Interview: Linus Torvalds

Open Source 58 Comments
"Fans of open source software have been buzzing since Linus Torvalds, creator of the popular Linux operating system, indicated he wouldn't adopt a new version of the license under which Linux is distributed. Torvalds' opinion matters because his program is by far the most popular open source program in the world. In an interview via e-mail with Forbes, Torvalds discusses GPLv3, digital rights management and sharks with laser beams. "From where I'm standing, says that you suddenly can't use the software in certain 'evil ways' (where evil is defined by the FSF--it doesn't actually cover the James Bond kind of evil, but if you can see Richard Stallman as a less dashing James Bond, it would be that kind of evil)."
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Linux Audio Comparison

  Submitted by Klew Linux 15 Comments
"Of the challenges that GNU/Linux users face when choosing hardware components for any system is the sound card compatibility. ALSA, or officially known as Advanced Linux Sound Architecture, provides much of the audio and MIDI functionality to Linux users and is largely replacing OSS. Today we are examining Linux audio performance in the gaming environment with a slew of various sound cards by examining their effect on frame-rate performance. The contenders are Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Z3, Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2, Chaintech AV-710, Aureal Vortex (AU8820), and AC'97 integrated audio."
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Microsoft, Samsung Launch ‘Origami’ Ultra-Mobile PC

  Submitted by DigitalDame Microsoft 35 Comments
Samsung will enter the US computer market in April as the launch partner for Microsoft's new UltraMobile PC or 'Origami' platform. Launched this morning at the CeBit technology show in Hannover Germany, this smaller tablet PC fits between hand-held Portable Media Centers and more traditional tablet/notebook computers. Samsung's unit, scheduled to go on sale in April, is expected to cost under $1000 . There's a batch of photos of the devices too. In addition, the 3rd video on the Origami website is also up.
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Novell Announces ‘Next Generation’ Desktop

  Submitted by HeLfReZ Novell and Ximian 83 Comments
"SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop is an all-in-one solution that contains technology innovations and usability breakthroughs including integrated desktop search, accelerated graphical interfaces and numerous application improvements. SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop delivers market-leading usability plus an exceptional end user experience with an easy-to-use and easy-to-learn environment. Seamless interoperability and support for standards allows SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop to readily coexists with Windows, Mac, Unix and other operating systems." The preview page has some screenshots and a screencast. My take: And there was much rejoicing. I'm seriously looking forward to this release.
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OpenOffice.org 2.0.2 Released

  Submitted by Hands Office 34 Comments
"OpenOffice.org 2.0.2 is available today. This release is recommended for everyone. It contains some new features, fixes many small bugs, and resolves numerous issues. The community have further added import filters for Quattro Pro 6 and Microsoft Word 2. As well, other import filters have been improved and it is now easier to use mail merge. Integration with the KDE address book is now possible. The appearance has also been enhanced, and for Linux users, there are new icon sets for KDE and GNOME."
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Apple Server Snapshot

  Submitted by Hakime Apple 3 Comments
"Although not noted for its server lineup, Apple Xserve has made significant strides over the past two years. And this year, Apple surprised the world when it announced a shift to the Intel Core Duo processor. The move has been implemented at the PC level already and will be added to Xserve by the end of the year. Although a small player compared with HP, Dell and IBM, Apple seems to know which way the server wind is blowing. As a result, it has made significant changes in Xserve over the past year in hardware and software as well as in added storage capabilities in the form of Xsan for storage area networking."
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Interview: ‘der Mouse’ on NetBSD’s Real-Time Network Backup

  Submitted by SlashDot_Reader NetBSD No Comments
"Hard disks tend to be one of the weakest points in today's machines. If you can afford it, RAID setups will address the problem. And if you cannot afford it, you probably cannot afford a NAS or a SAN either. The poor man's solution is to regularly back up the information from one disk to another. Of course if your disk dies between two backups, you lose. der Mouse is a Canadian open source developer who produced a bunch of valuable software ranging from anti-spam tools to a PPPoE implementation. At the BSDCan 2005 conference, he presented an innovative solution to hard disk replication. In this interview, der Mouse explains his idea and how he implemented it to us."
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What Is Java?

  Submitted by kmarius Java 25 Comments
"We recently received an email asking for a 'What Is Java' entry on the O'Reilly Network What Is site. Who could possibly not know what Java is in 2006? After ten years of books, websites, and conferences, doesn't everyone know what Java is? Apparently not. After all, things have changed. For every dusty definition that speaks of applets and Just-In-Time compilers, there are new directions and new realities that have settled in, understood by many, yet not always completely documented."
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Standards and Specs: Not by UNIX Alone

  Submitted by anonymous Unix 20 Comments
"Technology professionals have loosely used the term 'UNIX' since the first person had to explain the difference between the Berkeley and AT&T flavors, so it's not surprising to find as many UNIX standards as there are versions of the operating system. Peter Seebach wades through the wellspring of UNIX standards and sorts them out for you, concluding that the rumors of the death of UNIX are (as usual) greatly exaggerated."
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MenuetOS Drops 32 Bit Development; Users Pick It up

  Submitted by hidden player OS News 20 Comments
Even a small operating system can have big disputes within its community. The lead developer of MenuetOS, an OS written in assembly, has decided to drop all support for the 32bit version of Menuet, focusing development on the 64bit version. However, disgruntled users of the open source operating system are trying to keep the 32bit version alive by starting a special forum for it.
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New Language Features in C# 3.0

.NET 55 Comments
C# 2.0 is just out and Microsoft is already working hard on the next version of C#, version 3.0. In this post, Niek describes a few of the new language features that will be introduced in this version. Please note that the resulting binaries will be backwards compatible with .NET 2.0, so C# 3.0 is only new on the compiler side.
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Mac OS X Security Test: Results

  Submitted by Hakime macOS 47 Comments
Here are the results of the challenge launched by the Unversity of Wisconsin to test OS X against hacking. "The response has been very strong; traffic to the host spiked at over 30 Mbps. Most of the traffic, aside from casual web visitors, was web exploit scripts, ssh dictionary attacks, and scanning tools such as Nessus. The machine was under intermittent DoS attacks. During the two brief periods of denial of service, the host remained up. The test machine was a Mac mini (PowerPC) running Mac OS X 10.4.5 with Security Update 2006-001, had two local accounts, and had ssh and http open with their default configurations. There were no successful access attempts during the 38 hour duration of the test period."
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Kororaa Xgl Demo Live CD Released

  Submitted by Chris Wayland 36 Comments
The team behind Kororaa, a Gentoo-based live CD, have released a live CD showcasing Xgl. "Today I am happy to release a Kororaa Live CD showcasing Xgl technology. If you would like to find out what it's all about, then download the CD and boot up your pc! The Live CD comes with Xorg 7, Gnome 2.12.2, 3D support, and of course Xgl." Download locations.
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