OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

New CPU from VIA, The C7

Submitted by Ryan M. Graham 2005-05-30 Hardware 61 Comments

VIA issued a press release on Friday announcing their new C7 Processor. Noteworthy PVR related features include its low power consumption (2.0GHz at 20W, idle at 0.1W) and support for SSE2 and SSE3 (in addition to existing MMX and SSE support). In the crypto department, they've expanded their PadLock™ hardware crypto/security suite with this CPU by adding in full hardware SHA-1 and SHA-256 (20BGps), hardware assisted RSA (hardware Montgomery Multiplier), a beefed up RNG that feeds directly into the SHA units, and the NX bit.

Balancing Power, Cooling, and Performance

David Adams 2005-05-30 General Development 11 Comments

Power consumption, supply voltage, junction temperature, system cooling requirements, and processor clock rate are all physically and thermodynamically related. By understanding the relationships, system cost and complexity trade-offs, and resource requirements, system designers can strike a better balance between requirements. See how you can incorporate emergent cooling and adaptive power control methods into embedded system designs.

Find Linux Torrents Quickly

Submitted by torrentnerd 2005-05-30 Linux 15 Comments

If you're on the hunt for Linux ISO Torrents you might want to check out the long list of recently released distro torrents over at LinuxISOtorrent.com. They've got frequently updated torrents from A (Arch) to Z (Zen). The site only does one thing, but does it well - helps you get the latest Linux distros downloaded via BitTorrent, quickly.

Table of Analogs to Windows Software in Linux

Submitted by Fiodor Sorex 2005-05-30 Linux 54 Comments

One of the biggest difficulties in migrating from Windows to Linux is the lack of knowledge about comparable software. Newbies usually search for Linux analogs of Windows software, and advanced Linux-users cannot answer their questions since they may not know much about available Windows software. This list of Linux equivalents / replacements / analogs of Windows software is based on our own experience and on the information obtained from the visitors of this page on English, Russian, Italian, Spanish, French & German.

Using Tiger Technologies

Submitted by Hakime 2005-05-30 macOS 20 Comments

Artist Futurismo Zugakousaku has posted some creations on his web site that he made with Quartz Composer, a new great technology in Tiger. (the videos are apparently only visible using the latest version of Quicktime in Tiger) If it makes you feel inspired, here a small tutorial that will help you get started with Quartz Composer and to develop a customized RSS Screen Saver.

GUADEC Streams Available

David Adams 2005-05-30 Gnome 12 Comments

The 2005 GNOME User and Developer European Conference (GUADEC) is underway in Stuttgart, and there are live and archived streams of the events available. It's almost like being there! In more GUADEC news, Nat Friedman notes some interesting finds on his blog: SymphonyOS and Thunar.

KanaalZ on Open Source

Submitted by Tyr 2005-05-30 Open Source 11 Comments

Since most of OSNews' U.S. readers are enjoying their Memorial Day holiday weekend still, here's something for a segment of our Eurpoean readership: Belgian business-oriented tv channel KanaalZ has a (dutch) report on its website on open Source. Two case studies are explored, one of which is the town of Schoten's switch to FOSS for its intranet solution. The opposing case is presented by a Microsoft spokesman.

Microsoft vs Unix: Its a Tie for the First Time

Submitted by Bob 2005-05-30 In the News 32 Comments

The Financial Express reports that, for the first time, sales of servers running Windows matched the revenues of Unix servers: Revenue for Windows servers grew 12.3 per cent to $4.2 billion in the quarter while unit shipments grew 10.7 per cent. Unix servers saw 2.8 per cent revenue growth to $4.2 billion while unit shipments increased 5 per cent. HP made gains on leader IBM, Dell posted huge growth, and Linux made up an ever larger share. It appears that both Windows and Linux continue to chip away at proprietary Unix from both ends.

No ELF Vulnerability in Linux Kernel (Updated)

David Adams 2005-05-29 Privacy, Security 44 Comments

Update: It appears that we mischaracterized the conclusions in our title and our summary on this story. Greg KH was referring only to the ELF vulnerability in this story. Whether we were deliberately mislead by the submitter of this story or not, we regret the error.

The original story: According to "Greg KH," co-maintainer of the 2.6.x.y series of important stability and security fixes, the Linux kernel does not suffer from the much-hyped hyper threading vulnerability that affected the BSDs: " The main reason there have not been any updates, is that there really isn't a problem for the 2.6 kernel. The original author has admited this finally, no one was ever able to reproduce it on a 2.6 kernel. The only reason I released a kernel update, was at the time, we thought there was an off-chance that there was a problem. However in further testing, it has not been the case." This confirms Linus's earler assertion.

