OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Two Million Solaris 10 Licenses in 6 Months

Thom Holwerda 2005-07-26 Solaris 34 Comments

Sun Microsystems has distributed more than two million registered licenses for the Solaris 10 Operating System since the software became available on January 31st. These numbers, coupled with a record number of visitors to the Sun website during the last six months, highlight the incredible demand for the freely available operating system.

Microsoft Lowers the Boom on Illegal Windows Copies

Thom Holwerda 2005-07-26 Windows 82 Comments

Microsoft is tightening the noose for those people running illegal or pirated copies of its Windows XP/2000 software on their systems. Starting Tuesday, it will be mandatory for users of this Windows software to certify that their software is a genuine and legal copy before they will be able to receive any updates except security patches.

Apple Unveils Faster iBooks, Mini Macs

Thom Holwerda 2005-07-26 Apple 132 Comments

Apple has updated the iBook/Mini product lines, increasing standard RAM to 512MB on all models. Contrary to many rumors, the new iBooks do not sport widescreen. All iBooks and two of the now three Mac Minis contain AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth. My take: Not a word on better harddrives in the Mini Macs, which is something I personally hoped for.

Boot Fedora Linux Faster

Submitted by improvedsource 2005-07-26 Fedora Core 34 Comments

Everyone wants a quick boot time, from the beginner user to the advanced user, this is a issue that bothers us all. As Linux has advanced it has increasingly become slower to boot. So I decided to look into reducing the time it takes to boot my current setup, which is Fedora 4. In doing so I was able to reduce the boot time of my Fedora 4 installation to less than 25 seconds.

Submitted by j-s-h 2005-07-26 Gnome 10 Comments

This recent article on Epiphany has garnered many comments, both on FootNotes and OSNews. This followup article addresses some concerns that have been raised about Epiphany.

BSD Divert Sockets for Linux 2.6 Kernels Released

Submitted by Anonymous 2005-07-26 Linux 11 Comments

The first release of BSD divert sockets for Linux 2.6 kernels has been completed and may be downloaded here.

Preview of KDE 3.5

Submitted by Ben Jao Ming 2005-07-26 KDE 194 Comments

A blog entry by Jure Repinc tells us about some of the new features in KDE 3.5 which according to this schedule isn't quite finished yet. Amongs other things, there will be a Storage Media Notification dialog and some more eye candy in Kicker.

Submitted by Varg Vikernes 2005-07-26 Humor 19 Comments

A Microsoft customer was so eager to get a beta of Longhorn that he FedEx'ed two pounds of inscribed chocolate to one of Microsoft's test managers. Yes, he did get the invitation and the chocolate was sent to the Longhorn shiproom for everyone to enjoy.

Submitted by Varg Vikernes 2005-07-26 Windows 26 Comments

Dave Solomon of Sysinternals was experimenting about how many services are necessary for at least basic funtionality of Windows. What he discovered, however is that Windows can be perfectly used for almost all basic use, such as web browsing or running aplications, without any services running. In his article he explains how to achieve this. Apparently even Microsoft's own vice president of the Core Operating Systems Division was surprised about this.

History of the iPod

Submitted by Saad 2005-07-26 Multimedia, AV 12 Comments

The iPod, more than any other single product from Apple, has changed the company and the world. Before its introduction MP3 players were the realm of small companies with limited budgets and no content. After the iPod the entire industry has evolved and grown to the point where the largest computer companies in the world have major interests in the digital music industry. Read the history of the iPod at Braeburn.

Submitted by Matthew Smith 2005-07-26 In the News 20 Comments

Konfabulator, the application whose concept was "borrowed" for the Mac OS X Tiger Dashboard system (and yes, we know that Konfabulator itself was inspired by many other apps, including Apple's Desktop Accessories), has been acquired by Yahoo and is now available for free. Download it from their website.

FreeBSD Developer Seeks Sponsorship

Submitted by Matthew Grooms 2005-07-26 FreeBSD 24 Comments

Network stack developer Andre Opperman appeals to the FreeBSD community to support three months of full time work. The primary focus will be to optimize the IP network stack and estimates a potential perfomance increase of 40-50%.

Virtual Private Asterisk

Submitted by Da Beave 2005-07-26 General Development 5 Comments

If you're interested in PBX systems or Virtual Private Servers, there's an interesting article on using Virtual Private Servers to secure and even run multiple instances of Asterisk (open source PBX software) on one machine. It's like running a small telco in a box!

Zend Core for IBM on Linux

Andrew Youll 2005-07-26 General Development 25 Comments

Have you considered setting up a PHP 5 on your Linux server, but not had the time to learn how? This article will help guide you through the installation of a PHP 5 environment using the industry's first integrated PHP environment that includes the IBMCloudscape database server. Installation and configuration is greatly simplified using Zend Core for IBM compared to setting up a complete development and deployment environment from scratch.

ABLE Learning Environment 2.3 for Eclipse

Submitted by anonymous 2005-07-26 General Development No Comments

IBMs Eclipse based Agent Building and Learning Environment (ABLE) enables developers to build intelligent Java agents on Linux using machine reasoning and implement their own AbleBeans and AbleAgents and plug them into ABLE’s Agent Editor. Version 2.3 includes a new Eclipse plug-in administration console for distributed agent platform, an updated Eclipse rule and agent editors, a new PetriNet agent, and an updated example project.

Simplifying Data Handling with Uniform Type Identifiers

Eugenia Loli 2005-07-25 macOS 3 Comments

Read this article to learn how to use UTIs effectively in your application, to manage file types and take advantage of key Mac OS X technologies. Also, read this article to learn how building Automator actions and workflows can create new sales opportunities.

Pixen 3 Beta 1 Released

Thom Holwerda 2005-07-25 Graphics 42 Comments

Yesterday, the Open Sword Group released a beta of Pixen v3. "Pixen is the best program for the pixel artist using Mac OS X. Pixen is specifically for small-scale or pixel art; it shines better there than any other application. Not only that, but Pixen carries no price tag: it's open source under the MIT license and absolutely free." As far as I know, this is the only application of it's kind, with no equivelant on either Mac, Windows or Linux.

Utnubu: Merging Ubuntu Changes to Debian

Thom Holwerda 2005-07-25 Debian 105 Comments

"I invite everyone interested to join the Utnubu Team. Utnubu stands for doing what Ubuntu does, just the other way around: We want to take the things Ubuntu does and that are missing in Debian, and - where appliciable - put them in Debian."

Apple’s HQ to Disappear?

Thom Holwerda 2005-07-25 Humor 42 Comments

Readers of The Reg have found disturbing evidence that Apple's HQ in Cupertino might soon disappear from the face of the earth. They also found strong evidence that London will vanish too, while the Twin Towers are supposed to reappear shortly.

Microsoft Faces Court Over Vista

Thom Holwerda 2005-07-25 Legal 55 Comments

Microsoft's decision to call the next version of its OS Vista might have a raised a few smiles last week but one Redmond resident is less than impressed. The boss of Vista, a software and services company for small businesses is considering taking legal action against the software giant.