should be detected and will seek out an IP address over DHCP for this first boot to allow you to update your system to the most current packages during the initial configuration. If you do not have network connectivity configuration is still possible, but the steps requiring an Internet connection will be skipped. After Caos-NSA boots you will be brought to the Sidekick system configuration toolkit.

Sidekick is navigated with the arrow keys, enter, tab, and the space bar. Arrows up and down change menu choices, arrows left and right will select command choices at the bottom (such as "OK" and "Cancel"), tab will move the cursor from the menu list to the commands, and the space bar will check or uncheck menu selections. Letters in red are hot-keys for that choice. Make selections and enter commands with enter.

[edit] System Settings

Sidekick first asks to configure you keyboard to one of many international keymaps. Select your system's locale and press enter.

Once selected it will give you an opportunity to test your keyboard setting to verify if it is correct.

Next Sidekick will ask for the root password to be set. Choose a strong password, as it is important that your root account is secure.

Next verify your root password to check for typing mistakes.

Sidekick will then ask for the email address of the administrator of the system. Know that this is only for important system notifications and will not be used for any unsolicited reason. Caos Linux respects the privacy of it's users!

Next provide Sidekick with the name of the system administrator. This goes into the user database, and is part of setting up the administrator user account.

Now enter the account name for the system administrator. It is generally a bad idea to administer your system logged in as root all the time. This administrator account will be granted sudo privileges automatically, so it can be used to fully administer the system using the sudo command.

Follow that with the account password...

and confirm it.

Sidekick will then ask you to set the timezone for your system. First select the general area of the world your system located at.

Next set the specific time zone.

Sidekick will next run a network connectivity test to several servers to check to see if you have a working connection to the Internet.

[edit] Software configuration

If all is well with your network, you will be asked if you want to update the package list from the software repositories. For the most up-to-date system, you will want to do this.

The progress of this process will be displayed.

Now it is time to select the profile for the system. Choose the profiles that match what the system will be used for, or what optional functions you would like your system to have and select "OK". Each of the profile options will shown in further detail in the following sections.

Most of the profiles do not require any options or settings for installation. This is done for the sake of speed and simplicity, so the installation of your system does not require unnecessary prompts for information. If a deviation from the standard installation is required on your system you may alter settings manually in the config files or by launching Sidekick after installation is complete.

[edit] Configuring GUI

This profile installs the lightweight XFCE desktop environment on your system, as well as setting the runlevel for it to launch at startup. No configuration options are necessary, so you will not be prompted for any.

[edit] Configuring Email

This profile installs, configures, and activates the software needed for your system to be an incoming Email server. It will prompt you to fill out personal information for the SSL certificate you will be using, but this step is optional.

If 'Yes' is selected, you will be notified and taken to a text input screen.

[edit] Configuring LAMP

This profile installs and configures Apache and hardened PHP, making your system a fully functional web server. If MySQL database services are necessary from this system, select the "Database" profile as well. It is not necessary to set any options at this point for your web server, so you will not be prompted for any. The contents of /var/www/html/ will be the hosted web content of your system.

[edit] Configuring File Server

This profile installs and activates various file-sharing services to your system. These include the traditional login/checkout FTP server, Samba and NFS mapped drive shares, and iSCSI, the file share mapped as raw hardware. Portmap and Apache (minus the rest of LAMP) are also included. This profile requires no installation or configuration options, so none will be asked for.

[edit] Configuring Database

This profile configures and activates the MySQL database service. The profile is isolated from the LAMP web server profile so it is possible to set up a dedicated MySQL database box without the web hosting services. The installation of this profile will not prompt you for any options or information, so set up your database users from the command-line when the Sidekick configuration is complete.

[edit] Configuring Virtualization

This profile installs and enables the Kernel-based Virtual Machine solution KVM. Activate this profile if you intend to host virtual machines on your system, or you wish to use Abstractual, Infiscale's VM management software. No options are necessary, so none will be prompted for.

[edit] Configuring Clustering

Because the "Clustering" profile was selected Perceus will automatically be installed and configured to it's default state. Sidekick displays this to you, but if you aren't watching you may miss this exciting step! (The next step does wait for your input, so no worries if you do miss it.)

