OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

8-Node Clustering Coming in Windows .NET Enterprise Server

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-06 Windows 3 Comments

"Microsoft will support eight-node failover clusters in Windows .NET Enterprise Server. The decision came months after the Beta 3 release of the Windows .NET Server family editions back in November, when Microsoft announced that only four-node clusters would be supported in Windows .NET Enterprise Server, while eight-node failover clusters would be reserved for Windows .NET Datacenter Server customers." Read the report at ENT-News.

GNOME 2.0.x and 2.x: The Plan

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-06 Gnome 31 Comments

"With that rather enormous task and all of the big freezes behind us, we can put out some maintenance releases and get cracking on coolnewstuff again! After much discussion between the release team and Foundation Board reps (Havoc and Nat), we have prepared a timeline for 2.0.x releases and a proposal for the beginnings of 2.1 development. Here 'tis." Check out the timeplan at GnomeDesktop.

NewsForge: Sympathy for Microsoft

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-06 Microsoft 25 Comments

"Sometimes you need to open your heart and let the love flow, even toward those you do not naturally like. Indeed, many religions claim this is a great way to achieve satori or sainthood or whatever state they consider to be the highest one a living being can achieve. So, what with wIndependence Day now being behind us, I think it is time for us to think kind thoughts about Microsoft and Microsoft employees. Their best times are behind them. They have nowhere to go but down. They have every right to be upset about this. And Linux users should be there to comfort them in their hour of need." Editorial from OSDN's editor in chief.

rxLinux 1.0-b1 Released

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-05 Linux 15 Comments

The concept behind rxLinux, is to centralise configuration and management of multiple GNU/Linux servers. New servers can be deployed in minutes. A web interface is used to build custom iso cdrom dedicated for specific servers. Server, also called rxnodes, boot up from that cdrom and get the rest of configuration and software from a master server. No administration is done directly on nodes. Everything is controlled from the master servers. rxLinux is based on the GNU/Linux system and related Free tools, ensuring your Freedom as a user and an admin.

Opera Pairs Up with Mandrake and SuSE Linux

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-05 Opera 19 Comments

Opera Software ASA has announced that Opera's Linux versions will be distributed with Mandrake Linux, made by MandrakeSoft. This announcement follows yesterday's similar statement regarding the release of Opera for Linux within the SuSE Linux distrbution.

NetBSD Major Socket Performance Improvement

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-05 NetBSD 4 Comments

From Daemonnews: Jason Thorpe has committed some socket code to the NetBSD-current source tree, and bumped the OS revision to 1.6C. For some apps, this can be a major performance improvement.

The Binary Nature of Freedom

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-05 Open Source 43 Comments

"There are subtle lessons about freedom in the GPL, but you'll never find them by just reading the license. Instead, you'll have to read between the lines (so to speak) and try to see what can't be seen. Furthermore, these lessons, despite being deceptively simple, could have a profound impact on human freedom if only people understood them. In a sense, software freedom can be seen as a metaphor for human freedom." Read the editorial at Advogato. Update: Checking out my email this morning, I found a submission about another new article on Free Software.

KDEvelopers on KDE users

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-05 KDE 25 Comments

"I guess I started it, this round at least. In this space last week I discussed what I saw (and see) as a disconnect between users of KDE and those who develop it. A few days later, Shawn Gordon offered a moderating view. Soon others weighed in. Many people grew angry. I'm sorry for that, but I think that if the use of Linux is to become more widespread, the questions demand answers: What, if anything, is the responsibility of developers to users? How does this affect the future of Linux as a desktop operating system?" Read the editorial at LinuxAndMain.

TomsHardware: Stop Smothering AMD

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-05 AMD 35 Comments

"AMD fanboys have taken on the characteristics of Apple computer lovers, and are hell bent on destroying the plucky little microprocessor vendor with smothering love, if you can call it love. They're trashing the company. For the love of AMD, let's all stake our claim to independence and run the colonizing freakazoids off the Web before they impose more of their imperious ways on the rest of the PC market. Happy fourth." Read the editorial at TomsHardware.

Review of Unsanity’s MacOSX Haxies

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-04 General Development 8 Comments

Not everyone's happy with the default look and feel of MacOSX. So the Unsanity LLC guys have come to fullfil feature requests from many MacOSX users. They have written applications that are basically "hacks" (Unsanity prefers the word "haxies"), that they change MacOSX, sometimes in a pretty fundamental way. We tested three of their products, Fruitmenu, WindowShadeX and Xounds.

