OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

PC-BSD 1.0RC1 Released

Submitted by kmoore134 2005-11-11 PC-BSD 23 Comments

The first release candidate for PC-BSD has been released. It is based on FreeBSD 6.0, includes an improved installer and new Network Manager. This release also sees the upgrade of KDE to 3.4.3, and Linux-compatibility layer is installed by default allowing Linux PBI's to be run without having to install the compatibility layer first. Read the changelog here and the release notes here, then go here to download. Update by AS: Screenshots courtesy OSDir.

Can Microsoft Deprecate a C++ Feature?

Submitted by esther schindler 2005-11-11 General Development 25 Comments

As part of a larger article about C++'s evolution, DevSource reports on a minor war in the C++ standards community. Don't get excited: the fighting is already over. At issue is whether Microsoft's compiler can say that std::copy is "deprecated" (which usually means "this feature will not be in the next version of the language") when they really mean "our compiler suggests you do not use it." Is this a silly semantic dispute or another sign that Microsoft is trying to hijaack the language?

Forget Munich’s Linux Migration, It’s Already Done by Extremadura

Guest post by Xavier Calbet 2005-11-10 Linux 24 Comments

At the end of October I attended the Alantejo Linux congress and LAN party, which was held in the city of Évora. Évora is a marvelous UNESCO World Heritage city which has from Roman ruins to 18th century buildings, not to mention the superb food. It is well worth the visit if you happen to travel to Portugal. At this meeting a conference was given by José Antonio León Moreno from the "Center of New Initiatives" in Extremadura (Spain) about the Linex project where he stated mildly that the Spanish region of Extremadura is using Linux on the desktop in the PCs used by the public administration civil servants of the region of Extremadura.

Novell: GNOME, KDE Equally Supported

Thom Holwerda 2005-11-10 Novell and Ximian 35 Comments

Heise.de reports (English translation) that after talking with its customers, Novell decided that both KDE and GNOME will be equally supported in all its products, even though GNOME will be the default for the enterprise/server line. Opensuse instead will feature KDE (English translation) as the primary desktop. Both will be however developed further in the future.

Submitted by Inhibit 2005-11-10 Rumors 50 Comments

"One of the often cited reasons for not switching away from MS Windows is it's breadth of commodity hardware support. The argument often goes something like this: 'Since Windows supports all the hardware I have why would I want to risk it not working under Linux? It's better to continue to use what I know will work.' While that may be true in and of itself, I'm finding this argument to involve a limited outlook."

The Case for Mac Clones

Submitted by Corey Redlien 2005-11-10 Apple 34 Comments

This article discusses the changed environment since Apple first introduced the clones, what new challenges Apple faces going forward, specifically in the corporate market, and how a targeted Apple clone market could help increase OS X's market share.

IBM, Sony, Philips Form Linux Alliance

Submitted by Josh 2005-11-10 Linux 6 Comments

Three of the world's biggest electronics companies - IBM, Sony and Philips - have joined forces with the two largest Linux software distributors to create a company for sharing Linux patents, royalty-free. The Open Invention Network, as the new firm unveiled Thursday is known, could mark a breakthrough in resolving how to protect vendors and customers from patent royalty disputes resulting from freely shared Linux code.

OpenDocument Format Gathers Steam

Submitted by Merv Griffin 2005-11-10 Office 12 Comments

Big guns in the software industry are massing behind OpenDocument as government customers show more interest in open-source alternatives to Microsoft's desktop software. IBM and Sun convened a meeting on Friday to discuss how to boost adoption of the standardized document format for office applications. The ODF Summit brought together representatives from a handful of industry groups and from at least 13 technology companies, including Oracle, Google and Novell.

Sun Offers Java Studio Creator, Java Studio Enterprise for Free

Submitted by Sanjaya Sugiarto 2005-11-10 Java 13 Comments

Sun is offering its high-end Java IDEs, Sun Java Studio Creator and Java Studio Enterprise, at no cost. Java Studio Enterprise 8 is the commercial IDE, which is based on open-source Netbeans 4.1. Java Studio Enterprise is capable to generate UML diagrams from your source code and vice versa. It has also a built-in collaboration tool that allows better team-work. Java Studio Creator is the Sun's Visual Basic Studio. It allows you to develop J2EE-App using Java Server Faces as front end.

Submitted by jayson.knight 2005-11-10 Bugs & Viruses 7 Comments

This article lists the 10 worst software bugs in computing history. "In 1945, engineers found a moth in Panel F, Relay #70 of the Harvard Mark II system. The computer was running a test of its multiplier and adder when the engineers noticed something was wrong. The moth was trapped, removed and taped into the computer's logbook with the words: "first actual case of a bug being found."