When Perceus is successfully installed you will be prompted to download a VNFS capsule to use to provision your nodes. There are a few choices, but we'll go with the compute capsule. Cloud provisioning and Intel Cluster Ready capsules are the other options at this time.

Sidekick will next show you the latest VNFS capsule available from the download mirror and ask your confirmation to download and import it.

You will see the progress of this.

[edit] Configuring ICR

This profile installs the software packages necessary to make your system compatible with the Intel Cluster Ready program, certifying that your clustering software and Intel-based hardware are compatible. No installation options are necessary for this profile.

[edit] Configuring Development

This profile installs the compilers, toolchains, libraries, headers, and other tools necessary for modern software development. Caos-NSA is on the cutting edge with GCC 4.3.3 and other latest development packages. There are no installation or configuration options for this profile, so none will be asked for. It is one of the larger metapackages, so expect your download and installation time for this profile to be longer than most of the others.

[edit] Configuring X-Development

This profile further builds upon the "Development" profile to add support for developing applications for the X GUI environment. It is not necessary for most development, only that which is specifically for X applications. There are no installation options, so none will be asked for. This also is a large metapackage, so expect download and installation times to be greater than with most other profiles.

[edit] Configuring Laptop

This profile installs and configures optimizations for mobile systems, such as power management controls to increase battery life. If you are installing Caos-NSA on a laptop, netbook, or other portable system, this profile will be of great benefit. There are no configuration options, so none will be prompted for.

[edit] Configuring GL

This profile installs and activates GL 3D rendering support for graphics cards that can utilize it. If you have an Nvidia or similar 3D accelerated graphics adapter, than you can take advantage of this profile. There are no installation options for this profile.

[edit] Conclusion

Once all the selected profiles are downloaded, installed, and configured, your system installation is complete! Your system will reboot and start up after this into the appropriate runlevel for your installation (varying only if the GUI profile was selected or not.) Sidekick can be launched at any time from the terminal or command-line by typing sudo sidekick to configure all aspects of your system. We hope your Caos-NSA experience is a good one!

Linux Today - The Perfect Server - CentOS 5.4 x86_64 [ISPConfig 2]

The Perfect Server - CentOS 5.4 x86_64 [ISPConfig 2]
Oct 29, 2009, 18 :39 UTC (0 Talkback[s]) (332 reads)
(Other stories by Falko Timme)

[ Thanks to Falko Timme for this link. ]

"This tutorial shows how to set up a CentOS 5.4 server (x86_64) that offers all services needed by ISPs and web hosters: Apache web server (SSL-capable), Postfix mail server with SMTP-AUTH and TLS, BIND DNS server, Proftpd FTP server, MySQL server, Dovecot POP3/IMAP, Quota, Firewall, etc. This tutorial is written for the 64-bit version of CentOS 5.4, but should apply to the 32-bit version with very little modifications as well. In the end you should have a system that works reliably, and if you like you can install the free webhosting control panel ISPConfig (i.e., ISPConfig runs on it out of the box)."

Complete Story

Go there...
http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2009-10-29-016-39-OS-HL-SV

Don

LinuxLinks.com,,Links to Linux Distros...

LinuxLinks.com

Links to Linux Distros... A very long and informative list of Linux
Distros...

Go there...
http://www.linuxlinks.com/Distributions/

Don

Have GNU/Linux your way! 64 Studio

Have GNU/Linux your way!

64 Studio Ltd. produces bespoke GNU/Linux distributions which are compatible with official Debian and Ubuntu releases. Specialising in multimedia and digital content creation platforms which we develop for our OEM partners, we also offer support, documentation services and consultancy. Our software is already included in several shipping products in the professional audio market, with more to follow. In addition, we offer a free download product which has won critical acclaim for its stability and high performance.

Download 64 Studio

The 64 Studio version 2.1 install image is around 800MB and requires a DVD-R. The 2.0 Live CD is smaller and can be burned to either CD-R or DVD-R. Both versions are available in 64-bit (labelled amd64) and 32-bit (labelled i386) builds, to run on almost all PCs.

In the root directory of the CD you should see a readme file with basic installation instructions, with several translations available. If you would like to contribute a translation in your own language, please get in touch via the contacts page.

Go there...
http://www.64studio.com/

Don

Gentoo Linux

About Gentoo

What is Gentoo?

