OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Apple Expo: Steve Jobs Talks Macintosh

Thom Holwerda 2005-09-20 Apple 69 Comments

Apple CEO Steve Jobs and the company's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller have just ended a frank and open discussion with European media. Jobs said: "We don't know how having OS X available for PCs would affect Macs", and promised, "we will have technology in OS X for Intel so that it cannot be installed in other PCs". Jobs also confirmed Apple's switch to Intel processors remains on schedule, saying: "We said we'd be shipping by next June and we are on track to have that be a true statement".

Toshiba Preps Cell Motherboard for Developers

Thom Holwerda 2005-09-20 Hardware 12 Comments

Toshiba said today it would offer Cell-based hardware development kits in April 2006. The reference platform comprises Cell and support chips and is geared toward "digital consumer products and communication equipment that draw on the powerful broadband capabilities of the Cell microprocessor" and its "unsurpassed multi-tasking and real-time processing functions", as Toshiba put it.

PC-BSD 0.8.1 Released

Thom Holwerda 2005-09-20 PC-BSD 15 Comments

An updated release of PC-BSD is out. From the changelog: "PC-BSD 0.8.1. Fixes many issues with boot-up after installation; fixed problems with Online Update Manager; updated UserManager; added Russian and Bulgarian support; activates hard disk swap space during installation for lower memory systems; slimmed down KDE 3.4.2 by removing games/graphics/PIM ports, which can be optionally installed via PBI." See also the release notes for further information. Download from here.

SCO Ventures Into Mobile Device Applications

Thom Holwerda 2005-09-20 SCO 9 Comments

SCO, recently best known for its Linux litigation rather than its Unix operating systems, announced that it was releasing an advanced networking platform to provide feature-rich consumer and business digital services for smart phones and other intelligent mobile devices.

Sun Unveils New UltraSparc IV+ Servers

Thom Holwerda 2005-09-20 Oracle and SUN 7 Comments

As expected, Sun said its new Sun Fire V490, V890, E2900, E4900 and E6900 servers are powered by UltraSparc IV+ processors with a clock speed of 1.5 gigahertz and run Sun's latest version of its Unix operating system, Solaris 10. The servers will also run earlier versions of Solaris.

Mad Penguin Reviews Ubuntu 5.10-Preview

Submitted by SilentBob4 2005-09-19 Ubuntu 82 Comments

MadPenguin is reviewing and raving for Ubuntu in an article with screenshot goodness.

Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 Review and Hardware Releases

Eugenia Loli 2005-09-19 Windows 6 Comments

It's the autumn release season, and new devices running Windows Mobile 5.0 have begun to hit the market. BargainPDA brings you a hands-on, in-depth look at the next-generation OS. The n300 series of PPCs from Acer are among the first to run Windows Mobile 5.0, sporting VGA resolution displays, SDIO capable expansion slots, Bluetooth 1.2 and more. In the meantime, the Mitac Mio phone with GPS was officially announced today. Additionally, the Dell Axim x51v specs and pics leaked recently (review).

Free Standards Group Releases LSB 3.0

Thom Holwerda 2005-09-19 Linux 56 Comments

On Monday, the Free Standards Group released the latest version of the Linux Standard Base, Version 3.0, and announced that Red Hat, Novell, the Debian Common Core Alliance and Asianux are all certifying their latest operating systems versions to it. Update: In a recent post on his blog, Red Hat's Ulrich Drepper makes some criticisms of the LSB and its shortcomings of the v3 certification process.

64-bit Windows Dual-Core Shootout, Part II

Submitted by mikemuch 2005-09-19 Intel 9 Comments

"Last week in Part I, we took a look at the AMD dual-core Athlon 64 X2 4800's performance on 64-bit Windows. As it turned out, Windows XP Pro X64 ran most 32-bit applications just fine on the X2 4800, and 64-bit code showed a few modest performance gains." This week, they focus on Intel.

