OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

LindowsOS 4.0 Released

Eugenia Loli 2003-06-24 Linspire 43 Comments

DistroWatch reports: "It seems that LindowsOS 4.0 has arrived. While the official product launch won't happen until Tuesday, the Lindows.com web site has come back to life, ready to sell us their latest and greatest. The information on the product page and also in a recent edition of Michael's Minutes will take some serious research before we can present it in a clear and concise way, but basically, the cheapest available product is LindowsOS 4.0 for US$49.95 for digital delivery. This is a 2-CD product (installation CD + live LindowsCD)." Update: The first review of LindowsOS 4 is at TuxReports. Update 2: ExtremeTech posted another LindowsOS 4 review.

Linux’s New Popularity May Hurt Apple More than Microsoft

Eugenia Loli 2003-06-24 Linux 75 Comments

In the latest of his legendary keynote stage shows, Steve Jobs kicked off Apple's WWDC this morning in San Francisco by showing off the company's speedy new aluminum G5 desktop Mac.

Torvalds Speaks Out on SCO, Linux

Eugenia Loli 2003-06-24 Linux 19 Comments

Linus Torvalds, the founder and lead developer of the Linux open-source operating system, has some strong views about the legal dispute between The SCO Group and IBM, which he shared with eWEEK Senior Editor Peter Galli in an e-mail exchange last week.

OpenOffice.org GM for Mac OS X Released

Submitted by Mat 2003-06-24 Office 13 Comments

After two years of work, OpenOffice.org for Mac OS X (X11) is ready for download by all Mac OS X users. With anti-aliased fonts, to name but one feature, this Golden Master satisfies the needs of professionals and individuals wanting a free, complete, and open-source office suite able to operate in an office environment alongside Windows, Linux, and Solaris machines. Elsewhere, AbiWord 2.0 Beta 1 was released.

Microsoft Corp. Turns Focus on Privacy

Eugenia Loli 2003-06-24 Microsoft 10 Comments

Since Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates sent a memo 18 months ago urging the company to focus on making its software trustworthy, the company has devoted developers and money to security in its software products. But Microsoft has given short shrift to a second concern outlined in the so-called "Trustworthy Computing" memo - protecting privacy - except when forced by the government. With the hiring of a new privacy chief, the software company is hoping to improve its privacy record and keep government regulators at bay.

KSE Progress on FreeBSD SMP Environment

Eugenia Loli 2003-06-24 FreeBSD 14 Comments

This is a significant milestone to be shared with everyone! Khairil Yusof reports that libkse is now running quite well on his FreeBSD 5.1+ current based SMP system. He has tested a bunch of apps on his system, taking the approach of enabling kse one app at a time. Read more at FreeBSDForums.

Panther Details on Apple’s Web Site

Submitted by Bascule 2003-06-23 macOS 20 Comments

Apple has published details of new Panther features on their web site. Read more for the highlights:

Apple Announces G5: Rumors Were True

David Adams 2003-06-23 Apple 225 Comments

The specs for the G5 machines that were accidentally posted at the Apple store a few days ago were correct. Steve Jobs just announced G5 Powermacs at the WWDC conference. He's calling it the "world's fastest personal computer." They just finished doing a demo in which a Dual 2 GHz G5 vastly outperforms a High-end Dual Xeon. Read more for preliminary specs. Prices will be $2000-3000. Oh, and the Panther OSX update was announced, but we already knew about that.

US Government Loves Linux

David Adams 2003-06-23 Linux 21 Comments

Linux and other open source software has been widely used by government technologists for years in an unsanctioned way, but a recent Department of Defense memo officially puts open source software on the "approved" list. Government research contractor MITRE recently published a study that found that OSS was in wide use in the government, and warned that if it were to be forbidden, the costs and security fallout would be considerable. See this Forbes.com story for more.

Lycoris “TV” Commercials

Guest post by tim1980 2003-06-23 Mandriva, Mandrake, Lycoris 40 Comments

A Lycoris community member named "jmcqk6" has created two unofficial "television" commercials. One is in QuickTime and the other in Flash. They can be seen here.

Microsoft unleashes new handheld OS

parrotjoe 2003-06-23 Windows 20 Comments

Today was a big day for Microsoft's mobile devices software strategy. The company: (1) rolled out Pocket PC 2003 (and renamed it); (2) unveiled a new "Windows Mobile" branding strategy; and (3) launched a collaboration with three leading high-speed wireless service providers to provide easier access to more than 3,500 Wi-Fi wireless "hot spots" by Windows-powered PDAs throughout the US. All this (and more) is covered in this "special report" at WindowsForDevices.com (including a detailed list of enhancements in Pocket PC 2003).

VMWare Workstation 4.0 Review

Guest post by Roberto Dohnert 2003-06-23 OS News 53 Comments

If you have a mixed network like I do sometimes you have to compromise. At my job we run Windows, Linux and a sole Mac (Graphics dept.) and lets face it, when you do consulting work and if you design and develop custom applications you have to be able to develop for your clients platform and as much as I hate it, it's a Windows world. Before I used to have 2 workstations, one Windows and one Linux, or I had to dual boot. In the past, virtual machines have been lacking. Either they were too slow or lacking a certain pizazz to get the job done. Enter VMWare Workstation 4.

Report of the Swiss ‘AmigaOS4 on Tour’ Presentation in Basel

Mike Bouma 2003-06-23 Amiga & AROS 14 Comments

For the 21st of June, there was an 'AmigaOS4 on Tour' event planned for Basel. I travelled from Holland to Switzerland to write an extensive report for AmigaWorld.net regarding this event.

Do the Lindows Rock

Eugenia Loli 2003-06-23 Linspire 58 Comments

LindowsOS 4.0 is expected to be released this week and so the Lindows.com web site is down for upgrade at press time. In the meantime, the Lindows.com folks released a funky Lindows theme song called "Lindows Rock". To view the video clip, you will need Flash.

Next-gen SCSI Prototype Shown

Eugenia Loli 2003-06-22 Hardware 22 Comments

Three tech allies demonstrated a new storage technology that they believe will keep a venerable hard drive standard safe from extinction.

How To Build Your Own PC?

parrotjoe 2003-06-22 Gifts, Contests 104 Comments

Many of us have done it. What does it take to do it?

New Pegasos Review

Eugenia Loli 2003-06-22 Morphos 25 Comments

Here is a new Pegasos review, also reviewing the MorphOS in addition to the hardware.

VM, File Caching and You

Submitted by Behrang Saeedzadeh 2003-06-22 Haiku 22 Comments

The new OpenBeOS newsletter is discussing the new VM and file caching implementation for OBOS.

AMD64, UltraSparc III and SMP Support in OpenBSD-CURRENT

Eugenia Loli 2003-06-22 OpenBSD 40 Comments

The OpenBSD folks are informing us that mozilla works in -current, the SMP branch works okay with a big lock on i386, the UltraSPARC III goes single user now and the AMD Hammer port: kernel works so far, toolchain/compiler stuff in the works now.

Symbian Expected To Outpace Microsoft In Cellular Phone Market

Eugenia Loli 2003-06-22 Wireless 15 Comments

Symbian PLC will outpace Microsoft Corp. in the market for cellular phone operating systems, reaching double the market share in 2007, a research firm said Friday. Symbian, a software consortium formed by handset makers, will have 5 percent of the market in five years, with Microsoft coming in second with 2.5 percent and Linux third with 2 percent, the Probe Group, Cedar Knolls, N.J., said. Get more mobile computing news on our sister site, NMC.