CentOS 5.4 Released

The fourth update in the CentOS Linux 5 family is released. Highlights of the new release include a kernel-based virtual machine virtualization, alongside of Xen virtualization technology. The scalability of the virtualization solution has been incremented to support 192 CPUs and 1GB hugepages, GCC 4.4 and a new malloc(), clustered, high-availability filesystem etc. Grab a CD set from a mirror, and via BitTorrent 32bit, 64bit DVD. On a related note, if you are already running CentOS-5.3 or an older CentOS-5 distro, simply upgrade it over the Internet.

My 7 Days Using Haiku Alpha Release 1

Since I encountered BeOS 5 Personal Edition, my experience with BeOS PE led me to purchase the BeOS 5 Professional Edition, which I used for some years. I am not ashamed to say that I love using this OS. After the demise of Be Corp., I still used BeOS as my "main OS" since it would do everything that I needed to do, except for gaming and academic works. I closely followed all the developments of the BeOS contenders after Be's fall... Until Zeta OS became the leading standard for a short time. I purchased every Zeta OS release that YellowTab produced. It is currently my favorite BeOS version today.

IBM, Canonical Pitch Ubuntu, Cloud Package at US Firms

"With the imminent release of Windows 7, IBM and Canonical are clasping hands to sell an Ubuntu Linux- and Lotus-based desktop package to US businesses targeting low-end PCs and netbooks. The duo initially launched their Ubuntu-powered IBM Client for Smart Work desktop bundle to Africa back in September. But IBM said it decided to swing the offering State-side due to demand from its partners."

NVIDIA Developer Talks Openly About Linux Support

"In late August we started asking our readers for any questions they had for NVIDIA about Linux and this graphics company's support of open-source operating systems. Twelve pages worth of questions were accumulated and we finally have the answers to a majority of them. NVIDIA's Andy Ritger, who leads the user-space side of the NVIDIA UNIX Graphics Driver team for workstation, desktop, and notebook GPUs, answered these questions. With that said, there are some great, in-depth technical answers and not the usual marketing speak found in many interviews."

Deadline Scheduling in the Linux Kernel

At the last Real-Time Linux Workshop held on September in Dresden, there has been a lot of discussion about the possibility of enhancing real-time capabilities of Linux by adding a new scheduling class to the Linux kernel. According to most kernel developers, this new scheduling class should be based on the Earliest Deadline First real-time algorithm. The first draft of the scheduling class has been called "SCHED_EDF" and it has been proposed and discussed on the Linux Kernel Mailing List just before the workshop. Recently, a second version of the scheduling class (called "SCHED_DEADLINE", to meet the request of some kernel developers) has been proposed. Moreover, the code has been moved to a public git repository on Gitorius. More details are available here.

A Tour of A ‘Pay to Download Firefox’ Site

"In the discussion about the best way to manage the Mozilla trademarks, the problem of sites charging people to download Firefox is often mentioned. However, not everyone has come across such a site. For your ediification, I present 'A Tour Of A "Pay to Download Firefox" Site', with detailed analysis and screenshots. You'll be pleased to hear we have recently been having some success using trademark law with preliminary injunctions and domain name disputes against such sites."

Changes Coming to the Schedule, Show

Hello all, sorry about the over abundance of meta items on this week's front page, but we're adding one more item regarding changes to the podcast. The show has seemingly proven quite popular with viewers but Thom would prefer to switch to a fortnightly (every two weeks) schedule as we're finding the show difficult to do with a lack of news some weeks and Thom needs more preparation considering his schedule and that he has to talk to someone he can't see, in a foreign language. I'd like to keep the show running each week so we're looking for feedback and ideas of how to fill a show every other week with content not related to news items on the home page.