OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing - Page 1609

Linux.com Matches Microsoft Software Donation offers

Submitted by Robin 2002-10-11 Linux 33 Comments

Robin writes: Just a bit of silliness to lighten up your day: "If your school, charity or government agency is suddenly graced with a visit by Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer offering to donate a free operating system or desktop office software, Linux.com will match that offer. Our software offer has no strings attached to it whatsoever. You don't need to start paying for upgrades after a few years or anything like that. Too good to be true? Bill and Steve might think so, but we don't!"

FreeBSD 4.7 Released

Submitted by David Jarrell 2002-10-10 FreeBSD 16 Comments

"Since FreeBSD 4.6-RELEASE in June 2002, we have updated a number of software programs in the base system, such as GCC and sendmail. Several new drivers have been added for USB devices and disk controllers. We have also incorporated updates for XFree86 and our Linux compatibility libraries. FreeBSD 4.7 also incorporates all of the security and bug fixes from 4.6.2 (released in August 2002), including several ATA-related bugfixes, updates for OpenSSL and OpenSSH, and fixes to address several security advisories." Announcement for FreeBSD 4.7 and release notes.

Linux Distributions – Facts and Figures

Submitted by Ladislav Bodnar 2002-10-10 Linux 32 Comments

A Linux distribution is like a religion. If you've ever tried to suggest to another person that his or her choice of a distro might not be the best, then you know what I mean. Even if you haven't, you have probably come across a "distribution opinion war" on one of the mailing lists or public forums. But that's OK. We should be passionate about things we love, even if it's just a mass of programming code. What follows are facts and figures about Linux distributions. Personal opinions may vary, but facts are a lot more difficult to dispute... See Linux Distributions - Facts and Figures (mirror-au, mirror-hu, mirror-us) by DistroWatch, one of the main Linux distribution news sites on the web.

Microsoft Windows XP Embedded & Windows CE – What Is It All About?

Eugenia Loli 2002-10-10 Windows 20 Comments

"Most people know of the Microsoft Windows range for the home which includes Windows 95, 98, 98 Second Edition, Millennium Edition (also know as ME) and the two XP's - Home and Pro. There are though a couple out there that not so many have heard of. Probably the better known of the two is Windows CE which is used on the majority of the PDA's on the market at the moment. The other one is Windows XP Embedded." Read the article at ActiveWin.

Development Release: Lycoris Build 53 (Beta)

Eugenia Loli 2002-10-10 Mandriva, Mandrake, Lycoris 21 Comments

DistroWatch reports that Lycoris has released a new beta version of Lycoris Desktop/LX - build 53. Besides usual bug fixes, the inclusion of ALSA sound packages seems to be the only major addition. Report bugs in the Build 53 Bugs forum. Also, a couple of new products have been recently announced by Lycoris - these links will take you on a tour of the ProductivityPak and the Desktop/LX InterConnect.

Making the Case for XFree86’s Speed

Guest post by Guillaume Maillard 2002-10-10 Wayland 98 Comments

Being a BeOS user (a purely desktop system) and because I code under Linux, I see XFree86 (v4.1 on my machine) as a user and as a developper. And this is where the problem lies. My Gnome or KDE desktops are slow in comparison with other operating systems, but XFree86, the 'engine' behind these desktops, proves me that it's not. Let's look at what I have in front of me: a dual Pentium III at 933Mhz with 512MB of memory, a Radeon 32 AIW, a modified Mandrake 8.0 powered by kernel 2.4.18.

Trolltech Releases Qt 3.1 Beta 2

Eugenia Loli 2002-10-10 Qt 15 Comments

The second beta version of Qt 3.1 is now released. It can be downloaded from here. There is also a changelog. Additionally, Qt# 0.5 was released a few days ago, same time as Mono 0.16.

IBM Launches New AIX Version

Eugenia Loli 2002-10-10 Unix 6 Comments

The previous version of AIX, version 5.1, had static partitions, which meant administrators had to reboot after making changes to system resource utilization, Giga's Brad Day said. In a competitive move against Sun Microsystems, IBM has released new eServer software designed to let customers harness the untapped power within their Unix systems.

KDE 3.0.4 Released

Eugenia Loli 2002-10-09 KDE 32 Comments

The KDE project just released KDE 3.0.4 for Mandrake (8.2, 9.0 and Cooker), Debian, SuSE (7.3, 8.0 and 8.1), Slackware (under the contribution dir) and TurboLinux. Read the ChangeLog here, however it is important to note that this is bugfix release. Update: Read regarding the recent KDE League issue.

WindowWatch Reviews Libranet GNU/Linux 2.7

Eugenia Loli 2002-10-09 Debian 23 Comments

"Libranet is Canada's foremost Linux distribution. They have succeeded where others have failed. As far as I know, they are the only commercial distribution based on Debian left standing. Perhaps their success is due to the added value they provide to what is essentially an easier to use Debian 3.0 release, or perhaps it's their attention to detail; making the small things easy for new users. They have actively fostered a growing and enthusiastic user community that willingly participates in their beta releases and in educating users new to both Libranet and Debian. People from Libranet also interact very openly with the user community paying attention to their praises and concerns. Whatever it is that they do right it seems to be paying off." Read the review at WindowWatch.

