News Round Up of the Week

  Submitted by fran In the News 7 Comments
I would like to thank osnews user fran for submitting this as-is; a quick round up of other news happenings this week that OSNews missed. Read More for "Red Hat's 'Obfuscated' Kernel Source", "LibreOffice Enterprise Support From Novell", "Microsoft Want You to Stop Using IE6", "Facebook Can Screw With Google, But Google Can't Screw With Facebook" and lastly "Thom Has Three PS3s, Whereas You, Conversely, Have None".
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Apple Unveils iPad 2

Apple 68 Comments
Yeah I was quite busy yesterday, and nobody else picked it up, so we didn't report on the launch of the iPad 2. Since other websites went completely bonkers over this, we'll keep it short: there's a new iPad out. It's thinner, has a dual-core processor, faster graphics, and has a "new" case developed by Incase Apple. Contrary to all the "later this year" announcements from the likes of HP and RIM, Apple is shipping this thing March 11.
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Oracle Making Java, Solaris Certifications Pricier

  Submitted by Amy Bennett Java 23 Comments
Later this year, Oracle will begin requiring people interested in gaining Java and Solaris certifications to attend "hands-on" training courses, at an additional cost of thousands of dollars. The new rule goes into effect Aug. 1 and regards Java Architect, Java Developer, Solaris System Administrator and Solaris Security Administrator certification paths, according to a notice on Oracle's website.
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Upgrading from Windows 1.0 to 7

Windows 71 Comments
If you had asked me, I would have guessed that this wouldn't be possible. One intrepid OS explorer has made a video wherein he not only installs every version of Windows since 1985's Windows 1.0, but proceeds to upgrade from one to another. The video, titled Chain of Fools: an Exploration of Windows upgrade procedures, shows how DOS and Windows are installed in a VMWare VM, and how a couple of DOS games were installed to see how newer versions of Windows handle backward compatibility. Similarly, various customizations were made to the Windows preferences to see how they survived the upgrades. Video embedded after the break.
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Early Benchmarks of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion

macOS 13 Comments
"By now you have likely read all about the features announced for Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion" thus far along with seeing plenty of screenshots and videos showing off Launchpad, Mission Control, Versions, the improved mail client, and much more. But how does Apple's next-generation operating system perform? Well, here is a look at the performance of Mac OS X 10.7, including what are likely the first public benchmarks of Mac OS X Lion."
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Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu Banshee Controversy: Mistakes Were Made

  Submitted by sjvn Ubuntu 19 Comments
"The conflict between Banshee and Canonical over what should be done with Banshee's Amazon Store revenue stream, while it was finally resolved, was not Ubuntu's most shining moment. At the matter's conclusion, Banshee developers were not happy with the results. This is not how open-source communities should work together and no one knows that better than Mark Shuttleworth, Canonical, Ubuntu's parent company, who wrote, "We made some mistakes in our handling of the discussion around revenue share with the Banshee team.""
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Vodafone Executive – Germany – Nokia-Microsoft Deal a Good Thing

Wireless 5 Comments
"Many well known bloggers, analysts, journalists and customers alike most probably have valid arguments to back this belief, but there are even more that believe otherwise and foresee a success in this partnership. But for Nokia's upcoming Windows Phone-based smartphones to succeed, Microsoft and Nokia need backing from the worlds mobile operators and Vodafone in Germany seems to be on their side, for now - Jan Geldmacher, managing director, enterprise business at Vodafone Germany, said in an interview with PC World at the Cebit trade show in Hanover."
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Lubuntu: Finally, a Lightweight Ubuntu!

Ubuntu 49 Comments
Ubuntu Linux has millions of fans. What's not to like? A free operating system with ten thousand free applications, websites covering everything you might ever want to know, tutorials, active forums, and more. Yet for all these benefits, situations pop up when you want a faster, lighter operating system. Perhaps you have an older computer, or maybe a netbook or a mobile device. Wouldn't it be great to have a lightweight Ubuntu? That day has finally arrived. Lubuntu offers a way to stay in the Ubuntu family -- with a product that performs better and uses fewer resources.
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20 Years of Innovative Windows Malware

Windows 11 Comments
InfoWorld's Woody Leonhard takes a look at the past 20 years of innovative Windows malware -- an evolution that provides insights into the kinds of attacks to come. From macro viruses, to interstitial infections, to spray attacks, to industrial espionage, "there's been a clear succession, with the means, methods, and goals changing definitively over time," Leonhard writes, outlining the rise of Windows malware as a succession of ingenious breakthroughs to nefarious ends.
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What’s The Opinion of Nokia Developers About the Nokiasoft Partnership?

  Submitted by Joao Luis Wireless 75 Comments
"Now that the dust has settled after Stephen Elop's big announcement on the 11th February 2011, many have come to realise that actually Nokia's move towards a a new Ecosystem is not as bad as what they thought. But what does all this mean for the Nokia Developers? When the proposed partnership with Microsoft was announced, many felt betrayed and worried about their future, but after having heard and assisted a number of workshops at the Nokia Developer Day at this years Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, earlier this month, their outlook towards the new ecosystem has taken a 180 degree turn and are now looking at the proposed partnership with a lot more enthusiasm, recognising the potential it will bring them in the coming months."
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Mac OS X Lion Developer Preview Sports Host of New Features

macOS 88 Comments
Earlier this week, Apple released the first developer preview of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. At the same time, Apple listed a number of new features we hadn't yet heard about, which are quite interesting. There are two themes: bringing iOS to Mac OS X, and adding features other operating systems have had for ages - except in such a way that you can actually use them. Update: Fixed that scrolling thing. It's the other way around of course.
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Interrupt Mechanisms on non-x86 Architectures

Hardware 40 Comments
This is a situation where I need the help of you OSnews readers who are experienced with low-level development on ARM, SPARC, PowerPC, MIPS, and other hardware architectures we have on computers nowadays. The issue is that I'm currently designing the part of my hobby kernel which takes care of interrupts. Although I mostly work on x86 at the moment, I'd like to keep this code portable to other hardware architectures in the future. To do that, I have to know how interrupt handling works on as much HW architectures as possible.
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Intel Announces a BIOS Implementation Test Suite

Intel 26 Comments
"Intel is pleased to announce the BIOS Implementation Test Suite, a bootable pre-OS environment for testing BIOSes and in particular their initialization of Intel processors, hardware, and technologies. BITS can verify your BIOS against many Intel recommendations. In addition, BITS includes Intel's official reference code as provided to BIOS, which you can use to override your BIOS's hardware initialization with a known-good configuration, and then boot an OS."
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