OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Linux Reality Outstrips Linux Myth

Eugenia Loli 2005-03-05 Linux 54 Comments

Tipping points aren't made out of technical reality. They're made out of perceptual change. Thus, it was the legend of Torvalds, not the reality of his actions, that gave Linux the patina of political correctness needed for it to gain widespread public acceptance. Read the editorial here.

Forbes: Is Apple The New Microsoft?

Eugenia Loli 2005-03-04 Apple 169 Comments

"This potential threat to first amendment rights and Apple's crackdown on Web sites that, in general, love the company and its products, do nothing to bolster Apple's image. In fact, the company's success of late has yielded accusations of bullying and potentially unlawful business tactics, not to mention complaints that songs purchased from its iTunes music service, the dominant digital music store, don't work with music players other than its own. To some, that might sound like its neighbor to the north," says Forbes.

NetBSD and Xen

Submitted by Jan Schaumann 2005-03-04 NetBSD 16 Comments

The NetBSD Foundation has published a press release reporting on the benefits of the NetBSD/xen port, initially committed by Christian Limpach as previously reported. Since then, much progress has been made, and the NetBSD Project is now using NetBSD/xen internally. See the press release for further details.

AmigaOS4 Pre-release review by DatorMagazin

Mike Bouma 2005-03-04 Amiga & AROS 70 Comments

AmigaWorld.net is hosting a translated OS4 pre-release review from the latest issue of the popular Swedish computer magazine DatorMagazin. Also Michael "The Terminator" Rozeboom has written an article for IntuitionBase.com within which he tries to explain why the PPC platform is currently a good choice for AmigaOS4.

Wireless USB set to kill off Bluetooth?

Eugenia Loli 2005-03-04 Intel 27 Comments

The wireless USB protocol will be completed by the end of March and the access controller specification should be approved by the end of the year. Wireless USB is designed to be used at ranges of less than 10 metres and will allow peak data speeds of 480Mbps. Also, Intel has unveiled its first proposals for 802.11s, a new mesh wireless networking standard.

Open Source advocacy the right way

Submitted by Jono Bacon 2005-03-04 Open Source 78 Comments

With a rapid succession of people moving towards Open Source, advocacy and evangelism is increasingly important in helping organizations to move over. The O'Reilly Network have started publishing a series of articles about Open Source by Jono Bacon that teaches how to approach advocacy sensibly and more productively. Read the first article here.

Interview with Adam Dunkels

Guest post by netzstaub 2005-03-04 OS News 13 Comments

I have interviewed the author of the fascinating software Contiki OS, lwIP, uIP and protothreads, and asked him questions about the software itself, the way he develops on embedded platforms, as well as his interests in sensor networks and opensource.

Solaris DTrace Advanced Tips And Tricks and the PID provider

Eugenia Loli 2005-03-04 Solaris 100 Comments

DTrace developers Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal have posted presentations covering Advanced DTrace Tips and Tricks and The DTrace pid provider on their blogs over the last few days. Update: RHEL benchmarks against Solaris.

Doom 3 for MacOSX benchmarks at Macworld.com

Submitted by Anon 2005-03-03 Games 107 Comments

MacWorld posted some basic benchmarks of Doom 3 on the Mac.

Windows for supercomputers likely out by fall

Eugenia Loli 2005-03-03 Windows 102 Comments

Microsoft is aiming to have its first cluster version of Windows ready in time for a supercomputing conference this fall.

Poll: What is your Monitor’s Resolution?

Eugenia Loli 2005-03-03 Hardware 167 Comments

What is your main monitor's resolution? Take our poll inside!

Microsoft, Intel: The Time For 64-Bit is Now

Eugenia Loli 2005-03-03 Windows 56 Comments

Two of the biggest forces in the IT industry called on developers to begin porting their applications to x86-based 64-bit architectures. Microsoft and Intel said hardware and software pieces are in place to convert the computing industry away from a 32-bit Wintel ecosystem (define) to a world where all platforms, from servers and workstations through desktop and mobile, can run at nearly twice the speed with a larger address space. Elsewher, Microsoft's Longhorn Windows client product team will be led by G. Michael Sievert.

Netscape Browser, v8.0 Beta Released

Eugenia Loli 2005-03-03 Mozilla, Gecko 36 Comments

The Netscape browser, v8.0 beta , was released yesterday. Download here.

Linux: New Features For 2.6.12

Submitted by Rahul Sundaram 2005-03-03 Linux 38 Comments

Close on the heels of the release of Linux 2.6.11 is the discussion of what should be included in the next revision. Andrew Morton who maintains the MM tree considered as the soft development tree from which things are later pushed to Linus lists the status for various new features here.

The Network Poltergeist

Submitted by LogError 2005-03-03 Privacy, Security 8 Comments

The IT industry isn’t as boring and technically obsessed as many outsiders believe. Viruses and malicious hacker threats in particular have been increasingly sensationalised in the popular press, squeezing the issues gradually into the public consciousness.

RISC OS Autobuilding

Guest post by Peter Naulls 2005-03-03 RISC OS 4 Comments

Porting large numbers of programs to RISC OS introduces many new problems - most notably, how to keep them all up to date. In this drobe.co.uk article I discuss the development of an autobuilder for RISC OS ports, and encourage people to contribute to it.

File Synchronization with Unison

Eugenia Loli 2005-03-03 Internet 27 Comments

Keeping directories in sync on multiple machines can be difficult. Running Unison is one way to make the task easier.

Debian vs. FreeBSD as a Web Serving Platform, Part 1

Submitted by Andrea 2005-03-03 Rumors 41 Comments

"When it comes to hosting a company or a personal web site, there are more choices than ever. Not only is there a plethora of web hosting providers all lining up for our business, we also have a choice of many excellent operating systems, most of which are free - in both senses of the word" says Ladislav Bodnar at lwn.net.

Linux.com: “Which Distro Do You Recommend?” — They All Suck!

Eugenia Loli 2005-03-03 Linux 205 Comments

"I get asked, by more junior Linux users, and people just looking to try it out, which distribution of Linux I use or recommend. It occurred to me that I never actually published an answer to this question, even though it is, by far, the question I am asked most often. I think my stock answer is maybe slightly unusual only because, unlike most of the rest of the Linux-using world, I hate every distro I've ever tried. That's right: every distribution of Linux sucks in its own special way. Some just suck less", says Brian Jones on Linux.com.

Mandrake Linux 10.2 Beta 1 (x86-64) Released

Eugenia Loli 2005-03-03 Mandriva, Mandrake, Lycoris 18 Comments

First public beta of Mandrake Linux 10.2 Beta 1 (x86-64). KDE 3.3.2 packages are built with -fvisibility=hidden -fvisibility-inlines-hidden. This reduces code size and also improves performance of the runtime. A major new feature of Mandrakelinux 10.2 for x86-64 is that you can install a great amount of 32-bit development packages alongside with 64-bit equivalents, without any conflict. NDISwrapper 1.0 now includes support for x86-64.