OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

The Ubuntu Juggernaut

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-16 Ubuntu 150 Comments

"Various reviews I've seen about Ubuntu have attacked the release names (Hoary Hedgehog, Breezy Badger and upcoming Dapper Drake), or the 'ugly' brown GNOME screen background (which is easily changed). I consider such "flaws" to be trivial. When push comes to shove, I want my operating system to 'just work', and in this department Ubuntu delivers."

XP SP3 Preview Package a Fake

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-16 Windows 56 Comments

A few weeks ago an "unofficial" preview release of windows XP SP3 hit the web. Now, Microsoft has responded and warned users of this preview package. "You would be well advised to stay clear of this FAKE SP3 package. It is NOT suitable for testing as it is NOT SP3."

Mockup 0.2.0 Alpha 1 Released

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-16 Linux 45 Comments

Mockup 0.2.0 alpha1 has been released. Just like v0.1.0, this release is focused on the underlying foundation, "this means that it's useful only for developers and it's not easy to install."

OpenOffice.org Releases Third RC of Its 2.0 Suite

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-16 Office 28 Comments

OpenOffice.org made available for free download a third release candidate of Version 2.0 of its popular open-source office suite Friday. The release includes bug fixes only and no new features.

Automated Backups with rdiff-backup

Submitted by Falko Timme 2005-10-16 General Development 14 Comments

This tutorial describes how to do automated server backups with the tool rdiff-backup. rdiff-backup lets you make backups over a network using SSH so that the data transfer is encrypted. The use of SSH makes rdiff-backup very secure because noone can read the data that is being transferred. rdiff-backup makes incremental backups, thus saving bandwidth.

Submitted by tpenta 2005-10-16 Rumors 105 Comments

Max Brunning has posted a brief comparison of how these three Operating Systems approach a number of basic kernel tasks. He has a brief look at: Scheduling and Schedulers, Memory Management and Paging, and File Systems. Max is an Instructor who spends his time teaching Solaris internals, device drivers, and kernel crash dump analysis and debugging.

Besides YAST: Yum on SUSE Linux 10.0

Submitted by Roland Wolters 2005-10-16 SuSE, openSUSE 36 Comments

This blog-entry is a short tutorial how to set up Fedora Core's yum on a SUSE Linux 10.0 system, which is officially supported from 10.0 on. The article shows a short comparison of yum and yast as well as the problems yum still has because some servers still do not have yum support.

Submitted by jeanmarc 2005-10-15 Zeta 33 Comments

YellowTAB has released a service pack for its Zeta operating system, bumping the version number to 1.1. This .pdf (in German, English version not (yet) available) describes the changes in a detailed fashion. In addition, "due to the unexpected amount of interest in yellowTAB's VideoEditor, we have decided not to release a stand-alone ProVersion. Instead, the ProVersion and its many anxiously awaited features will be integrated into our Zeta DeluxeEdition release."

Should RISC OS Be OpenSourced?

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-15 RISC OS 45 Comments

The debate over whether or not RISC OS should be open sourced took another turn this week when Peter Naulls argued that "certain parts" of the OS could be released under an open source licence. The State-side coder behind various ports including Firefox said this would ideally include "crucial parts that affect all users, even if they don't realise it, parts that can be created from scratch and made much better than the Acorn original, and parts which can managed by specific developers who already understand them well."

Microsoft’s Media Center Strikes Back at Apple

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-15 Windows 59 Comments

"Today just so happens to mark the third birthday of Microsoft's Media Center Edition of Windows XP, which is likely why the company is rolling out a major update to the MCE product. Dubbed Rollup 2, the update is available to current WMC customers via Windows Update. Will you want it?"

Clean up Your Web Aplications with SOAP and AJAX

Submitted by anonymous 2005-10-15 General Development 14 Comments

Popularized through its use in a number of well-known Web application services like GMail, Google Maps, Flickr, and Odeo.com, AJAX provides Web developers with a way of expanding the value and function of their Web applications by using asynchronous XML messaging. This article shows you how to implement a Web browser-based SOAP Web services client using the Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) design pattern.

Submitted by analog warrior 2005-10-15 Privacy, Security 65 Comments

A Microsoft patch meant to fix critical security flaws in Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 is causing trouble for some users, the company said Friday.

Linux Calling: Are Cell Phones Ready?

Eugenia Loli 2005-10-14 Linux 42 Comments

The Open Source Development Labs, an industry consortium devoted to improving Linux, plans to launch an initiative Monday to bring the open-source operating system to mobile phones.

Usability Issues in GNOME

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-14 Gnome 147 Comments

Here is a list of usability issues concerning GNOME. "Some time ago I decided to note everything that didn't make sense to me while using Hoary/Breezy with GNOME, or what I thought could be implemented better. I found the time to go through the list again, clarifying somt things and writing some use cases where each problem applies. Some of these might seem very nitpicky, but details are important too."

New IE, Media Player Expected to Debut in Windows Vista Refresh

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-14 Windows 53 Comments

Microsoft is poised to release to testers the second Community Technology Preview release of Vista, paving the way for a second full-fledged beta, which is now expected in December. Among the new features which could find their way into the updated build are a number of IE 7.0 enhancements; the resurrected "Sidebar" task pane; Windows Media Player 11.0; and new networking functionality.

Microsoft .NET Framework Version 2.0 RC

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-14 .NET 15 Comments

"This Release Candidate is a pre-release version of the .NET Framework v2.0 (x86|x64) redistributable package. The Microsoft .NET Framework v2.0 Release Candidate installs the .NET Framework runtime and associated files required to run applications developed to target the .NET Framework v2.0."

Comprehensive Evaluation of Tablet PC

Submitted by Andrew Bragdon 2005-10-14 Wireless 11 Comments

"The tc1100 is an incredibly powerful tool, and makes a terrific supplement to a desktop. The software side of the equation is also fairly solid, and actually quite useful, because of digital Ink, not handwriting recognition. Tablet PC is a killer app. Just don’t expect to throw your keyboard away just yet."

Rational ClearQuest Client for Eclipse

Eugenia Loli 2005-10-14 IBM 10 Comments

The ClearQuest plug-in for Eclipse enables you to perform ClearQuest activities (tasks) in an Eclipse environment. While many of you are familiar with Rational ClearQuest and/or Eclipse, this article is aimed at bridging the gap to provide you with a good understanding of the ClearQuest Client for Eclipse. For ClearQuest fans, this is an offer that is hard to refuse - save a significant amount with this sepcial deal on Rational ClearQuest Licenses.

Windows Mobile 5.0, VS 2005 and .NET CF Articles

Eugenia Loli 2005-10-14 Wireless 2 Comments

For all you .NET Compact Framework developers out there who are still wondering about what's coming up in the next release of Visual Studio and the .NET CF, here is a list of recent articles at Developer.com.

IronPython 0.9.3 Released

Eugenia Loli 2005-10-14 .NET 25 Comments

IronPython is the codename for an alpha release of the Python programming language for the .NET platform. It supports an interactive interpreter with fully dynamic compilation. It is well integrated with the rest of the framework and makes all .NET libraries easily available to Python programmers.