OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Java Desktop for X

Submitted by Tay Hock Keong 2004-11-29 Desktop environments 20 Comments

Want to try a real Java + Linux based desktop? JD4X and ZerahStar are joining efforts to produce a next generation desktop. It is still in very early stages of development but worth the try.

XDE guide for Visual Studio .NET developers

Eugenia Loli 2004-11-29 General Development 6 Comments

Web services and service-oriented architectures continue to move into the mainstream. With IBM Rational XDE Developer v2003 — .NET Edition and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 to support you, there really aren't any excuses left to avoid exploring Web services. Start using them quickly and effectively through hands-on exercises. You'll be happy to see how easy it is to model and generate .NET XML Web services.

The solution to many logins and passwords

Guest post by Daniel van Eeden 2004-11-29 Privacy, Security 34 Comments

Remembering all the logins and passwords to all the services and systems you've got access to is pretty hard to do nowadays. Many people use the same login and password for multiple sites and systems. That won't improve security. One of the IT buzzwords is SSO (Single Sign-on). Most SSO systems are hard to setup and will only provide SSO to the systems of one company. It is possible to easily provide worldwide single sing-on.

Gnumeric 1.4.0 Released; AbiWord 2.2.0 Almost Here

Submitted by a friend on IM 2004-11-29 Office 34 Comments

Gnumeric is intended to be a drop in replacement for proprietary spreadsheets. It imports your existing Excel, 1-2-3, Applix, Sylk, XBase Quattro Pro, Dif, Plan Perfect, and Oleo files among others. The latest version 1.4.0 brings some major new features including:

dmidecode: What’s it good for?

Eugenia Loli 2004-11-29 Hardware 11 Comments

The dmidecode project provides the means to learn exactly what claims your BIOS is making about your hardware. Strange as it might seem, it's useful information, even when it's not 100% reliable.

A Newbie’s Take On Installing Lycoris Desktop L/X 1.4

Submitted by Tim Mullins 2004-11-29 Mandriva, Mandrake, Lycoris 8 Comments

This review is a light-hearted look at Sef's install of Lycoris Desktop L/X 1.4, and what went right, what went wrong, and how it turned out.

Zoom Quilt Demonstrates Look & Feel Of 3D Zooming Interface

Eugenia Loli 2004-11-29 Graphics 11 Comments

Zoom Quilt is a collaborative art project based on Macromedia Flash that illustrates what a 3D Zooming User Interface (ZUI) might look and feel like.

OS4EMU v1.1 has been released

Eugenia Loli 2004-11-29 Morphos 24 Comments

OS4EMU 1.1 for MorphOS has been released. Now much more OS4 native software works.

USL vs Regents of California settlement agreement unsealed

Submitted by Merka Phoenix 2004-11-29 Legal 7 Comments

The AT&T (USL) vs BSDi (and UC Berkeley) settlement agreement has finally been unsealed thanks to California Public Records Law.

Microsoft Puts Money in Windows-Linux Integrator

Eugenia Loli 2004-11-28 Microsoft 48 Comments

In a move dear to the hearts of conspiracy theorists, Microsoft has taken a minority position in Vintela Inc, a sister company of the SCO Group by virtue of the Canopy Group, their common investor.

LWN on Fedora and Solaris 10

Submitted by TTF 2004-11-28 In the News 36 Comments

The Fedora project was urged to be more community oriented and the editor showed an example of how community involvement helps to reduce Fedora boot time. Also, some intro on Sun's Solaris 10 over at LWN.

Dynamic Delegation and Its Applications

Eugenia Loli 2004-11-28 Java 10 Comments

This article introduces Dynamic Delegation on Java, which can create delegation for both interfaces and classes at runtime.

Novell May Try To Stop OpenSolaris

Submitted by Tim Hawkins of Rack64.com 2004-11-27 Legal 165 Comments

Novell hints at a conference all that Sun may not be able to open up solaris so easily since Novell claims copyrights and patents remain with Novell. Is this preventing the development of what may be the most powerful open source operating system in existance?

Open source graphics card?

Submitted by Lars Roland 2004-11-27 3D 114 Comments

A company named Tech Source has stepped up to create an open source 2D/3D graphics card. The project has an open mailing list and a spec proposal for the final card can be downloaded here. This project is a groundbreaking effort at creating truely open hardware, and is great chance for everyone who is interested in 2D/3D programming to see how a modern graphics card works.

Freescale: OpenDesktopWorkstation available

Eugenia Loli 2004-11-27 Morphos 68 Comments

Genesi's OpenDesktopWorkstation (ODW) is now directly available from Freescale, it is reported.

Virtual Filesystem: Building A Linux Filesystem From An Ordinary File

Eugenia Loli 2004-11-27 General Development 18 Comments

This article will show you how to encrypt the filesystem and mount it with ACL (Access Control Lists), which gives you rights beyond the traditional read (r), write (w), and execute (x) permissions for the three user groups "file", "owner", and "other".

User Review of Lycoris Desktop/lx Amethyst 1.4

Submitted by Kenneth C. Vendler 2004-11-27 Mandriva, Mandrake, Lycoris 2 Comments

'After several months, amidst various delays and other issues, this author has had the opportunity, at long last, to install and evaluate the latest iteration of Lycoris' Desktop LX, Amethyst 1.4.' Read the rest here.

About the Smart package manager

Submitted by someguy 2004-11-27 General Development 34 Comments

The Smart Package Manager project has the ambitious objective of creating smart and portable algorithms for solving adequately the problem of managing software upgrading and installation. This tool works in all major distributions, and will bring notable advantages over native tools currently in use (APT, APT-RPM, YUM, URPMI, etc).

My workstation OS: Debian

Eugenia Loli 2004-11-26 Debian 113 Comments

"What do you want from a desktop operating system? The real criteria are stability, package management, hardware compatibility, and the people behind the software, the community. For its superiority in those areas, I made Debian my workstation OS." Read the article at NewsForge.

Neo SP1 Announced

Eugenia Loli 2004-11-26 Zeta 46 Comments

Today yellowTAB announced that a service pack for Zeta Neo should be out sime time around the end of the month. Besides fixing unnamed bugs, this pack is also reported to improve PPP performance for both dial-up and xDSL users.