OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Progeny Linux Brings Red Hat and Debian Closer Together

Submitted by Charles Krohn 2003-10-25 Debian 58 Comments

Today, Ian Murdock described his recent work on APT to the Debian community. This announcement has far-ranging implications for the future of Fedora and Debian projects. Ars Technica has the details.

LLVM 1.0 Release Available

Submitted by Chris Lattner 2003-10-25 General Development 5 Comments

LLVM is a new infrastructure designed for compile-time, link-time, runtime, and "idle-time" optimization of programs from arbitrary programming languages. LLVM is written in C++ and has been developed over the past 3 years at the University of Illinois. It currently supports compilation of C and C++ programs, using front-ends derived from GCC 3.4. New front-ends are being written for Java bytecode and CAML.

Trolltech Releases Qt 3.2.2

Eugenia Loli 2003-10-24 Qt 10 Comments

Qt 3.2.2 is a bugfix release and was released a few days ago. It maintains both forward and backward compatibility (source and binary) with Qt 3.2.1.

GTK+ 2.3.0 Released

Eugenia Loli 2003-10-24 GTK+ 35 Comments

The first stop in GTK+'s roadmap to GTK 2.4 is the unstable release of GTK+, Glib 2.3.0 and Pango 1.3.0. It includes a work-in-progress of the new File Selector (screenshot).

FreeBSD 4.9-RC4 Available on the Main FTP Site

Submitted by meianoite 2003-10-24 FreeBSD 33 Comments

FreeBSD 4.9-RC4 is now available for testing from here. Mirrors to be synced shortly.

Four Mac OS X Programming Articles at MacDevCenter

Submitted by John Timmer 2003-10-24 macOS 12 Comments

O'Reilly posted four interesting Mac dev articles on MacDevCenter: "Ten Things I Dig About Xcode", "Creating Easy-to-Deploy Unix Applications for OS X", "Start Me Up: Writing and Understanding OS X StartupItems" and "Programming REALbasic, Part 1: Syntax of the Language".

Longhorn pre-Beta1 to be Released to All

Eugenia Loli 2003-10-24 Windows 47 Comments

WinNetMag reports that in November Microsoft is planning to release for a small fee (usually it's $20) a first public beta of Longhorn. MSDN members will get it for free in December. The report states that the first pre-beta won't feature the new Aero UI.

C# 2.0 Specification is Out

Eugenia Loli 2003-10-24 .NET 36 Comments

This set of documentation describes the new features of the C# language, including Generics, Anonymous Methods and Partial Types. Please note that this is a draft document intended to give you a preview of the "Whidbey" release of the C# language. Additionally, InfoWorld features an article which discusses the missing .NET implementation for Itanium.

SciTech to Provide multi-OS Support for ATI’s Next-Gen Visual CPUs

Submitted by AndrewB 2003-10-24 In the News 28 Comments

SciTech has announced an agreement with ATI, which will enable advanced multi-OS (Linux X11, Qt/Embedded, OS/2, Athene, Amiga, SMX, and more) support for ATI's mobile, desktop and embedded visual processors in future versions of SciTech SNAP Graphics IES and ENT versions.

Mac OS X Panther 10.3 To Be Released Tonight

Eugenia Loli 2003-10-24 macOS 32 Comments

Panther will be released tonight and people already started the queues outside the Apple Stores in US. OSNews will be present tonight at Palo Alto's store reporting, as we did last year. Many sites online present Panther today: "A Developer's Look at Panther", "Xcode: The future of Mac development tools", "Take a Peek at Panther: See what Apple's latest OS can do for you", "New OS to go on sale tonight; fourth upgrade in 2.5 years", "Panther Server: 'Open source made easy'", "Panther: A look at the new Mac OS", while XvsXP has being updated shooting out WinXP and OSX. Update: Two more: "Apple Panther Aims at Enterprise Compatibility" and "Apple's Panther OS: Is This the One?"