Gentoo is a free operating system based on either Linux or FreeBSD that can be automatically optimized and customized for just about any application or need. Extreme configurability, performance and a top-notch user and developer community are all hallmarks of the Gentoo experience.

Thanks to a technology called Portage, Gentoo can become an ideal secure server, development workstation, professional desktop, gaming system, embedded solution or something else -- whatever you need it to be. Because of its near-unlimited adaptability, we call Gentoo a metadistribution.

Of course, Gentoo is more than just the software it provides. It is a community built around a distribution which is driven by more than 300 developers and thousands of users. The distribution project provides the means for the users to enjoy Gentoo: documentation, infrastructure (mailinglists, site, forums ...), release engineering, software porting, quality assurance, security followup, hardening and more.

To advise on and help with Gentoo's global development, a 7-member council is elected on a yearly basis which decides on global issues, policies and advancements in the Gentoo project.

What is Portage?

Portage is the heart of Gentoo, and performs many key functions. For one, Portage is the software distribution system for Gentoo. To get the latest software for Gentoo, you type one command: emerge --sync. This command tells Portage to update your local "Portage tree" over the Internet. Your local Portage tree contains a complete collection of scripts that can be used by Portage to create and install the latest Gentoo packages. Currently, we have more than 10000 packages in our Portage tree, with updates and new ones being added all the time.

Portage is also a package building and installation system. When you want to install a package, you type emerge packagename, at which point Portage automatically builds a custom version of the package to your exact specifications, optimizing it for your hardware and ensuring that the optional features in the package that you want are enabled -- and those you don't want aren't.

Portage also keeps your system up-to-date. Typing emerge -uD world -- one command -- will ensure that all the packages that you want on your system are updated automatically.

Go there...
http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/about.xml

Don

The StartCom Linux operating systems are based on the Red Hat Enterprise and Fedora source code,

Linux is a UNIX like Operating System, famous for its reliability and security features, that runs on all kinds of computers. Linux was started by Linus Torvalds in 1991. The Linux Kernel and most applications it offers, are GPL licensed, called Open Source. You can find more about Linux in general here.

The StartCom Linux operating systems are based on the Red Hat Enterprise and Fedora source code, each modified with reliability, security and efficiency in mind, to fit the tasks assigned to each flavor of StartCom Linux. In order to choose the StartCom Linux version for your needs, check out our Products and Distributions page.

StartCom MultiMedia Edition 5.0.6 (Kessem) DVD:


It's probably one of the largest and most complete Linux distributions ever released to the public. Release ML-5.0.6, offers many “out-of-the-box�? capabilities, never to be bundled with an operating system before. Designed as a multi media workstation with music studio and advanced video editing applications, it also provides the desktop user with the most applications for day to day use.
Order your copy or download now.

Go there...
http://www.startcom.org/

Don

SoL - Server optimized Linux

Welcome to SoL - Server optimized Linux

SoL 25.00 WORKBENCH released! You can download it in the download secion of this page.

Thank you for the overwhelming response! Since the release of SoL 25.00 we got very good feedback from all over the world. Thank you all for using SoL!
Offical Press release: Neue Linux-Server-Lösung aus Österreich

• SoL - Server optimized Linux 25.00 is the 11th release within the SoL series since 2001.
• SoL is the successor of the award winning Sirius Server!
• SoL is developed by OSNET.at, a 100% Austrian (Europe) company.
• SoL is a core distribution and does not base on any other Linux distirbution.
• SoL is a perfect platform for servers and a perfect platform for developing server applications.
• SoL features cutting-edge Linux technology
• And finally: SoL was made by developers/admins for developers/admins.

Features

• Fast&Easy Installation System with RAID Wizard
• Supports Network (over PXE) and DVD Installation
• Optimized for modern CPU Architectures
• Ready to use as XEN dom0 or domU
• Features QEMU mode to boot right from Windows!
• "Ready for Cluster" Technology
• Perfect integration for heterogenous Environments
• Advanced XML boot Technology
• Integrated Server Development Workbench Tools
• Full-Feature Diskless training, evaluation and rescue mode! The only DVD you need! - aka: Sysadmins best friend
• "Ready for Virtualization" Technology (featuring XEN and QEMU)

SoL is free!

