2. Topics of Current Interest.

2.1. Should I Use the Red Hat 7.0 kgcc compiler?

It's probably better to use one of the standard GCC releases. The Free Software Foundation says that kgcc, a.k.a. GCC 2.96, contains extensions that produce object code which is not compatible with previous versions of GCC, in addition to the normal bugs found in development software. The FSF changed the version number of their current development compiler to 2.97 to distinguish them. The FSF's statement is at http://www.fsf.org/gcc/gcc-2.96.html. The latest stable GCC release is 2.95.2.

If you want standard development software and binary compatibility, any recent, officially released GNU C compiler from versions 2.7.2 will work to compile the generic kernel.source code. You can download source code distributions from one of the kernel.org mirror sites. (Refer to: ``Where Can I Get the Latest Kernel Version?,'' below.) The source code package included with Red Hat 7.0 is kernel version 2.2.16, and is archived as linux-2.2.16.tar.gz.

2.2. What Resources Are There for Linux DeCSS and Other Open Source DVD Software?

There is a DeCSS Resource Site at http://www.pzcommunications.com/main.htm. For information about the legal action to bar distributing DeCSS, refer also to 2600's Web site: http://www.2600.com, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, http://www.eff.org.

2.3. Where Is Information About Electronic Privacy Laws that Affect ISP's?

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has issued a report to Congress that recommends regulations to guarantee privacy for customers of Internet Service Providers. The text of the report is at http://www.ftc.gov/acoas/papers/finalreport.htm. The FTC E-commerce site is at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/menu-internet.htm/

The New York Times on the Web has a page of electronic privacy information resources at http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/reference/index-privacy.html Access is free but requires registration.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center maintains a Web page at http://www.epic.org/. The site also has pointers to information about international laws that affect cryptographic software.

2.4. How Is the DocBook Version of the FAQ Produced?

At present, the Linux FAQ uses the OASIS DocBook SGML DTD. HTML output is produced using James Clark's Jade DSSSL parser with modified versions of Norman Walsh's modular style sheets. The segmented version is produced from Jade output using a Perl program called faqinator. Question numbers in the SGML markup are generated with Perl. The text version is formatted from HTML with lynx, and split into segments using the standard GNU text utilities, and the segments are posted to Usenet. The DocBook utilities are located at ftp://ftp.freesoftware.com/pub/sourceware/docbook-tools/. In addition, the Linux Documentation Project maintains DocBook utilities. Refer to: ``Where Can I Get the HOWTO's and Other Documentation?''