How Far Ahead is Japanese Web Mobility?

Eugenia Loli 2005-11-10 Internet 8 Comments

Popular blogger and Yahoo! manager Russell Beattie reveals some astounding networking numbers for Japanese mobile phone users in his blog: about 95% of these users are using their cellphones to connect to the web and retrieve information or just surf. We don't have numbers for the Europeans, but in USA the number went down to 10.9% from 12.7% in April this year. We guess that charging 10 USD per 1 MB is just too much too handle for most US customers who don't have special unlimited data plans (which can cost between 30-80 USD per month, additionally to the voice plan).

Firefox Marks its First Year on the Net

Eugenia Loli 2005-11-10 Mozilla, Gecko 35 Comments

Firefox turned one year old Wednesday, marking yet another milestone for the popular open-source browser. Firefox has grabbed 8.65 percent of the market and put a dent into Internet Explorer's dominance, according to NetApplications' October results. Elsewhere, Camino 1.0b1 was released.

Is This the Dawn of the Linux Worms?

Thom Holwerda 2005-11-09 Linux 88 Comments

"The Luppi worm is blazing a trail with great potential for attackers. We might learn a lot about how secure Linux systems are in the next few months. While the authors are clearly still feeling their way around, there's no reason to believe that this will be a real biggie. But if someone writes a well-designed 'grab bag' worm to exploit the various bugs in PHP and other products common on Linux servers, we could have a problem on our hands."

SUSE Co-Founder Leaves Novell

Submitted by Josh 2005-11-09 SuSE, openSUSE 75 Comments

Suse co-founder and kernel team member Hubert Mantel has resigned from Novell, the server software company that acquired the German Linux company in 2004. Mantel announced the move on a Suse Linux mailing list Tuesday, and Novell confirmed the move Wednesday. "I just decided to leave Suse/Novell. This is not (any) longer the company I founded 13 years ago," Mantel said in the e-mail. "I have been the maintainer of the Suse kernel for more than a decade now. I'm very confident the Novell management will find a competent successor very quickly."

The VoIP Factor: Interview with Frank W. Miller, Ph.D.

Eugenia Loli 2005-11-09 Original OSNews Interviews 10 Comments

Today we feature an interview with Frank W. Miller, Ph.D., developer of the CornfedSIP User Agent VoIP client for Linux. We discuss the merits of VoIP, its problems and its future.

Apple Mac OS X on x86: a First Test

Submitted by sebFlyte 2005-11-09 macOS 60 Comments

ZDnet has installed the x86 version of Mac OS X and did some preliminary tests. Their conclusion? "Mac OS X looks in amazingly good early form on the x86 platform. As far as power consumption and OS performance are concerned, it can already keep up with Windows XP. Application performance clearly lags behind, though, and still needs to improve." Now, let's wait and see if Apple dares to send angry letters to ZDnet too.

‘Unix Beats Windows’ – Says Microsoft!

Submitted by Peter Harmsen 2005-11-09 Benchmarks 45 Comments

"Ok, that headline may be a bit overblown - but Microsoft Research has released part of a report on the Singularity kernel they've been working on as part of their planned shift to network computing. The report includes some performance comparisons that show Singularity beating everything else on a 1.8Ghz AMD Athlon-based machine. What's noteworthy about it is that Microsoft compared Singularity to FreeBSD and Linux as well as Windows/XP - and almost every result shows Windows losing to the two Unix variants."

How NetBSD Uses Their Donations

Submitted by Jan Schaumann 2005-11-09 NetBSD 8 Comments

As reported previously, the NetBSD Foundation made a call for donations a few months ago. This was widely publicized, and the open source community responded generously, donating almost $30000,- (E25500,-). As also previously noted, this money was earmarked for specific purchases, and the NetBSD Project would like to let its users know what in particular was bought from these donations. Please see Thor Lancelot Simons detailed summary for information regarding what was bought, the current status and a long list of people that made all this possible.

Submitted by Pelly 2005-11-09 Microsoft 17 Comments

In an e-mail to top executives, Gates urged company leaders to "act quickly and decisively" to move further into the field of offering such services, in order to best formidable competitors. But he also warned that the company must be thoughtful in building the right technology to serve the right audience. "This coming 'services wave' will be very disruptive," Gates wrote. "We have competitors who will seize on these approaches and challenge us - still, the opportunity to lead is very clear."

Europe, US Philosophically Divided on Open Source?

Submitted by sebFlyte 2005-11-09 Open Source 41 Comments

Some governments have embraced the potential of open source, while others seem culturally opposed to the whole concept. Deciding what lies at the heart of some countries' almost-zealous uptake of open source is not as simple as looking at the cold, hard costs - politics, national security, anti-Americanism and innovation all have a part to play.