Where Is Windows Going?

Eugenia Loli 2003-10-24 Windows 41 Comments

The next version of Windows isn't due out until at least 2005, leaving us to wonder: Will Microsoft address the big questions users have about stability, security, and features? In this special report, PCMag looks at where Windows is heading.

Major Problems with Mandrake Linux 9.2 Reported

Submitted by Charlie 2003-10-24 Mandriva, Mandrake, Lycoris 67 Comments

Just a couple of weeks into a new release, Mandrake Linux 9.2 users have encountered all sorts of problems. First, it was the problem of the missing kernel-source from the original ISO's as reported on the Mandrake Club site, then it was a slew of a major bugfix set of patches, including fixes to KDE and the kernel, and now reports are surfacing on Cooker (and which has been confirmed on Mandrake's site that Mandrake Linux 9.2 is killing some cdroms made by LG Electronics.

If I Could Re-write Linux

Eugenia Loli 2003-10-24 Linux 32 Comments

"If we were to re-write Linux, taking clues from various operating systems, what would we make sure it did? Our next-generation operating system (NGOS) would be completely modular in design, aimed at 64-bit hardware, and with an interface that would change the way people compute. It would support a large number of applications and hardware devices, accepting device drivers written for other operating system, and run applications written for other operating system under an emulation mode." Read the editorial at NewsForge.

Look homeward, PC maker

Eugenia Loli 2003-10-24 In the News 8 Comments

PC makers usually use the holiday season to tout the greatest and latest desktops and notebooks, but this year they will be hawking something different: consumer electronics, says C|Net News. Also, OSViews posted an editorial discussing "misconceptions of PC users regarding the Mac prices".

Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 Beta Screenshots

Eugenia Loli 2003-10-24 Microsoft 49 Comments

MSFN has posted a few shots of the upcoming Virtual PC 2004 runtime/emulator PC engine.

Learning to Walk: A Linux User Migrates to FreeBSD

Submitted by Timothy R. Butler 2003-10-24 FreeBSD 55 Comments

If you haven't read part 1 of this -- "Babe in the Woods: A Linux User Migrates to FreeBSD" -- you may be at a loss. For those who did read it, many are still at a loss. That is, they didn't grasp the subtle purpose behind the article. Of those who commented, most were hardcore geeks, the techies who are in a position to really understand computers. Find out how Ed is doing in FreeBSD these days at OfB.biz.

Craig Barrett: Inside Intel’s Future

Eugenia Loli 2003-10-23 Intel 50 Comments

Barrett sat down with CNET News.com editors to discuss global economic issues, along with how Intel will deliver new technologies and why companies should adopt them. He also mentions that their interest to Apple's OSX is going down each year as Apple continues to lose market share with time.

Opinion: Ballmer’s Slip

Guest post by John O\'Sullivan 2003-10-23 Microsoft 60 Comments

Steve Ballmer has a hard job. Being the CEO of a company the size of Microsoft is brutal and exhausting. Against his nature, Ballmer has been trying to change his own persona and the company culture. So far, he appears to have made progress. In my mind, Microsoft is a more mature corporate entity that it used to be. The startup mentality is important to hold on to, but isn't functional as the core value of a $30 billion company. What Ballmer needs to do is hold on to the best of the existing culture, while transforming it into something new. Tough job. I couldn't do it.

Red Hat Says Fedora Lets Company ‘Concentrate on the Enterprise’

Eugenia Loli 2003-10-23 Red Hat 31 Comments

In a keynote speech Wednesday at the Enterprise Linux Forum, Red Hat CTO Michael Tiemann bluntly stated that today the company's "focus is on the enterprise."

Review of Mac OS X 10.3 at NYTimes

Eugenia Loli 2003-10-23 macOS 19 Comments

NYTimes (free reg. required) has a positive review of Mac OS X Panther 10.3, written by David Pogue, popular book author mostly on Mac subjects. Our review is here.