SoL - Server optimized Linux is Open Source software and free to download.

Nice features

• Put the SoL 25.00 DVD into your DVD drive, reboot your system and choose "Diskless SoL 25.00" from the boot menu!
• If you run Windows, insert the DVD and click on "BOOT_THIS_CD.bat". This will boot the DVD using QEMU. Choose "Diskless 25.00" from the boot menu!
• On the CD you will find useful tools for Win32 under the contrib/ directory!

For more information and features, please visit the http://wiki.sol-linux.com/.

Go there...
http://www.sol-linux.com/

Don

Lintrack is a small, easy to configure and highly integrated GNU/Linux distribution for routers, firewalls, network access servers, content filters

Lintrack is a small, easy to configure and highly integrated GNU/Linux distribution for routers, firewalls, network access servers, content filters and more. It is targeted especially at small and medium-sized wireless Internet Service Providers.

About Lintrack

Lintrack is a GNU/Linux distribution which can be used as:

• wireless router
• network access server
• PPPoE server
• HotSpot server
• VPN server/client
• firewall
• traffic shaper
• HTTP content filter
• OSPF router
• PIMv2 (multicast) router
• and more - see Features

What makes Lintrack unique is that it is highly integrated and automated by the Flatconf configuration system. Lintrack is mainly administered using an interactive CLI tool, fcc, which makes system configuration easy and fast.

While giving the end user a powerful, high-level interface, Lintrack has still all of the possibilities of traditional Linux administration. What's more, some functionality may be managed by fcc, and some by die-hard Unix tools, e.g. vim.

Lintrack has also many unique features exclusively developed by our team, like improved MadWiFi driver with better 802.11h support and many bugs fixed, dynamic weighted round-robin Ethernet bonding, RADIUS client with solid-state queue, QoS layer-7 firewall with DiffServ support and basic HTTP advertisements distribution framework, just to name a few.

Currently, we target x86 CPU architectures only, but support for other architectures is planned in near future. A typical installation needs at least 256MB of storage space, but 512MB is recommended.

Go there...
http://www.lintrack.org/

Don

IPCop Firewall is a Linux firewall distribution geared towards home and SOHO

IPCop Firewall is a Linux firewall distribution geared towards home and SOHO (Small Office/Home Office) users. The IPCop interface is very user-friendly and task-based. IPCop offers the critical functionality of an expensive network appliance using stock, or even obsolete, hardware and OpenSource Software.


OLD PC + IPCOP = Secure Internet Appliance

IPCop lets you take an old PC and convert it into an appliance that will.

1. Secure your home network from the internet.
2. Improve the performance of web browsers (by keeping frequently used information)

All this functionality can be managed from a simple to use web interface, even updates and patches can be installed using a web browser.
Remember IPCop works with most home networks and small office networks, dial up modems, cable modems, ADSL, Leased lines and ISDN. It also lets several PCs share connections to the internet. If you have an always on connection to can even use IPCop to protect your web and email servers. IPCop also has remote management meaning you can securely update and reconfigure your IPCop firewall from anywhere with an internet connection!

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How does IPCop Firewall work?

IPCop Firewall basically sits "in between" your Internet connection (dial-up modem, cable-modem, DSL, etc) and works directs traffic using a set of rules for the TCP/IP traffic that underlies all Internet activities. The default rules, ideal for most users, are essentially simple in nature. They allow you to "surf" to the outside world and visit web-sites, FTP, email and so forth. And as you go about your tasks on the Internet, IPCop allows return traffic from those tasks, that you requested, to pass through. If, however, some random TCP/IP traffic comes in, requesting information from your computer, and that traffic is not in response to your requests, IPCop Firewall refuses to respond, and logs that attempt. Thus, you are allowed to go about your normal business, but when the bad guys try to come after you, they are stopped cold, because they are not responding to your requests. Think of IPCop Firewall as your friendly traffic cop down on the corner, making sure that things travel smoothly, and enforcing good rules on your Internet traffic.

