Bang on target, the new version of Ubuntu Linux is available for our downloading pleasure. Amongst various changes it sports updates to the installer, improved networking, and a new 'Mobile USB' version geared towards the blossoming netbook market. Grab a copy from the Ubuntu website, and check out Linux Format's hands-on look. Or the one at Simple Thoughts. Or the one at PolishLinux. And probably a few other websites as well.
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Member since:2005-11-12
I have to say I'm trying really hard to not defect to Fedora 10. Its looking really good so far
That is funny. I defected from Fedora 9 to Ubuntu 8.04 and now 8.10. I found Ubuntu did a better job integrating Pulseaudio. On Ubunutu it just worked for me. I began to dislike the perpetual beta feel to Fedora. It was a little too bleeding edge for me. I also am appreciating the robustness of apt-get. Yum is pretty good but ever try and cancel it mid-stream? You can usually cancel apt-get and start where you left off. If yum dies you have to remove the yum lock, restart yum, etc. (ugly) You could also install apt-get on Fedora.
Edited 2008-10-30 20:54 UTC
Member since:2005-07-06
Fedora developers wrote much of PulseAudio and continue to maintain it. The only reason other distros that adopt technologies developed and integrated by Fedora first might feel better is because, including these innovative changes ahead of the pack means taking some risks and sometimes the results can be less than perfect for sometime till the pain points are sorted out.
NetworkManager 0.7, again being developed and integrated first within Fedora is now followed on by other distributions such as Ubuntu and OpenSUSE. Similar story with the Fedora's cross platform liveusb-creator or system-config-printer that is being included in Ubuntu and Mandriva.
You will see this happen again with Packagekit in the upcoming releases as well. Those are just a few examples. There is lots more in
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Overview
Distributions that take a more conservative path should really be happy that someone else is trail brazing for their benefit instead of complaining because if everybody waits for somebody else to do the hard work, the pace of innovation will fall down in the world of free and open source software quite drastically.
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it."I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)"."The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight.""And so it is with Dell's Alienware X51 R2, a small form factor gaming PC in console digs. It's shaped similar to Microsoft's Xbox 360 Slim, and though it's slightly larger than either a 360 or PlayStation 3, the X51 R2 would be right at home in a living room setting nestled next to a large screen TV. Indeed, it's adept at running Steam's Big Picture mode, and if your primary objective is to play games in the living room, go ahead and consider the X51 R2 a hybrid game console." This is obviously not the only machine like this - still, these are very valid console alternatives even for those that don't like being hunched over with a cramped WASD-claw. Also, PC gamers among us: could you get away with the $699 model for gaming?
From Bloomberg: "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes." The lid has officially been blown off.
Member since:
2007-02-17
I have to say I'm trying really hard to not defect to Fedora 10. Its looking really good so far. All the things that Ubuntu has had in its specs for about 4 releases Fedora actually followed through on. Ubuntu had a spec for seamless bootup and didn't do squat in this area for 3 releases. I love Ubuntu, I wouldn't trade apt-get for yum for the world but I like the fact the Fedora project actually follows through with their promises. Their artwork is incredible, there is so much polish graphically in Fedora, be it fade transitions when you change your wallpaper to fade transitions when you log in. What the hell is Ubuntu waiting for (for RedHat to hand the code over to them on a silver platter)?
I'm such a huge Ubuntu fan, but my enthusiasm is waning. Each release is starting to look like empty promises to me. Where is this new theme that they were making such a big deal about? Other than a couple of details here and there its the exact same theme they have been using since before Feisty.