OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

GNOME 2.15.4 Released

Thom Holwerda 2006-07-14 Gnome 48 Comments

GNOME 2.15.4 has been released. "This is our fourth development release on our road towards GNOME 2.16.0, which will be released in September 2006. GNOME 2.15.4 has some rough edges but you should definitely try it to see how well it works." Easiest way to get it is via GARNOME.

KOffice 1.5.2 Released

Thom Holwerda 2006-07-14 KDE 16 Comments

"The KOffice team is announced KOffice version 1.5.2. This is mainly a bugfix release but also contains numerous translation updates. Especially KWord, KSpread and Kexi have received critical bug fixes."

Review: Intel’s Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Extreme

Thom Holwerda 2006-07-14 Intel 14 Comments

After an 18-page in-depth review of Intel's new processor line, The Tech Report concludes: "After years of wandering in the wilderness, Intel has recaptured the desktop CPU performance title in dramatic fashion. Both the Core 2 Extreme X6800 and the Core 2 Duo E6700 easily outperform the Athlon 64 FX-62 across a range of applications - and the E6600 is right in the hunt, as well. Not only that, but the Core 2 processors showed no real weaknesses in our performance tests."

EC: ‘We Had to Fine Microsoft’

Thom Holwerda 2006-07-14 Microsoft 49 Comments

In a Q&A, Neelie Kroes, who fined MS for not complying with the EC's antitrust ruling, said: "I regret that the Commission has had to take such a step today, but given Microsoft's continued non-compliance to date, I have been left with no alternative. Today's decision reflects my determination to ensure that Microsoft complies with its obligations.Microsoft has claimed that its obligations in the decision are not clear, or that the obligations have changed. I cannot accept this characterisation - Microsoft's obligations are clearly outlined in the 2004 decision and have remained constant since then."

Submitted by DigitalDame 2006-07-14 AMD 21 Comments

AMD executives said this week that they will promote its '4x4' enthusiast platform to counter the Core 2 Duo. AMD also plans to push a sort of 'performance number' into the market to redefine how consumers should think about power. The 4x4 platform will place two physical sockets on a motherboard, connected by AMD's Direct Connect architecture. Mounted on each socket will be an AMD Athlon 64 X2 processor, for a total of 4 cores. An eight-core '8X8' program will roll out in 2007.

IIS 7 Shows Continued Security Push

Thom Holwerda 2006-07-14 Internet Explorer 27 Comments

eWeek reviews IIS 7 Beta. "Versions of IIS prior to 6 were the main points of attack for major worms and viruses such as Nimda. With IIS 6, Microsoft moved the Web server to a default profile that was much more secure. This and other security improvements have paid off, as IIS is nowhere near the major security problem it once was. To a certain degree, IIS 7 carries on this move to greater security with a default install that is even more secure than Version 6's and improvements in security management."

Submitted by kelvin 2006-07-14 Gnome 6 Comments

GNOME/GTK+ hacker Federico Mena Quintero blogs about the responses to the Questions for GNOME Deployments. "It's an informal study of the requirements that those deployments have, based on feedback which they provided about their particular needs. By fixing the most common problems which the deployments are experiencing, we will make GNOME more attractive for future deployments, and we'll get more users faster."

Smart Package Manager: a Better Mousetrap

Submitted by lh8 2006-07-14 Linux 26 Comments

"The Smart Package Manager hopes to beat the native package management applications for distributions like Red Hat, SUSE, and Debian at their own game. Still in beta, it has support for most major GNU/Linux package and repository formats, with a modular codebase that hints at further compatibility. Smart introduces many innovative and useful ideas, but its killer feature, with which it purports to excel beyond its counterparts, is the algorithms it uses to select packages and versions that best resolve dependencies and ensure cooperation between the hundreds of applications and libraries on a user's system."

Submitted by Mr. Tan 2006-07-14 Intel 35 Comments

OCAU reviews the new Core 2 Duo line from Intel, and concludes: "Thanks to its new micro-architecture, Core 2 Duo is performing far better than the previous generation dual core Pentium D. An X6800, for example, is between 30% ~ to 40% faster than a Pentium D 955XE. Core 2 Duo is achieving performance in applications and games that has not been seen before with a dual core desktop CPU. In addition Core 2 Duo consumes 40% less power and runs much cooler than Pentium D."

Fourth Mac OS X Browser Test

Submitted by Stamatis George 2006-07-14 Internet 19 Comments

"In our last test, we tested the four major browsers on Mac OS X (Safari, FireFox, Camino, and OmniWeb). It has since become the most popular article on our site. Since then, there have been several improvements on almost all of the browsers, so we decided to test again." More here. Elsewhere, check a preview of Firefox 2.0 too.