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Go there...
http://www.ipcop.org/index.php?name=FAQ&id_cat=2

Don

IPFire ipfire.org

IPFire

www.ipfire.org

Security now!

	more security for your network IPFire is a source-based linux firewall distribution that brings additional features with it. The easy-to-set-up system defeats its competitiors like IPCop, Smoothwall and Endian-Firewall potty. A stateful-inspection-firewall with a luxuriant content-filtering-engine plus traffic-control (QoS) rounded with latest vpn-technology and a lot of logging is foolproof to administer with just a very few clicks. "Modular system" is the principle of IPFire. There is a big number of addons. See the short list below: Intrusion-Prevention-System Snort(Guardian) and more security tools Tripwire and Lynis File- and printserver for heterogeneous networks (Samba, CUPS, FTP & NFS) Voice-over-IP solution with Asterisk and Teamspeak plus traffic prioritization Multimedia addons (video- & audio-streaming, jukebox) WLan Access Point with hostap and many Atheros Chips and many more - List of all Addons Addons The IPFire firewall and router is at its core a securty platform, which can optionally be expanded or made even more secure with addons. So it is possible very quickly a small home server with many useful features. The tool which makes this possible is called pakfire. The IPFire developers have built pakfire with the goal of simplifying the installation of an addon or updateoften requiring just a few mouse clicks. General safety information for addons are highlighted in the following articles. Currently there are two different groups of addons: stable: After an installation of IPFire the only addons available are those which were tested and stable with no significant errors. unstable or testing: The unstable or testing trunk includes all addons that were previously available, but not tested or stable. There could be many reasons for this status. For example, the developers might have no hardware available to test the addon. To install one of these addons, some manual intervention is required. Below is a list of all addons. File Server The Samba addon offers a fast file server for Windows or heterogeneous networks. The NFS server offers the possibility to share files over the network. Mail Server The mail server IPFire uses is a mix of Cyrus-IMAPd, Postfix and Openmailadmin. Additionally there is also Fetchmail, Spamassassin and ClamAV or perhaps other virus scanners of your choice. Multimedia MPFire (TESTING) adds jukebox features to IPfire. Icecast streams the output of MPFire into the network. Gnump3d Server for streaming MP3- and OGG-files. VDR (TESTING) is a video recording / streaming server for digital TV cards. Voice over IP Asterisk (TESTING) is the ideal plattform for Voice over IP. Teamspeak offers VoIP communication. Security Guardian analyze the Snort and ssh-Logfile and block the Source IP (so the IDS mutates into an IPS). Tripwire Tripwire is a Host-Based IDS System, t.m. it monitors local changes. Lynis Lynis is a Commandline Audit Tool for a local scan of the system and the software. Cryptsetup With Cryptsetup and the Kernel Modul dmcrypt is it possible, to create crypted devices. P2P-Clients Applejuice P2P-Client for the Applejuice network. MLDonkey P2P-Client for E-Mule, BitTorrent, Overnet, Gnutella a.m.m.. RTorrent Bittorrent Client for ncurses written in C++ and so very slim and fast. Miscellaneous Sane allows you to scannen over the network with a webinterface. Qemu virtualization of guest OS on the IPFire. esniper is a small EBay-Tool with webfrontend. It provides functions for automatic bidding. dirvish backup solution for IPFire (no regular IPFire addon!!!) TinyWebGalerie free PHP based WebGalerie for IPFire. apcupsd Tool to monitoring Uninterruptible power supply from the company APC. miau A bouncer for the IRC network. Binaries In this category are small addons for the shell: bwm-ng centerim htop A process viewer, like top but cooler mc Midnight Commander, easy to use file manager nano An easy to use text editor ncftp net-snmp An snmp implementation more advanced than the basic snmpd nmap A versatile ip/port scanner rsync A file copying and backup utility tcpdump iftop A realtime bandwidth monitor traceroute videolan A video streaming and encoding utility vsftpd igmpproxy Virtualisation This category describes everything about the virtualisation of IPFire. ipfire_installation_als_eine_domu, Debian_als_Dom0_(Xen) Go there... http://www.ipfire.org/en/index Welcome to the IPFire Wiki! This project aims to distribute a high-performance firewall with a very high security level and a large amount of features as well. This wiki is the central storage engine of all available documents of the project. It is the place where users, developers and all others that have any interest in it should look at first. This wiki contains the following categories: Go there... http://wiki.ipfire.org/en/start Don