OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Flash Player 9 for GNU/Linux: API Review

Submitted by Manuel FLURY 2006-07-25 Multimedia, AV 46 Comments

"What follows is a list of the APIs that the current Linux Flash Player 9 development version is using. I debated whether it was appropriate to publish this information. Then I remembered that anyone who knows what they're doing should be able to figure this stuff out by themselves anyway once the final Player is released."

Submitted by pdumon 2006-07-25 BSD & Darwin 13 Comments

DragonFly BSD 1.6.0 has been released, and it includes a whole load of bigfixes and improvements. 1.6.0 Is the fourth ~~bug-fix sub-release in the 1.6 release branch~~ major DragonFly release. "DragonFly is an operating system and environment originally based on FreeBSD. DragonFly branched from FreeBSD in 2003 in order to develop a radically different approach to concurrency, SMP, and most other kernel subsystems."

PalmSource Offers Early Access to Linux Phone Stack

Submitted by anonymous 2006-07-25 Wireless 2 Comments

Developers interested in porting applications to PalmSource's Linux implementation for mobile phones are invited to a special "PalmSource Developer Day" at this year's LinuxWorld Expo in San Francisco. Attendees will receive early access to the Access Linux Platform, and get hands-on experience building applications for the platform.

OpenSSL May See Revalidation Soon

Submitted by lh8 2006-07-25 Privacy, Security 10 Comments

The on-again, off-again status of OpenSSL Certificate 642's validation by the National Institute of Standards and Technology seems to be coming to a conclusion as abruptly as it began.

Exchange Server 2007 Is a Different Animal

Thom Holwerda 2006-07-24 Microsoft 21 Comments

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 is a far cry from Exchange Server 2003, based on eWEEK Labs' tests of the first public beta of the new messaging platform. Administrators thinking of moving to Exchange Server 2007 should take a hard look at this beta to understand the impact of the platform's many new features. Exchange 2007 Beta 2 became widely available on July 24 and is expected to ship in its final form at the end of 2006 or the beginning of 2007.

Review: Xandros Server 1.0

Thom Holwerda 2006-07-24 Oracle and SUN 11 Comments

Linux.com reviews Xandros Server 1.0, and concludes: "Xandros Server does have a lot to offer, though, particularly for organisations that have standardised on Windows servers in the past. I like the Xandros management tools, and it seems like a good solution for small and medium-sized businesses."

MINIX3 CVS Server Publicly Available; X11R6 Updated; fltk Ported

Thom Holwerda 2006-07-24 OS News 8 Comments

Some interesting tidbits on MINIX3 the last week. First, the MINIX3 team has set up a publicly accessible CVS server, running on a MINIX3 server (what else). You can access it via the ordinary CLI way, or via cvsweb. Secondly, the X11R6 release for MINIX3 has been updated and posted online. And lastly, MINIX3 now has a port of fltk, the fast light toolkit.

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.