Microsoft Adds XDocs to Office Family

Eugenia Loli 2002-10-09 Office 68 Comments

Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday will announce XDocs, the working code name for the latest addition to its Office desktop productivity family. Steve Ballmer, CEO of the Redmond, Wash., software company, will use the Gartner ITxpo in Orlando, Fla., to announce this latest Office application. Microsoft officials are promoting XDocs as a smart client like Office. "Think of it as a hybrid information gathering tool for organizations that blends the benefits and richness of a traditional word processing program with the data capturing ability and rigor of a forms package into the XDocs templates," Scott Bishop, an Office product manager, told eWEEK.

Interview with Taylor & Pennington from Red Hat’s UI Team

Eugenia Loli 2002-10-09 Original OSNews Interviews 70 Comments

Arguably, the new unified UI on Red Hat 8 was the talk of the town for the whole summer since the Limbo betas. Today we talk with two of the leading people behind Red Hat's enhanced usability and UI found on 8.0-Psyche, Havoc Pennington (also known for his work on the Metacity window manager) and Owen Taylor (lots of cool stuff on XFree's side). We discuss about XFree and its capabilities, about Linux's ability to fullfil a modern desktop for every user, about the unification of Qt and GTK+ and more.

SGI Comments on IRIX’s Release Model

Eugenia Loli 2002-10-09 SGI and IRIX 9 Comments

We ran a story the other day regarding the future patches for IRIX that would only be available via special contracts. SGI sent OSNews the following statement regarding the patches/maintance releases and feature streams (==updates that include new features) for IRIX 6.5.

Sun Appeals to Large Server Users with Solaris Update

Eugenia Loli 2002-10-09 Oracle and SUN No Comments

Sun on Tuesday released an incremental upgrade of its Solaris Unix operating system for the Sparc platform, improving memory management and quality of service and adding developer versions of it portal and Web servers. Solaris 9 9/02 features Memory Placement Optimization (MPO), which optimizes memory placement in large multiprocessor servers to take advantage of local memory and thereby improve performance, according to Sun.

Dell to Pitch $199 Handheld at Comdex

Eugenia Loli 2002-10-08 Wireless 18 Comments

Dell Computer is planning to unveil two handhelds--one priced at $199--based on Microsoft's Pocket PC 2002 OS this fall, according to sources. This possibly will be the cheapest PocketPC to date, which can create lots of market and sell problems to Palm's new products. In the meantime, Sharp is preparing the new Zaurus. A great place to stay in touch with mobile computing, would be InfoSync.

A Closer Look at MorphOS on the PEGASOS

Guest post by Mike Bouma 2002-10-08 Morphos 48 Comments

Last Saturday I attended a MorphOS demonstration in Rotterdam. MorphOS is a PPC AmigaOS clone capable of executing many 68k and PPC classic AmigaOS software titles through seamlessly integrated emulation. This article takes a close look at MorphOS' current state of development and includes some recent screenshots of the PPC native Ambient GUI environment.

Red Hat 8.0: The New Ease and Power Linux Champ

Eugenia Loli 2002-10-08 Red Hat 36 Comments

"Recently, I tried out Red Hat's new version 8.0 ("Psyche") on my testing machine -- a machine whose purpose in life is to prevent me from making stupid mistakes with actually important data, equipped with a hard drive that's frequently wiped and refilled from scratch. Without trying to strain your credulity, I will say up front that Psyche's installation process (and the finished, freshly-installed system) is the best combination of ease and power that I've seen yet in any version of Linux to hit my hard drive." Read Tim's review at NewsForge. Also, TheRegister hosts a RH review, titled "Red Hat 8.0's bid for the simple, easy to use Linux desktop".

Microsoft Faces 64-Bit Challenge

Eugenia Loli 2002-10-08 Windows 11 Comments

Datacenter update promises performance boost and new roads for software developer. Microsoft's first operating system designed for the corporate data center has garnered sparse acceptance since its release last year, but the software is on the verge of a performance upgrade that experts say could put it on the road to corporate recognition. Read it at PCWorld.

FreeBSD 4.7-RC3 Final Release Candidate Available

Eugenia Loli 2002-10-08 FreeBSD 4 Comments

FreeBSD Release Engineering team's Murray Stokely announces that FreeBSD 4.7-RC3 (i386) is now available for FTP network installs. This includes the recent LDT patch and the final package set that will be used on the CDROMs/DVDs. Read the announcement at BSDForums.

Sun CEO: We’re “Good Enough”

Eugenia Loli 2002-10-08 Oracle and SUN 5 Comments

McNealy, speaking at a technology conference sponsored by market research firm Gartner, attempted to explain Sun's position of supporting both the open-source Linux operating system and its own Solaris Unix operating system. He said Sun may have erred by pushing customers to adopt complex Sun systems built on Solaris and a 64-bit architecture, when more slimmed-down systems would suffice.