OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

NetBSD 3.0.1 Released

Submitted by Rui Paulo 2006-07-24 NetBSD 7 Comments

The NetBSD release engineering team has announced that the update 3.0.1 of the NetBSD operating system is now available. NetBSD 3.0.1 is the first security/critical update of the NetBSD 3.0 release branch. This represents a selected subset of fixes deemed critical in nature for stability or security reasons. More details are available in the NetBSD 3.0.1 Release Announcement.

Server-Side Windows vs. Linux: Considering Today’s Differences

Submitted by Jane Walker 2006-07-24 Rumors 63 Comments

"Not long ago, choosing Linux in the data center meant a tradeoff. You had to give up some capabilities in exchange for freedom from Microsoft lock-in. But that has changed. These days the features of Windows and Linux stack up against each other very competitively. For the most part, administrators can choose Linux or Windows today without losing out. Some differences, however, must be considered. In this article, I look at several of those differences."

From Mainframes to Microblades, Farewell to GHz CPUs

Eugenia Loli 2006-07-24 Hardware 12 Comments

Here is the future of computing according to DDJ: "Worries about runaway power consumption may replace concerns about speed on the next generation of CPUs".

ISU Psychologists Produce First Study on Violence by Video Games

Submitted by Mugshot link 2006-07-24 Games 54 Comments

Research led by a pair of Iowa State University psychologists has proven for the first time that exposure to violent video games can desensitize individuals to real-life violence. "The results demonstrate that playing violent video games, even for just 20 minutes, can cause people to become less physiologically aroused by real violence."

AMD Buys ATI

Submitted by Michael Bazaillion 2006-07-24 AMD 55 Comments

As rumoured about for weeks now, with the strongest rumours appearing a few days ago, AMD has bought ATI. "AMD, the world's second-biggest semiconductor maker, agreed to buy ATI for USD 5.4 billion, adding computer-graphics chips to its product lineup. ATI shares surged. AMD Chief Executive Officer Hector Ruiz is making the biggest purchase in the company's history to help escalate his challenge to Intel, which dominates the market for semiconductors. "

What Is QNX?

Guest post by James Ingraham 2006-07-24 QNX 47 Comments

In today's entry in our Alternative OS Contest, James Ingraham takes a close look at QNX, the operating system based on the Neutrino microkernel. He concludes that "While you can probably find solutions for just about all of your desktop computing needs using the QNX RTOS, that is not QNX's strong suit. Its focus is real-time, embedded, and mission critical applications." Read on for the whole article.

Technical History of Apple’s Operating Systems

Submitted by anonymous 2006-07-24 Apple 10 Comments

In this supplementary document for the first chapter of the new book 'Mac OS X Internals', Amit Singh outlines in detail the various operating systems that Apple has dabbled with since the company's inception, and many systems that were direct or indirect sources of inspiration.

Inside Windows Vista’s New Image-Based Install Process

Submitted by Dan Warne 2006-07-24 Windows 26 Comments

Vista's installation process is dramatically different to any previous version of Windows: rather than being an 'installer', the install DVD is actually a preinstalled copy of Windows that simply gets decompressed onto your PC. It is hardware agnostic so it can adjust to different systems, and you can also install your own apps into it so that your Vista install becomes a full system image install. There's an interview with a Microsoft Australia tech specialist as well as a story that looks at some of the pros and cons of image-based installs.

Intel Launching Notebook Processor, Merom

Submitted by IntellicaFlx 2006-07-24 Intel 11 Comments

Merom, a notebook processor and the third leg of Intel's Core architecture triumvirate, will also get a thorough airing at a launch party planned at the chipmaker's headquarters this Thursday. Merom will represent additional improvements in performance and power consumption. Like Conroe, it also will use the Core 2 Duo brand, with model numbers in the 5000 and 7000 range that will indicate performance.

Submitted by Rahul 2006-07-24 Fedora Core 15 Comments

"With Fedora Core 6 Test 2 set to be released July 26th, it is time we announce the End of Life of our various Legacy supported releases. After much discussion on fedora-legacy-list and the #fedora-legacy IRC channel on the freenode network, we have decided to end of life the following releases when FC6 Test2 is released: Fedora Core 1 & 2, Red Hat Linux 7.3 & 9." In the mean time, Red Hat is prepping its next big release, RHEL 5, supposedly a rival to Novell's SLED 10.