Lindows: Not a Distribution Made in Heaven

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-04 Linspire 98 Comments

This is the second Lindows/Wal-Mart review coming out in a short while, and this one, is truly a must read. The author is a journalist that have used Windows, but he is not a Unix user. Trying to test Lindows he got into similar trouble as David Coursey did two weeks ago, when he tried Red Hat Linux. While Mike Langberg of San Jose Mercury News used a supposedly "desktop-oriented" Linux distribution, Lindows, as opposed to the server-oriented and marketed Red Hat, he still found it very unfriendly for common tasks like changing the refresh rates of a monitor.

Cosmoe 0.5.4 Released

Submitted by Stefan Werner 2002-07-04 Linux 16 Comments

The Cosmoe 0.5.4 release is a relatively minor update which further improves the configuration script and the Makefiles that it touches. New in this release is the ability to create a DirectFB-enabled target.

Matrox Parhelia in Action

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-04 3D 32 Comments

This is not exactly OS news, but they are definately interesting geek news. A lot of things have been said about Matrox Parhelia's inability to beat the GeForce4 Ti or the Radeon 8500 in pure FPS, however, also a lot have been said that the point of Parhelia is to offer some advanced 3D features and great rendering quality. This great quality and advanced features (like displacement mapping) can be seen in the first 12 screenshots of the Imperium Galactica III: Genesis web site. This game is the first to be released that it has been optimized for the Parhelia. Enjoy the view.

Limbo: A New Red Hat Linux Beta

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-03 Red Hat 25 Comments

Less than two months since the release of Red Hat Linux 7.3, Red Hat already released a 5-CD beta of their upcoming version of Red Hat Linux, codenamed Limbo. The beta includes Gnome 2.0, KDE 3.0.1, GCC 3.1, Mozilla 1.0, OpenOffice 1.0 and much more.

libferris Winds its Way Towards 1.0.0

Guest post by Ben Martin 2002-07-03 General Development 6 Comments

libferris is a virtual filesystem (VFS) that runs in the user address space. This means that applications using libferris will use the shared libraries API to access the filesystem which may then delegate to the kernel using libc to perform the desired actions. Operating in the user address space allows libferris to mount things that one would generally not want the kernel to mount. For example libferris mount Berkeley database files, ftp sites, XML files, rpm files, sockets, sysv IPC, mysql databases and remote computers using ssh as a filesystem.

Apple’s Jaguar Leaps Ahead of Schedule

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-03 macOS 45 Comments

"The widely anticipated update to Apple Computer's Mac OS X will appear earlier than expected, sources say, which is good news for the company in a tough year." Read the report at News.com.

Review: LindowsOS Computer from Wal-Mart.com

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-03 Linspire 27 Comments

"It was with great anticipation that I began looking at Wal-Mart's latest offering: a Microtel PC with LindowsOS preloaded. I had reviewed the OS-less Microtel computer from Wal-Mart a few weeks ago and I hoped that this, the first consumer-focused Linux-based PC to appear from a major U.S. retailer, would be a great product for Linux newbies. Unfortunately, no matter how much I try to like this system, I am not comfortable recommending it to novice users." Read the review at NewsForge.

Sun, Allies, Redial Java for Cell Phones

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-03 Java 3 Comments

The company, along with Java backers, is preparing a new release of its Java software for cell phones that it hopes will prevent a splintering of the Java market and stave off rivals such as Microsoft. Read the report at News.com.

KDE 3.0.2 Released

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-03 KDE 16 Comments

The KDE Project today announced the immediate availability of KDE 3.0.2. KDE 3.0.2 primarily provides useability and stability enhancements over KDE 3.0.1, which shipped in late May 2002. The new KDE version also compiles with GCC 3.1, so it would be a great opportunity to build it manually for better perfomance (change the "i686" option with the kind of CPU you have).

A Quick Poll on Linux and X11 Environments

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-02 OS News 98 Comments

OSNews receives a lot of visitors every day, and while we try to equally report on all operating systems, including the commercial ones, most of our readership remains focused on open source. We have put together two polls for you, one to vote for your favorite Linux distribution and one of for your favorite X11 window manager or desktop environment. Read more and vote!