OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

New Version of Gobe Productive Office Suite: 3.0.4

Submitted by Sean O\'Rear 2003-09-29 Office 33 Comments

In the spark of the upcoming MS Office, OO.o, KOffice and the recent release of Gnome Office 1.0, Gobe has released a new demo version to their office suite, Gobe Productive, version 3.0.4. However purchasers of the full version haven't seen the actual free upgrade to 3.0.4 from 3.0.3, which fixes a number of bugs (this update has apparently stack in testing for more than a year).

GBDE-GEOM Based Disk Encryption on FreeBSD

Submitted by Arjan van Leeuwen 2003-09-28 FreeBSD 17 Comments

Poul-Henning Kamp has uploaded his paper about the new GEOM-based disk encryption service in FreeBSD, which is a good read for everyone with an interest in information security and encryption.

OpenOffice.org on OS/2 and eCS Previews at Warpstock 2003

Eugenia Loli 2003-09-28 OS/2 14 Comments

Warpstock 2003 in San Francisco, taking place the weekend of October 18th, will host an important presentation previewing the newly announced support for OpenOffice.org on OS/2 and eCS. More info.

Linux 2.6.0-test6 Development Kernel

Submitted by Jeremy 2003-09-28 Linux 41 Comments

Linus Torvalds released the 2.6-test6 development kernel with a number of exciting changes. Most notably this includes some impressive performance enhancements written by an Australian doctor, Con Kolivas. Additionally, it includes Al Viro's "32-bit dev_t" patch, bumping up the number of device types that can be allocated by the Linux kernel.

Mac OS X 10.3 Panther No Longer Pre-Release

Submitted by Patrice Bensoussan 2003-09-27 macOS 36 Comments

It seems that the release of Panther is not far away. The latest seeded build does not have the Pre-Release status in the About box. Additionally, Apple looks poised to refresh its famous logo.

Sun’s Software Revolution

Submitted by tarponbill 2003-09-27 Oracle and SUN 70 Comments

"The news is a credible, coherent Linux desktop from a major player. Despite their big bets on Linux, neither HP or IBM has ventured into this territory. The combination of the desktop, the pricing model, and Sun's promise to gut the middleware market is bad news for Microsoft, IBM, and anyone else that makes money from the complexity of enterprise systems. If this strategy gains even a little traction, it will start a pricing downdraft through the whole industry." Read the article at NewsForge.

A Possible Replacement to X11?

Submitted by Jim 2003-09-27 Wayland 69 Comments

Reading through this report here, the author gives some well thought out reasons for a next generation Windows Server architecture for X.

Slackware Linux 9.1 Released

Submitted by n0dez 2003-09-27 Slackware, Slax 99 Comments

The second Slackware release in the 9.x series (based on the GCC 3.2.3 compiler), Slackware Linux 9.1 continues the ten-year Slackware tradition of simplicity, stability, and security. OSNews featured a preview of Slackware 9.1 two days ago with many screenshots. Buy for only $40 or download for free.

yellowTab Now Sells Complete Hardware Systems with Zeta

Eugenia Loli 2003-09-26 Zeta 170 Comments

yellowTab announced the "Complete Zeta Solution": Both in laptop (Centrino) and desktop form (P4 and AthlonXP), yellowTab will sell, to Europe only, complete and compatible hardware systems. All systems come with a 2 year warranty and estimated delivery is 10-14 days. The systems will ship with YellowTAB Zeta 1.0-RC1, and buyers will be able to upgrade to 1.0-Final for free (only shipping will be paid extra). Also, as a launching promotion, and for a limited time only, you can order the Deluxe Edition Special Bundle, where along with Zeta Deluxe Edition 1.0-RC1, you also receive a free Zeta t-shirt. UPDATE: YellowTAB sent us a screenshot of Zeta. Font rendering is much improved since the betas.

Linux in the Enterprise: Novell, UnitedLinux News

Eugenia Loli 2003-09-26 Linux 10 Comments

Novell is looking to Microsoft's biggest enemy - the open-source software movement - for renewal and profits. In its latest strategic shift, Novell is focused on developing software for the Linux operating system. In the meantime, the UnitedLinux consortium - unveiled with much fanfare last year as a unified effort to create a standard Linux distribution - has been awfully quiet of late in an industry segment that has been anything but quiet.

Inside Windows Server 2003

Eugenia Loli 2003-09-26 Windows 37 Comments

Windows is often the whipping boy when it comes to server platforms. But many in the industry now admit that Windows Server 2003 offers some significant breakthroughs over earlier versions of Microsoft's server software -- a change that could help Microsoft compete more effectively against Unix and Linux servers, eCommerceTimes reports.

OS/2 Server Transition from IBM

Eugenia Loli 2003-09-26 OS/2 42 Comments

OS/2 Servers have been a stable and powerful platform more many years and are depended upon by many businesses. This is especially true in the banking industry where OS/2 Servers are trusted to run the software that supports the branch office environment. However, as the industry looks to renew its branch office operations, many banks are looking to make a transition from there OS/2 Servers to a platform with wider industry support.

Expanding Small NetBSD Systems

Eugenia Loli 2003-09-26 NetBSD 3 Comments

"Now that you have NetBSD installed on your palmtop, what will you do with it? Customizing and enhancing the installation can be tricky, but what if you had access to much more disk space? Michael Lucas explains how to enhance your palmtop experience with NFS support, so you can build and install software." Read the article at OnLamp.

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.