OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Damn Small Linux 3.0 Review

Submitted by Mark 2006-07-02 Linux 13 Comments

As its name suggests, Damn Small Linux (DSL) is a damn small distribution! The ISO is just 50MB and it fits on a business card CD so you can carry it with you wherever you go. It also acts as a Live CD so you can run the system without installing it on the machine. The idea is to access your Linux environment from any computer, thanks to a tiny CD that would fit in your wallet.

Nokia 770 Tablet OS 2006 Released

Submitted by anonymous 2006-07-01 Wireless 26 Comments

Following a beta release on June 9, Nokia has released a highly anticipated Linux operating system update for the 770 Internet Tablet. The Tablet OS 2006 update is now available for download by 770 owners on Nokia's website. The Tablet OS 2006 upgrade apparently completely wipes out all Tablet OS 2005 applications. Specifically, the Nokia 770 upgrade page states, "Installed applications designed for OS 2005 will not be compatible with OS 2006 edition and will not be restored even from backup."

Submitted by trevor 2006-07-01 Wayland 46 Comments

"We are very pleased to announce this release, the first major update to cairo since the original 1.0 release 10 months ago. Compared to cairo 1.0, the 1.2 release doubles the number of supported backends, adding PDF, PostScript & SVG backends to the previous xlib/win32, and image backends."

Sun Denies Open Source Java Imminent

Submitted by Stephen 2006-07-01 Java 28 Comments

Sun was quick to deny published reports today that it plans to open source Java in the next few months. The company is working on the project, but any transition to open source is closer to a year away. Simon Phipps, chief open-source officer for Sun, made a comment he said was misconstrued at the Open Source Business Conference in London earlier this week concerning Sun's efforts to release Java as an entirely open source project.

Review: Internet Explorer 7 Beta 3

Submitted by Karyn Good 2006-07-01 Internet Explorer 65 Comments

NeoSmart has a review of the just released Internet Explorer 7 and screenshots to match. The review focuses on the user interface, security, and compatibility of Internet Explorer 7 compared to IE6, Opera, and Firefox. They conclude: "The world of online browsing has finally reached a point where, by-and-large, it doesn't matter what browser a user chooses or how they decide to browse the web, for the most part pages will display the way they should, the users will be secure, and malware needs to find a new venue. This latest build of Internet Explorer 7 only strengthened our opinion."

Submitted by sanjaya5 2006-07-01 General Development 4 Comments

Callisto, an effort from Eclipse Foundation, which bundles ten projects in order to ease the integration with Eclipse, has been released. "Callisto is about improving the productivity of the developers working on top of Eclipse frameworks by providing a more transparent and predictable development cycle. By releasing 10 projects at the same time, the goal is to eliminate uncertainty about version compatibility and make it easier to incorporate multiple projects into your environment."

Build a Better SOA Client with AJAX and the Dojo Toolkit

Submitted by anonymous 2006-07-01 Internet 3 Comments

Learn how to use the Dojo toolkit to build enterprise SOA clients for Java Platform, Extended Edition applications, and the the JavaScript Object Notation–RPC to invoke server-side Java objects.

RedHat Shares Tumble as Result of JBoss Acquisition/Lawsuit

Submitted by Tom Magnum 2006-07-01 Red Hat 128 Comments

Red Hat watched its stock tumble 6.4% on Thursday as Wall Street digested the open-source software firm's latest results and details on the drag its recent JBoss acquisition will have on its profit this year.

Turning Wine Into Windows on a Mac

Thom Holwerda 2006-06-30 macOS 28 Comments

CodeWeavers is in early testing with CrossOver Office for Mac now and plans to release a final version of the software in July or August. Wine is a compatibility layer, not a true emulator, so it works with only some Windows programs. Developers at CodeWeavers and others on the open-source Wine effort have to work on each program they want to make compatible.

Lawsuit Calls Microsoft’s Anti-Piracy Tool Spyware

Thom Holwerda 2006-06-30 Legal 60 Comments

A computer user is suing Microsoft over the company's Windows Genuine Advantage anti-piracy tool, alleging that it violates laws against spyware. The suit by Los Angeles resident Brian Johnson, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Seattle, seeks class-action status for claims that Microsoft didn't adequately disclose details of the tool when it was delivered to PC users through the company's Automatic Update system.

