OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

SciTech SNAP Graphics: Commercial Drivers For XFree86

Submitted by Jem Matzan 2003-09-26 Benchmarks 33 Comments

Here's a review of SciTech's new SNAP Graphics 2.0 for GNU/Linux. It's a hassle-free video driver program for X that gets excellent 2D performance. When SciTech implements hardware 3D rendering it's going to revolutionize XFree86 Linux drivers. Read the review for the benchmarks and details.

“MS: Security Risk” Paper Criticised By Industry Group

David Adams 2003-09-26 Privacy, Security 29 Comments

The recent paper that claimed that Microsoft's dominance poses a risk to US national security has come under fire by the groups Americans for Technology Leadership as being a shameless attempt by Microsoft's business rivals to promote their own products. Interestingly enough, Microsoft is one of the founding members of Americans for Technology Leadership, so this looks like this may be a bit of a "Battle of the Trade Groups."

Co-founder of Caldera (Now SCO) Speaks of Unix, GPL and the Lawsuit

Submitted by George 2003-09-26 SCO 20 Comments

EWeek has an interview with Ransom Love, Caldera's co-founder, wherein he gives some interesting background to Caldera's original aims, the immediate aftermath of the SCO acquisition, the beginning of the feud with IBM, and his views on the GPL. He thinks the lawsuit is a bad idea.

Screenshots from Fedora Test-2/Severn 0.94

Eugenia Loli 2003-09-25 Fedora Core 87 Comments

Thanks to OSNews reader "Cyber Jackle", here are nine shots of Fedora test: 1, 2, 3, 4...

XFce 4.0 Released

Submitted by Matt South 2003-09-25 Xfce 56 Comments

The next generation XFce is now out, v4. Read the release notes, the press release and download.

KDE 3.2 Alpha 2, KDevelop 3.0-a7, KOffice 1.3-b4 Released

Eugenia Loli 2003-09-25 KDE 28 Comments

The KDE project has just released KDE 3.2 Alpha 2. Among other KDE new releases, you will find KOffice 1.3 beta4 and KDevelop 3.0 Alpha 7.

[Red Hat] Fedora 0.94 is Out

Eugenia Loli 2003-09-25 Fedora Core 74 Comments

The second test version of Fedora/Severn, 0.94, is out for your bug busting pleasure. Get the three ISO files and read the release notes. Use a mirror if the new files have being uploaded to a mirror near you.

A Frank Analysis of Linux as it Moves Toward Critical Mass

Submitted by Jill 2003-09-25 Linux 34 Comments

DesktopLinux.com recently caught up with Tom Adelstein, longtime Linux advocate and consultant, to find out what he has learned while spearheading initiatives to facilitate Linux adoption. Tom shares the grass roots efforts that have offered him an insider's view of what is propelling Linux toward critical mass and the desktop. He shares his view of Linux "from the trenches."

Panther Preview; Path Finder 3 Released

Eugenia Loli 2003-09-25 macOS 18 Comments

BlogD features a preview article of the upcoming Mac OS X Panther 10.3. Elsewhere, PathFinder 3.0 was released. PathFinder is a very interesting and innovative alternative to OSX Finder file manager.

Re-purposing Old PCs to Save Cash

Submitted by Ron Rancourt 2003-09-25 In the News 31 Comments

This is a helpful article for anyone wanting to re-purpose an old machine for friends or family members, or want to make a firewall or file server out of obsolete hardware. It contains useful hints for tech packrats, such as "throw away old PCs without PCI slots, and "if a component fails intermittently, save yourself the grief and trash it." The article even has hints for convincing your kids that what they really want it a 300 MHz PII with Linux, not a new 3 GHz PC with XP.

Interview with Jeremy Hogan of Red Hat

Submitted by jeremy 2003-09-25 Red Hat 6 Comments

In an interview with LinuxQuestions.org, Jeremy Hogan, Manager of Community Relations at Red Hat, explains what the Fedora project is (and isn't), the importance of OEMs for Linux, how Red Hat has managed to become profitable, what direction Red Hat is headed in and what his take is on being called the "MS of Linux".