Intel Adds DRM to Chips

Submitted by David 2005-05-29 Intel 101 Comments

If you though the subject of DRM and Trusted Comouting had gone away, think again. Intel is adding DRM capabilities to its new Pentium D chipsets, but as with AMD, they're not that keen on talking about it. Aside from DRM, there's also this gem: Additionally, AMT also features what Intel calls "IDE redirection"...allow administrators to remotely enable, disable or format or configure individual drives and reload operating systems and software from remote locations, again independent of operating systems.

The First Apple

Submitted by Saad 2005-05-29 Apple 47 Comments

The first computer Apple released was also its cheapest until the release of the Mac mini. It was an innovative machine. Unlike its peers, it included a keyboard interface and onboard graphics, options that cost hundreds of dollars on other platforms. It even included mass storage: the machine had a built-in cassette interface. Read the article at MLAgazine.

GIT HOWTO for the Linux Kernel

Eugenia Loli 2005-05-28 Linux 7 Comments

A HOWTO on GIT patch management software that replaces Bitkeeper has been published on the Linux Kernel mailing list.

Debian RAID 1/5 system installer

Guest post by Juerd 2005-05-28 Debian 6 Comments

Half a year ago, I shared with OS News my favourite way of installing Debian. After a while, though, the manual procedure gets rather boring. So I automated most of it, which saves me at least 10 minutes per installation. The script works well with the latest Knoppixes, that use 2.6 kernels by default (better S-ATA support).

Interview with PalmSource exec’s probes elucidates Linux strategy

Eugenia Loli 2005-05-28 Wireless 14 Comments

This installment in LinuxDevices.com's "Executive Interview" series explores PalmSource's plans with respect to morphing Palm OS into a middleware and application stack that runs on top of Linux, with an aim of targeting mobile phones and other wireless-enabled devices. While visiting the company's annual developers conference in San Jose this week, we sat down with PalmSource VP of Engineering Mike Kelley and Director of Product Marketing John Cook to discuss PalmSource's Linux strategy and plans. Read the interview here.

Windows rapidly approaching desktop usability

Eugenia Loli 2005-05-27 Windows 393 Comments

"Every year or so I like to see how Microsoft is doing in its attempt to make a desktop operating system as usable as Linux. Microsoft Windows XP, Home Edition, with Service Pack 2, is a tremendous improvement over previous Windows versions when it comes to stability and appearance, but it still has many glitches that..." Read more at NewsForge.

OS makers slow to fix flaw, researcher says

Eugenia Loli 2005-05-27 Privacy, Security 34 Comments

Operating system vendors were given two months notice before a security flaw was made public, but some have yet to resolve the issue, a security researcher has claimed.

Mac OS X 10.4 ‘Tiger’ in depth

Eugenia Loli 2005-05-27 macOS 17 Comments

"Review I've been running Mac OS X 'Tiger' since the day after its release, on 29 April. At the time, hundreds of reviews of the operating system were published, but I didn't want to be a part of the herd, since many of them were little more than lists of the new features. I wanted to spend some more time with Tiger before getting off the fence." Read the article at TheRegister.

POWER5 Virtualisation: SUSE Linux Virtual I/O Server

Eugenia Loli 2005-05-27 SuSE, openSUSE 19 Comments

Reduce your operation costs for complex environments by creating efficient and flexible virtualisation capabilities. Nigel Griffiths describes the benefits of the IBM POWER5 servers and provides examples on how to set up the environment for pSeries, p5, and eServer OpenPower systems.

IBM Discloses Cell Based Blade Server Board Prototype

Submitted by Peter Stöckli 2005-05-27 IBM 35 Comments

IBM Corp. has revealed a prototype blade server board featuring the Cell microprocessor jointly developed with the Sony Group and Toshiba Corp. The company demonstrated the prototype in front of only a few clients at a hotel room outside Los Angeles, US, at the 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), game tradeshow.

Using a Network Analyser as a Security Tool

Submitted by DTY 2005-05-27 Privacy, Security 3 Comments

Because firewalls and other defensive security measures are not failsafe, you need additional tools to detect and respond to security breaches as they occur. A network analyser can detect known (and even some unknown) virus attacks and make the cleanup process much more efficient.