Intel Core Duo T2400 with Linux

Submitted by Phoronix 2006-06-30 Intel 9 Comments

Intel's Core Duo T2400 has a maximum operating frequency of 1.83GHz, 65nm process, 2MB of L2 cache, and 667MHz FSB; however, how does this dual-core component fare under Linux? Phoronix has taken a look at the Intel Core Duo T2400 in conjunction with the Lenovo ThinkPad T60, and has comparison results against the previous Pentium M 750 1.83GHz.

Manage Source Code Using Git

Submitted by anonymous 2006-06-30 Linux 12 Comments

"Git is the open source revision control software that Linus Torvalds developed to help manage Linux kernel development. You can download it yourself and use it for your own kernel hacking - or for software projects of your own. This article shows you how to get started hacking Linux with the Git tools."

NVIDIA FreeBSD Kernel Feature Requests

Submitted by Joel Dahl 2006-06-30 FreeBSD 18 Comments

In a mail to the FreeBSD hackers mailing-list, a very detailed request is made from Christian Zander at Nvidia, concerning several missing features in the FreeBSD kernel. In order for Nvidia to provide improved OpenGL performance and SLI support in the future for FreeBSD/i386 and FreeBSD/amd64, several important tasks needs to be completed.

Borland Developer Group To Get New Owner Soon

Submitted by Nick Mayor 2006-06-30 General Development 15 Comments

The fate of Borland's developer tools group will finally be sealed in the next couple of months, as the software vendor works to finalize deal with a buyer. Nick Jackson, managing director of Borland DTG in the Asia-Pacific region, told ZDNet that the company, which announced its intention to divest its developer product lines on Feb. 8, has attracted about 16 qualified bidders so far.

Why Linux Has Failed Most Beginners

Submitted by Yadav Ji 2006-06-30 Linux 176 Comments

"Over the years, I've had a number of people asking me what I believe the problem was with further migration over to Linux by the public at large. To be frank, I don't believe that there is a simple answer to this. To me, there are a number of factors that play a role in keeping Linux out of the mainstream limelight" writes Matt Hartley in his opinion piece.

Submitted by Rahul 2006-06-30 General Development 46 Comments

A series of patches has been proposed on the Linux kernel mailing list earlier by a team of engineers from Red Hat, ClusterFS, IBM, and Bull to extend the Ext3 filesystem, adding support for very large filesystems. After a long discussion, the developers came forward with a plan to roll these changes into a new version: Ext4. LWN covered the changes as well as the arguments put forward for a new filesystem a few weeks back.

One Year Later: How Apple’s Intel Transition is Going

Eugenia Loli 2006-06-30 Apple 95 Comments

Apple sent a seismic shockwave through the Mac market a year ago when it announced that was ditching its long-time processor suppliers IBM and Motorola in favor of chips from occasional arch-nemesis Intel. The announcement came on June 6, 2005, during Steve Jobs’ Worldwide Developers Conference keynote - by the end of 2007, the Apple CEO said, all Mac hardware would be running on Intel processors.

Office 2007 Slips; Will Vista Be Next?

Thom Holwerda 2006-06-29 Microsoft 40 Comments

Office 2007 is running late. Microsoft officials acknowledged on June 29 that the company will not meet the October 2006 business-availability target to which it committed in March of 2006. At that time, Microsoft officials said to expect retail availability of Office 2007 to be some time in January 2007, so as to coincide with the Vista launch. But on June 29, Microsoft revised its schedule. Now Microsoft is promising that Office 2007 will be available to volume licensees "by the end of year 2006", with retail availability in "early 2007". This does not stop MS from pondering about Vista's successor, though.

OpenOffice.org 2.0.3 Released

Thom Holwerda 2006-06-29 Office 44 Comments

OpenOffice.org 2.0.3 has been released. It contains performance improvements, improved compatibility with Microsoft Office formats, support for Intel MAcs, and much more. Release notes, download page.

Submitted by Moulinneuf 2006-06-29 macOS 30 Comments

"At the Worldwide Developers Conference in August, Apple plans to provide a sneak preview of the next major update to OS X, code named Leopard. Apple is typically tight-lipped about what to expect from Leopard, so we have no idea what new and improved features await us in August. But that's not stopping us from coming up with a list of things we'd like to see in OS X 10.5." And for when you're done reading.