ITRON: World’s Most Widely Used OS

Submitted by Nicola D\'Agostino 2006-07-14 OS News 20 Comments

"What is the world's most widely used operating system?" The answer is in an interesting Linux Insider piece about ITRON, 'a Japanese real-time kernel for small-scale embedded systems' that runs on a lot of "mobile phones, digital cameras, CD players and other electronic devices."

PC-BSD 1.2 Released

Thom Holwerda 2006-07-13 PC-BSD 48 Comments

PC-BSD 1.2 has been released. "PC-BSD software is pleased to announce the immediate availability of PC-BSD 1.2 for x86 based processors. PC-BSD 1.2 now utilizes the FreeBSD advanced ULE scheduler and is compiled with optimizations for 686 processors (all support for 386, 486 and 586 microcode is disabled in kernel). This release of PC-BSD ushers in a new era of stability and simplicity for desktop operating systems based on UNIX, making it a solid release for home and business usage."

Apple Forgoes Appeal, Bloggers Win

Thom Holwerda 2006-07-13 Apple 28 Comments

Apple has decided to not appeal a recent Court of Appeals decision that barred the company from issuing a subpoena to online journalists, bloggers, and their ISPs. Apple had nearly 40 days to file an appeal, but recently filed a case management statement officially saying that it did not appeal. The statement noted that the Appeals Court overturned the trial court on the protective order issue and "Apple did not appeal that decision".

SUSE Linux 10.2 Alpha 2 Released, Renamed to OpenSUSE

Thom Holwerda 2006-07-13 SuSE, openSUSE 25 Comments

"We're glad to announce SUSE Linux 10.2 Codename 'Basilisk Lizard' Alpha2. It's downloadable from today on and will be the last community/consumer distribution called SUSE Linux. We'll rename SUSE Linux into openSUSE." And the release announcement lists some changes, with a referral to CD1, where the changelog can be found. And there was much rejoicing. No, really.

‘Firefox 2.0 Beta 1 Is No Slam-Dunk’

Thom Holwerda 2006-07-13 Mozilla, Gecko 69 Comments

eWEEK Labs' tests show that Beta 1 of the open-source Firefox 2.0 includes some welcome new features, catches up a bit with capabilities found in other Web browsers and adds some nice security enhancements. However, while Firefox 2.0 is shaping up to be a good upgrade to Version 1.5 of the popular Web browser, it doesn't look like it will be the slam-dunk over the forthcoming Internet Explorer 7 that Firefox 1.5 has been to the current IE 6.x. For that matter, unless Firefox 2.0 and IE 7 improve greatly before their respective releases later in 2006, neither will come close to topping the quality of the already shipping Opera 9.

Dell Takes On Pricing in Image Makeover

Thom Holwerda 2006-07-13 Hardware 2 Comments

Dell, which has scheduled a news announcement for July 13, is expected to reveal a revised PC pricing strategy that will present SMBs and consumers with a more straightforward menu of price options. The move, which doesn't appear to affect large business accounts, comes as Dell attempts to recover from a series of missteps that curbed its growth during the first quarter of 2006. More on this at Ars.

Microsoft Research Automates Hunt for Search Engine Spam

Thom Holwerda 2006-07-13 Microsoft 4 Comments

Researchers at Microsoft are working on an ambitious new project to hunt down and neutralize large-scale search engine spammers. The software giant's Cybersecurity and Systems Management Research Group has taken the wraps off Strider Search Defender, an experimental project that automates the discovery of search spammers through non-content analysis.

A Developer’s Insight Into DROPS

Guest post by Steffen Liebergeld 2006-07-13 OS News 10 Comments

DROPS is the educational operating system of the Dresden University of Technology, Germany (TU-Dresden). Its name is an acronym for Dresden Real-Time Operating System, which reveals its strongest feature, it is real-time capable and it is designed with security in mind. Its homepage can be found here. Note: This is the 4th entry to our Alternative OS Contest which runs through 14th July!

Review: ReactOS

Submitted by Slashdot 2006-07-13 ReactOS 51 Comments

NeoSmart has reviewed ReactOS. "ReactOS is a brilliant idea at heart, and it has come a long way in the past couple of years. It is integral for there to be more than one choice for alternate operating systems, since Windows isn’t the best and Linux isn’t for everyone." And yes, there are screenshots to blindely stare at too.

The 3rd International GPLv3 Conference

Submitted by Ciaran O\'Riordan 2006-07-13 Open Source 5 Comments

When organising the 3rd international GPLv3 conference, FSFE got the whole 2 days recorded and have now put the video and audio files online. There are also full transcripts, including the Q and A sessions of Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen.