http://www.osnews.com Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:48:01 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/story/22457/Debian_GNU_Hurd_the_L_series http://osnews.com/story/22457/Debian_GNU_Hurd_the_L_series Debian GNU/Hurd can now be installed a little easier. "This month Philip Charles created a new installation CD, the L series, for the Hurd, which brings us a big step towards installing the Hurd from the Hurd (without the need of a Linux-based installer). If you enjoy testing stuff, please give it a try." Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:33:21 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Debian and its clones http://osnews.com/story/22456/Judge_Norwegian_ISP_Does_Not_Have_to_Block_The_Pirate_Bay http://osnews.com/story/22456/Judge_Norwegian_ISP_Does_Not_Have_to_Block_The_Pirate_Bay Every now and then you come across these news items that make just too much sense to be true. Earlier this year, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry threatened Norway's largest ISP, Telenor: block access to The Pirate Bay within 14 days, or face legal action. Telenor refused to comply - so it went to court. In what can only be seen as a major victory, the judge sided with Telenor. Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:22:55 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Law and Order http://osnews.com/story/22455/The_iPod_Touch_2nd_Gen http://osnews.com/story/22455/The_iPod_Touch_2nd_Gen Geeks.com, a popular shop for computer parts and mp3 players sent us over the second generation iPod Touch 8 GB for a review. Check in for more! Read more on this exclusive OSNews article... Sat, 07 Nov 2009 01:06:33 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Eugenia Loli-Queru) Apple http://osnews.com/story/22454/Microsoft_Shows_Off_Another_Minority_Report_UI_Concept http://osnews.com/story/22454/Microsoft_Shows_Off_Another_Minority_Report_UI_Concept Whether you like Microsoft or not, the Redmond giant does have one thing going for it: the company's research division. Working together with several universities and other institutions, Microsoft Research works on the soft and hardware of the future, ranging from research operating systems to insanely cool things like what Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie showed off during the Microsoft College Tour '09 (more videos). Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:24:45 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Microsoft http://osnews.com/story/22453/Moblin_2_1_Released http://osnews.com/story/22453/Moblin_2_1_Released "The Moblin project steering committee today announces the project release of Moblin v2.1 for Intel Atom processor-based netbooks and nettops. This project release includes the broadest feature additions, customer requested improvements, and overall polish to date. With this community release you will see significant feature additions and improvements including enhanced browser functionality and plug-in support, UI enhancements, support for 3G data connections, Bluetooth device management, input method support for localized languages, integrated application installer for the Moblin Garage, performance and stability improvements, and additional overall help and documentation." Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:45:01 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Linux http://osnews.com/story/22452/_No_ZFS_Really_Doesn_t_Need_a_fsck_ http://osnews.com/story/22452/_No_ZFS_Really_Doesn_t_Need_a_fsck_ "There is a discussion at osnews.com about a simple question: "Should ZFS Have a fsck Tool?". The answer is simple: No. I could stop now, as this answer is pretty obvious when you work a while with ZFS, but i want to explain my position. And i want to ask a different question at the end." Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:42:54 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Sun Solaris, OpenSolaris http://osnews.com/story/22451/Red_Hat_Virtualization_Manager_Requires_Windows http://osnews.com/story/22451/Red_Hat_Virtualization_Manager_Requires_Windows "As a major Linux vendor, one might expect that Red Hat's new Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Servers solution would be able to run on Linux servers. You'd be wrong. Not only is that not the case, but the Management Server piece of RHEV, which provides virtualization management capabilities, requires users to be running Microsoft's Windows Server. That's no typo: A Linux vendor is requiring its users to run one of its key new products on the rival, closed source Windows operating system. According to Red Hat, the plan is to have a Linux version ready by some point in 2010. But in the meantime, Red Hat customers who want to run the virtualization manager must purchase or already own a Windows server." Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:41:37 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Red Hat http://osnews.com/story/22450/EU_Adopts_Internet_Freedom_Provision_on_Internet_Cut-offs http://osnews.com/story/22450/EU_Adopts_Internet_Freedom_Provision_on_Internet_Cut-offs "For weeks, the major governing institutions of the European Union have been locked in a battle over three-strikes laws, Internet disconnections, and the appropriate role of judges in the process. Just after midnight last night, the deadlock was broken and all parties agreed to a new 'Internet freedom provision' that reinforces the presumption of innocence, the right to privacy, and the right to judicial review under any Internet sanctions." Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Law and Order http://osnews.com/story/22449/Click-to-Run_Streaming_Microsoft_Office_2010_ http://osnews.com/story/22449/Click-to-Run_Streaming_Microsoft_Office_2010_ Click-to-Run is a new technology Microsoft are introducing to allow you to test out Office 2010 quickly and easily, by literally streaming the app to your computer from the Internet into a virtualised space. Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:30:07 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kroc Camen) Microsoft http://osnews.com/story/22448/OSNews_Collaborative_Interview_Project http://osnews.com/story/22448/OSNews_Collaborative_Interview_Project A few weeks ago, we asked you for ideas on interesting interview subjects. You had a lot of great ideas, and we started contacting people. We'll probably be working through that list for many months. We've decided to start with three interviews: Timothy Normand Miller from OGP, Michael Dexter at Linux Fund and the Arch Linux Team. We've created a "conversation" for each interview subject over at our conversations area. For the next few days, we're going to collect interview questions in the comments of those conversations. Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:18:24 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (David Adams) Original OSNews Interviews http://osnews.com/story/22446/Ryan_Gordon_Halts_FatELF_Project http://osnews.com/story/22446/Ryan_Gordon_Halts_FatELF_Project As we all know, Mac OS X has support for what is called 'fat binaries'. These are binaries that can carry code for for instance multiple architectures - in the case of the Mac, PowerPC and x86. Ryan Gordon was working on an implementation of fat binaries for Linux - but due to the conduct of the Linux maintainers, Gordon has halted the effort. Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:05:32 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Linux http://osnews.com/story/22445/Rebel_EFI_Send_your_Computer_to_Psystar_for_Compatibility_ http://osnews.com/story/22445/Rebel_EFI_Send_your_Computer_to_Psystar_for_Compatibility_ We already had the news about Psystar's Rebel EFI possibly including open source code, but now we have another story which doesn't really seem to bode well for the small Florida clone maker. Gizmodo has a story on an interesting customer experience. Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:49:56 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Hardware, Embedded Systems http://osnews.com/story/22444/What_Would_Make_Your_Perfect_OS_ http://osnews.com/story/22444/What_Would_Make_Your_Perfect_OS_ There's no right way to do it, only ideas that are better than others in certain situations. But if you had the opportunity to head up the design of a new OS, one to Put Things Right, one that could be radical enough to varnish out those UI/X bumps that have clung on for years, but practical enough to be used every day, what would you design? How would you handle application management? What about file types and compatibility? Where would you cherry pick the best bits from other OSes and where would you throw away tradition? I've tackled this challenge for myself and present (an unfinished idea): KrocOS (warning: HTML5 site, will display without CSS in IE/older browsers). OSnews Asks: What would make your perfect OS? Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:05:54 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kroc Camen) Talk, Rumors, X Versus Y http://osnews.com/story/22443/Lose_Lose_Art_or_a_Trojan_ http://osnews.com/story/22443/Lose_Lose_Art_or_a_Trojan_ Computers are taking on ever more important roles in our daily lives. They used to be simple tools to get simple things done - work-related, mostly, maybe a few simple games, and that was it. However, over time, they have become the central hubs for all sorts of data - including precious data. For his Master of Fine Arts thesis project, Zach Gage illustrated just how important our computer data has become. Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:29:08 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Bugs & Viruses http://osnews.com/story/22442/Tech_Titans_Meet_in_Secret_to_Plug_SSL_Hole http://osnews.com/story/22442/Tech_Titans_Meet_in_Secret_to_Plug_SSL_Hole "Researchers say they've uncovered a flaw in the secure sockets layer protocol that allows attackers to inject text into encrypted traffic passing between two endpoints. The vulnerability in the transport layer security protocol allows man-in-the-middle attackers to surreptitiously introduce text at the beginning of an SSL session, said Marsh Ray, a security researcher who discovered the bug. A typical SSL transaction may be broken into multiple sessions, providing the attacker ample opportunity to sneak password resets and other commands into communications believed to be cryptographically authenticated. Practical attacks have been demonstrated against both the Apache and Microsoft IIS webservers communicating with a variety of client applications. A consortium of some of the world's biggest technology companies have been meeting since late September to hash out a new industry standard that will fix the flaw. A draft is expected to be submitted on Thursday to the Internet Engineering Task Force." Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:38:07 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Privacy, Security, Encryption