Submitted by rft183 2006-07-24 Linux 29 Comments

MEPIS has released SimplyMEPIS 6.0. This is the first public release of SimplyMEPIS to incorporate an Ubuntu foundation. Based on the Dapper LTS package pool, 6.0 is designed for stable long term use and support. Screenshots here.

On Politics, GNOME, and Mono

Thom Holwerda 2006-07-23 Editorial 130 Comments

Politicians. They are a certain type of people. I do not like them. Many do not like them. I think if there's one thing all of man has in common, whether he be Christian or Muslim, black or white, young or old, American or European, is a dislike of politicians. But then-- why on earth do we allow politics to complicate software? Note: Sunday Eve Column.

Understanding Classes and Objects in REAL Basic

Eugenia Loli 2006-07-23 General Development 7 Comments

This chapter provides an overview of object-oriented concepts and how they are implemented in REAL Basic, and gives some insight into strategies for executing your object-oriented programming effectively.

Submitted by netpython 2006-07-23 AMD 51 Comments

AMD, the No. 2 supplier of computer processors, is close to a deal to buy graphics chip maker ATI for USD 5.5 billion, a source familiar with the situation said on Friday. Any such deal would shake up the processor industry, which is witnessing a battle over market share between AMD and rival Intel.

Latest Edition of the Official Qt Book Published

Submitted by anonymous 2006-07-23 Qt 14 Comments

A new version of the official Qt book, "C++ GUI Programming with Qt 4", has now been published. The book is officially approved by Trolltech and has been reviewed by many Qt developers. It contains 560 pages of new and updated instructional content covering end-to-end cross-platform development.

Submitted by jonsmirl 2006-07-23 Linux 2 Comments

The 8th annual Ottawa Linux Symposium kicked off Wednesday in Ottawa, Canada at the Ottawa Congress Centre. Jonathan Corbet, co-founder of Linux Weekly News, opened the symposium with The Kernel Report, an update on the state of the kernel since last year.

Howto: Xen from Backports on Debian Sarge

Submitted by anonymous 2006-07-23 Debian No Comments

"There is a great howto about installing Xen on Debian Unstable. It is really easy to do and it runs fine. Nevertheless, on production servers, that's not an optimal solution. Debian Unstable has too many updates and things change too often. On production machines, a Xen host system should be stable, secure and should not need much attention. That is where Sarge comes in. If you pull the Xen packages from backports and install them on Debian stable you've got the best of both worlds."

Why Linux Isn’t Mainstream

Eugenia Loli 2006-07-22 Linux 108 Comments

Toby Richards wrote an opinion article for NewsForge, claiming that for him, Linux won't get mainstream until Evolution - or another capable Outlook-like client - gets optimized and offers 100% compatibility with Exchange. In the comments section of Newsforge readers offered more reasons as to why Linux is not mainstream, offering a view on their needs. My take: While for my personal, home usage of Linux my needs are different, I agree with Toby that companies won't switch their desktops if full Exchange compatibility isn't reached and if Evolution stops being the memory beast it currently is.

Submitted by jonsmirl 2006-07-22 Linux 40 Comments

The Linux file systems community met in June 2006 to discuss the next 5 years of file system development in Linux. Organized by Val Henson, Zach Brown, and Arjan van de Ven, and sponsored by Intel, Google, Oracle, the Linux File Systems Workshop brought together thirteen Linux file systems developers and experts to share data and brainstorm for three days. Read here, here and here.

Latest Advancements in Speech Recognition

David Adams 2006-07-22 Geek stuff 12 Comments

Talking to your computer has been a staple of science fiction since at least the 1960s, but it looks as if it's finally coming within reach. This week saw the release of the first speech recognition software capable of handling continuous speech without the user having to train it in advance, namely Nuance's Dragon Naturally Speaking (DNS) version 9. For anyone else who tried IBM ViaVoice or Dragon Dictate a few years ago, found it awkward to get the system used to your voice, and even more awkward to speak in a staccato word-by-word fashion, this is a huge leap forward.