Palm to Make Laptops?

David Adams 2003-09-25 Wireless 20 Comments

Several readers submitted a ZDNet UK story in which head of PalmSource mentions that they may be interested in making a lager, laptop-sized device. There's more on this, and some commentary, at NewMobileComputing.

Samba 3.0 Released; More Unix Releases

Eugenia Loli 2003-09-25 Internet 23 Comments

The Samba Team announced the availability of the first official, stable release of the Samba 3.0.0 code base. In other interesting Unix/Linux software releases this week, we had OpenOffice.org 1.1-RC5, Ximian Evolution 1.4.5, QCad 2.0.0 and Main Actor 5.0. UPDATE: KOffice 1.3 Beta 4 was released too.

Linux: Benchmarking 2.4 vs. 2.6-test

Eugenia Loli 2003-09-25 Linux 38 Comments

Cliff White recently posted some re-AIM multiuser benchmark results comparing the stable 2.4.23-pre5 kernel against the 2.6.0-test5 and 2.6.0-test5-mm4 development kernels. In his conclusion he makes reference to earlier scheduler tests posted by Mark Wong saying, "Short summary: we mostly rock."

Experts: Microsoft Monopoly Represents National Security Risk

Submitted by Michael Lauzon 2003-09-25 Microsoft 66 Comments

Some of the nation's leading computer science and network security experts issued a report warning that computers and critical technological infrastructure worldwide are increasingly vulnerable to attack because of the security practices and dominance of Microsoft software in desktop computing. UPDATE: Microsoft chosen as exclusive Homeland Security contractor!

Mandrake Linux 9.2 for AMD 64 Beta Available

Submitted by Lucio Riccardi 2003-09-25 Mandriva, Mandrake, Lycoris 20 Comments

While Mandrake Linux 9.2 will be released soon to the Club Members and Contributors, MandrakeSoft also released the first beta of Mandrake 9.2 for AMD64 (Athlon64 and Opteron).

IBM, JBoss Eye New Java Plan

Eugenia Loli 2003-09-24 Java 24 Comments

IBM and open-source Java software company JBoss Group are in discussions to spearhead a Java standardization effort aimed at cooling off the growing popularity of Microsoft's C# language. On other Java-related news, BeOS might see a full implementation of Java soon.

News Soup: Longhorn RTM, Mandrake, Lindows, GTK, Python, Patents

Submitted by various readers 2003-09-24 In the News 36 Comments

"Club members and contributors should have exclusive access to the download edition ISOs. For others, ISOs will be freely available world-wide by the end of October", MandrakeSoft said for their upcoming version of Mandrake 9.2. Mike Kestner has released an update to Gtk#, version 0.11. The EU Parliament approves Software Patent Legislation, but not for all cases. The Czech site Root.cz has a good round up (in Czech) of that's coming on GTK+ 2.4 and 2.6 (the file selector shown there is just a mockup, not the final). Python 2.3.1 is out: this minor release introduces a number of enhancements. Seagate ships first PC operating system pre-loaded on value-priced hard drives: Lindows. According to sources close to Microsoft the latest date set for Longhorn to go to manufacturing by is Aug. 15, 2005.

Sun Gets Behind Athlon 64 with Linux OS

Submitted by Tarponbill 2003-09-24 Oracle and SUN 32 Comments

Sun Microsystems' flirtation with AMD continues with the 'Java Desktop System' set to make its way onto the Athlon 64 processor. When Sun releases the Linux-based Java Desktop software later this year, it will run on AMD's Ahtlon 64 processor but only in 32bit mode. Sun plans to rectify this situation "over time" and create a 64bit version of the Java Desktop for AMD's x86-64bit desktop chip.

FreeBSD 4.9-BETA i386 ISO with Packages Available Now

Eugenia Loli 2003-09-24 FreeBSD 33 Comments

FreeBSD Release Engg. Team's Murray Stokely has put together a 4.9-BETA ISO image for i386 with the latest package build.