OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Book Review: C++ GUI Programming with Qt 3

Eugenia Loli 2004-03-10 Qt 24 Comments

Trolltech was very kind to send us over a copy of the recently released "C++ GUI Programming with Qt 3" book, part of "Bruce Perens' Open Source Series". The book weighs in at about 400 pages and comes with a CD-ROM loaded with software not found elsewhere freely.

HFS+’s New Features in Panther Now Documented

Submitted by Guido 2004-03-10 Apple 14 Comments

Apple has revised the Technical Note 1550 and officially documents for the first time the new features of HFS+ which have been introduced with Panther:

eWEEK on Linux 2.6 for Enterprise and Fedora 2

Eugenia Loli 2004-03-10 Linux 12 Comments

eWEEK Labs drills down into the Linux core and finds improved scalability and performance while also gives a spin to Fedora Core 2.

GTK+-2.3.6 Released

Eugenia Loli 2004-03-10 GTK+ 15 Comments

Owen Taylor released development versions of GLib-2.3.6, Pango-1.3.6 and GTK+-2.3.6. Also, there was a GTK+-2.4.0 schedule change, while Owen posted a summary of a GTK+ team meeting regarding 2.4.

Sun Ultra 5 Primer

Guest post by Tony Bourke 2004-03-09 Oracle and SUN 16 Comments

Here are a few tips I've gathered for working with Sun's Ultra 5, and indeed other Sun hardware in general. While many are familiar with the intimate details of the x86 BIOS system, and how to go about configuring a BIOS, dealing with a Sun system is very different.

KDE 3.2.1 Released

Submitted by 2004-03-09 KDE 35 Comments

The KDE Project today announced the immediate availability of KDE 3.2.1, a maintenance release for the latest generation of the most advanced and powerful free desktop for GNU/Linux and other UNIXes. Announcement, changelog, Info, download.

XFree86 Gets Underwhelmed by Linux Distro Support

Submitted by Tudy Parghel 2004-03-09 Wayland 68 Comments

David Dawes seems a little suspicious of the underwhelming support for XFree86 by Linux distributors: "I have heard privately that some vendors were planning to move to an X.Org release even before this licence issue came up. That probably makes business sense for the vendors given that X.Org is a vendor-oriented organization sponsored by hardware and software companies, while XFree86 is an independent group of volunteer developers. I suspect that the licence issue may have affected the timing, but not the end result", he concluded.

Windows Delay May Pave Way for Linux Expansion

Eugenia Loli 2004-03-09 Rumors 56 Comments

Microsoft is trying to change its strategy for pricing overseas, where the competition with Linux is fiercer. This comes as many countries consider jumping off the Microsoft Windows express and exploring Linux as a lower-cost alternative for government.

MS, Linux, board battles – Psion Boss Lists the Threats to Symbian

Eugenia Loli 2004-03-09 Wireless 3 Comments

Psion's tussle with shareholders irate over its proposed sale of its Symbian stake to Nokia is throwing up some interesting background to the deal. .

JCP 2.6 Looking for More Input

Submitted by Tudy Parghel 2004-03-09 Java 1 Comment

Sun Microsystems officials rolled out Java Community Process (JCP) 2.6 Tuesday, along with a goal of more community participation in order to improve Java specifications. Although JCP 2.6 enhancements have been in the works for the past year, the timing of the release comes amid IBM's recent push for an open source implementation of Java.

Office XP – Service Pack 3 Released

Eugenia Loli 2004-03-09 Office 11 Comments

Office XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) provides the latest updates to Microsoft Office XP. SP3 contains significant security enhancements, in addition to stability and performance improvements.

Opera Software releases version 7.50 Preview 3

Submitted by Carlos R. F. Vendramini 2004-03-09 Opera 56 Comments

The new Opera preview version covers Windows, Linux, Solaris and FreeBSD OSes. Changelog:

yellowTab TV Presentation Video Available; Zeta 1.0-SP3 Out Soon

Eugenia Loli 2004-03-09 Zeta 37 Comments

Following today's TV presentation, IsComputerOn published the video (99 MB) of yellowTab's CEO and CVO presenting Zeta (in German). The second video, which will focus on the recently announced ZintrO, will be posted later today. In the meantime, ZetaNews reports on the upcoming SP3 of Zeta 1.0.

Opinion: Software Freedom Day 2004

Guest post by Henrik Nilsen Omma 2004-03-09 Open Source 35 Comments

You, the reader, are hereby invited to participate in a celebration of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) on August 28th this year. On that day we will stage public events to inform the general public about the virtues of FOSS. We invite you to form local teams and set up tables in town centers, shopping malls, or wherever there are likely to be lots of people on a Saturday.

Using Windows Forms Markup (WFML)

Eugenia Loli 2004-03-09 .NET 14 Comments

Windows Forms Markup Language (WFML) provides an extensible mechanism to add a markup model on top of an existing .NET Framework object model. WFMLs parsing rules can be summarized as "XML elements map to .NET Framework types and XML attributes map to Type properties (or events)". This sample includes a WFML parser that dynamically generates an object instance tree from an XML file in WFML format.

Microsoft and SCO Being Investigated By the SEC?

Submitted by dopey 2004-03-09 Legal 28 Comments

Newsforge & GrokLaw report that "Although the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) never officially makes public when it investigates an organization, an SEC staff member told NewsForge that complaints and tips about suspected under-the-table funding, stock-kiting, illegal insider trading, and money-laundering involving Microsoft or Microsoft-connected individuals to the financially struggling SCO Group have been coming into the agency with regularity since last August.

AROS Status Update

Submitted by Fabio Alemagna 2004-03-09 Amiga & AROS 16 Comments

Among the various things, the latest months have seen AROS improving under many aspects, ranging from HW support, thanks to the new PCI subsystem, to GUI enhancements. Read the full status report and don't forget to take a look at the new screenshots.

Study: Open-source databases going mainstream

Eugenia Loli 2004-03-09 Databases 8 Comments

Following in the footsteps of the Linux operating system, open-source databases are moving toward mainstream use and threatening proprietary software alternatives, according to a new survey.

The Command Line – The Best Newbie Interface?

Guest post by Richard Wareham 2004-03-08 Graphics 92 Comments

This essay describes the surprising results of a brief trial with a group of new computer users about the relative ease of the command line interface versus the GUIs now omnipresent in computer interfaces. It comes from practical experience I have of teaching computing to complete beginners or newbies as computer power-users often term them.

The Berkeley Software Distribution OSes Have Much to Offer

Eugenia Loli 2004-03-08 BSD & Darwin 85 Comments

What's so great about BSD? Plenty. The old daemon might even teach the penguin a thing or two: "BSD has become a quiet success. MacOS X is the ultimate Unix-style desktop" says Linux-Magazine.