Audio Stack in Vista To Move Out of Kernel Space

Thom Holwerda 2005-09-19 Windows 57 Comments

In previous Windows releases, the entire audio stack ran in Kernel space. Vista will put an end to this. "The first (and biggest) change we made was to move the entire audio stack out of the kernel and into user mode. Pre-Vista, the audio stack lived in a bunch of different kernel mode device drivers, including sysaudio.sys, kmixer.sys, wdmaud.sys, redbook.sys, etc. In Vista and beyond, the only kernel mode drivers for audio are the actual audio drivers (and portcls.sys, the high level audio port driver)."

OpenBSD 101

Submitted by Nix_User 2005-09-19 OpenBSD 26 Comments

"OpenBSD is an ultra-secure, freely available, multi-platform BSD-based UNIX-like operating system. And is arguably the most secure operating system in the world. After using OpenBSD for over 9 years I decided to place online some useful information for first time users of OpenBSD. The information here covers the current release of OpenBSD."

Submitted by kellym 2005-09-19 macOS 13 Comments

"I find Tiger to be a good release in terms of its stability and some of the new features that it offers but I don’t think it is as much of an upgrade as Panther was. Gaming performance under Tiger seems better, but not much, while other parts of the system seem more sluggish." Read the review here.

Review: HP iPaq rx3115 Mobile Media Companion

Eugenia Loli 2005-09-19 Wireless 14 Comments

Last year HP embarked into the mobile media market with its iPaq rx3xxx line of PDAs, a product sold primarily to consumers who prefer an all-in-one PDA/video/audio device. They released two versions of the series, the rx3115 and the higher-end rx3715. Geeks.com sent us the rx3115 and we put it to test.

Submitted by Rahul 2005-09-19 Red Hat 2 Comments

Red Hat announced on Monday at Oracle's OpenWorld in San Francisco that Oracle, EMC and Network Appliance now support its Global File System. The file system is based on the several technologies obtained by Red Hat in its 2003 purchase of Minneapolis-based Sistina Software. Red Hat then worked on the code and open-sourced it in June 2004.

Mono Brings .NET Apps to Linux

Submitted by Eli M. Dow 2005-09-19 Mono 92 Comments

Build applications for Linux while maintaining cross-platform capabilities using .NET languages.

Database Testing from Rational Scripts

Eugenia Loli 2005-09-19 Databases 2 Comments

This article is for developers or testers interested in testing a database directly from their Rational Functional Tester scripts. The information is explained using examples and detailed instructions.

Submitted by vinref 2005-09-19 Open Source 46 Comments

"The growing popularity of open-source browsers and software may be responsible for the increasing gap between the exposure of a vulnerability and the provision of patch to fix it, security software vendor Symantec has said."

QuickFox for BeOS: Firefox Made Quick

Thom Holwerda 2005-09-19 Mozilla, Gecko 28 Comments

Over at BeBits there's some buzz as people download and try out a modded up version of Firefox titled QuickFox. "QuickFox is a 'mod' of mozilla/firefox bleeding edge. From order of importance: speed, useability, looks, reliability. It runs and loads in a RAM filesystem. It sports a fully automatic installation that will take care of everything for you. It includes auto setup on boot and shutdown to save your settings." Thanks to HaikuNews for pointing this out. As you are probably aware of by now, QuickFox is BeOS-only.

Submitted by kellym 2005-09-19 Microsoft 45 Comments

Microsoft' professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles last week was perhaps the company's most important event of the year, as officials try to sell developers on the value of creating new applications for the company's next generation of products. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer talked with eWeek Senior Editor Peter Galli at the show about these upcoming products.

Preview: Microsoft Office 12; PDC Slides Available

Submitted by Sandy Miller 2005-09-19 Office 13 Comments

"Microsoft has tried to radically change the design philosophy behind its office suites from 2003 to office 12. The difference between the interface of Office 12 and Office 11 (2003) is nothing short of staggering. The attempt has been to enhance the user’s ability to actually get to the function he wants to use quickly and without getting lost in the labyrinth of toolbars and menus." You can find info on beta testing Office 12 here. In related news, the slides from the PDC presentations are now available for download.