OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Cybersecurity Plan for US Government?

Guest post by Kevin Adams, sumbitted by Nicholas 2002-12-17 Privacy, Security 5 Comments

Nicholas writes: "There's an interesting interview over at LinuxWorld about U.S. government and open-source security. Robert McMillan of LinuxWorld.com talks to Marc Sachs of the White House Cyberspace Security Office about the role of open-source software in the US government."

German Town Dumps Windows for Linux

Guest post by Kevin Adams, sumbitted by Nicholas 2002-12-17 Linux 34 Comments

Nicholas writes: "More signs that open source software has big appeal in Europe as a small town in Germany has opted to move its entire IT base over to SuSE Linux. Read the full story at InfoWorld.com."

Interview with Jordan Hubbard

Guest post by Kevin Adams 2002-12-17 FreeBSD 4 Comments

Stephen Beckwith writes: "Over at MacSlash, the "Last" interview with Jordan Hubbard, Mr. FreeBSD. Catch it while you can!" Read the full interview at MacSlash.

The Register Bids Farewell to OS/2

Guest post by Kevin Adams, sumbitted by Nicholas 2002-12-17 OS/2 25 Comments

IBM's recent announcement, then un-announcement that OS/2 will be no more has brought the exciting, then doomed, then revived, then doomed, then doomed, doomed, mourned, and doomed some more operating system back into the limelight for a swan song. The Register today remembers OS/2 fondly, and remarks on why it never got its chance.

Xandros and NeTraverse Join Forces

Submitted by Lambchop 2002-12-17 Oracle and SUN 14 Comments

NeTraverse Inc. and Xandros today announced a strategic partnership to expand the range of solutions to individual users and corporate clients. By combining Win4Lin with the Xandros Desktop, users can now operate the full range (editor's note: Win4Lin 4 had a limitation on DDraw/3D apps like Media Players and games) of Windows applications, and organizations can leverage the powerful advantages of Linux while preserving their current investments in Windows-based systems and applications.

Microsoft Unveils Windows XP Digital Media Edition

Eugenia Loli 2002-12-17 Windows 88 Comments

Microsoft will release a Plus expansion pack for Windows XP to enhance the digital media features in its desktop operating system. At the same time it will make available the final release of its Windows Media 9 software early next year.

IOS, You Win, He *NIX

Guest post by Stefanos "Titanas" Kofopoulos 2002-12-17 Editorial 39 Comments

Hundreds of debates, countless flames, innumerable passionate supporters, no limits, no ending lines, no result. The conflicts keep on going and going and going. It doesn’t matter if it’s Cisco’s IOS, Microsoft’s Windows, Suse’s Linux or FreeBSD. People struggle to prove their platform’s superiority ignoring that an Operating System is just a tool focusing on specific needs.

Slicker, the Kicker/KDE-Desktop Alternative

Eugenia Loli 2002-12-17 KDE 68 Comments

A creative team has posted some concept art and mockups about the creation of an alternative to Kicker, the KDE desktop and taskbar, named Slicker. In the meantime, KDE 3.0.5a was released, incorporating the latest security fixes.

The Microsoft/Linux Connection, Explained

Eugenia Loli 2002-12-17 Microsoft 16 Comments

Last week, when research firm Meta Group of Stamford, Conn., predicted that Microsoft would begin to support Linux by late 2004 with some of its key server products -- Exchange, IIS, SQL server, and the like -- reactions ranged from outrage to befuddlement. A source inside Microsoft called the report "wacky." Analysts of all stripes debated the veracity of the findings. Even Dale Kutnick, Meta's chief research officer, admitted that Microsoft "is pissed." Read the article at Business 2.0.

It’s Curtains For Windows 95

Eugenia Loli 2002-12-17 Windows 30 Comments

Fred Langa bids farewell to Win95 and Win 3x, two operating systems that literally changed the world but will no longer be supported by Microsoft.

Interview with a Kernel Hacker

Submitted by Tyr 2002-12-17 Linux 4 Comments

Tinyminds features an interview with Linux kernel hacker Robert M. Love, best known for the preemptive kernel patch.

Lycoris Releases ProductivityPak

Adam Scheinberg 2002-12-17 Mandriva, Mandrake, Lycoris 23 Comments

Lycoris, makers of the popular Desktop/LX Linux package, released their ProductivityPak Friday featuring a highly customized and integrated Openoffice.org and PDA Sync tool. With the ProductivityPak, Lycoris has introduced features not found in typical OpenOffice.org installations, such as a spell checker, and has advertised compatibility with, among other formats, Office XP documents.

LindowsOS to Hit Retail Shelves

Guest post by Mike Bouma 2002-12-16 Linspire 37 Comments

ZDNet UK reports: "With Christmas just around the corner, the consumer-friendly Linux distribution is readying its high street invasion". LindowsOS 3.0, a Linux-based operating system designed to attract the less Geeky and thus more general computer user, was reviewed by OSNews earlier this month.

New Hitachi PocketPC – A First Look

Guest post by Mike Bouma 2002-12-16 Wireless 9 Comments

Similar to Sharp's Zaurus PDA which uses Linux, Hitachi has been working on a new PocketPC PDA which includes a built-in keyboard. In addition this device includes an integrated digital camera and uses Sprint's CDMA 1xRTT wireless network. PocketPC thoughts hosts a picture and some very little details on this device which were gathered from the GadgetFest in San Diego.

Why Linux Binaries are not as Easy to Handle?

Guest post by Juan Linietsky 2002-12-16 General Development 127 Comments

Have you ever wondered why in other Operating Systems such as Windows, MacOS or even BeOS installing software is so easy compared to Linux? In such OSes you can simply download and decompress a file or run an installer process which will easily walk you through the process.

Benchmarking Intel C++ to GNU g++ – The Pentium4 Findings

Eugenia Loli 2002-12-16 Benchmarks 15 Comments

Preliminary Pentium 4 numbers are here. Scott R. Ladd extended the tables, keeping the Pentium III numbers for comparison purposes. You'll find specifications for both test systems. The new tests show that ICC is the choice if you need Pentium4 optimizations for your applications, while GCC is a good free alternative for the rest of the CPUs. ICC seems to compile up to twice faster in most cases.

Debian GNU/Linux 3.0r1 Released

Eugenia Loli 2002-12-16 Debian 23 Comments

Saw it at DistroWatch: "Debian 3.0r1 is out. The revisions of Debian's stable branches are released to incorporate all security updates and critical bug fixes since the last stable release and this one is no exception. The following major packages were affected: the Linux Kernel (the default Kernel upgraded to 2.2.22), apache, ethereal, fetchmail, gaim, glibc, kdelibs, php, postfix, python, samba, snort and xinetd, among many others; see the complete ChangeLog for details."