Ballmer Discusses Browser/OS Market

Microsoft 24 Comments
In part three of TechCrunch's interview with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, they discuss web browsers. Ballmer calls Chrome and Safari marketshare numbers a "rounding error," and takes note of the fact that Google is going to be calling both its OS and browser "Chrome," pointing out that in this modern era, "the notion of operating systems being independent of internet access and internet ability to render important things in the internet is kind of not a sensible concept." In other words, he thinks it's unfair to persecute Microsoft for tying IE to Windows. He discusses Firefox, and rags on Google's OS strategy, and finished up on an evaluation of the Netbook/MID market and how Microsoft intends to compete there.
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Another Microsoft Research Operating System: Helios

  Submitted by poundsmack Microsoft 31 Comments
It seems like Microsoft Research is really busy these days with research operating systems. We had Singularity, a microkernel operating system written in managed code, and late last week we were acquainted with Barrelfish, a "multikernel" system which treats a multicore system as a network of independent cores, using ideas from distributed systems. Now, we have a third contestant, and it's called Helios.
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HP-UX Gets Biannual Face-Lift

Unix 6 Comments
"Hewlett-Packard is rolling out Update 5 for the HP-UX Unix operating system that runs its Itanium and PA-RISC lines of Integrity and HP 9000 servers, keeping to its pattern of two updates per year for its flagship operating system. As has been the case with the prior HP-UX updates, the changes are important to existing HP-UX shops, but they're probably not going to cause a stampede of buyers for HP-UX systems. It's no different with the updates to IBM's AIX or Sun Microsystems' Solaris Unixes do."
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FreeBSD 8.0, Ubuntu 9.10 Benchmarks

  Submitted by Michael Benchmarks 28 Comments
Phoronix was kind enough to add a deliciously lengthy nine-page compare and contrast between FreeBSD 8 and Ubuntu 9.10 to their arsenal of articles. "Canonical will be releasing Ubuntu 9.10 at the end of next month while the final release of FreeBSD 8.0 is also expected within the next few weeks. With these two popular free software operating systems both having major updates coming out at around the same time, we decided it warranted some early benchmarking as we see how the FreeBSD 8.0 and Ubuntu 9.10 performance compares. For looking more at the FreeBSD performance we also have included test results from FreeBSD 7.2, the current stable release. In this article are mostly the server and workstation oriented benchmarks with the testing being carried out on a dual AMD Opteron quad-core workstation."
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Linux 2.6.32-Rc1 Kernel Released

Linux 4 Comments
Release candidate Linux 2.6.32-rc1 is out. Linus Torvalds has posted the announcement for the first release candidate of Linux kernel 2.6.32 on the Linux Kernel Mailing List. "The Linux 2.6.32 kernel brings many driver updates, some new drivers, many file-system updates, and much more. Exciting us in the Linux 2.6.32 kernel is the ATI R600/700 kernel mode-setting and 3D support along with the VGA Arbitration code and the KMS page-flipping ioctl."
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Chrome Frame, Bloated Linux

OS News 12 Comments
We didn't have a Week in Review last week, and I'm sorry for that - I was swamped with other things (hence no podcast either last week, we did record one today). This past week saw news items on a wide variety of topics, ranging from Google fixing Internet Explorer to Linus calling Linux bloated.
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Microsoft Releases Code for ‘Multikernel’ Research OS ‘Barrelfish’

  Submitted by Still Lynn Microsoft 69 Comments
Most of us are probably aware of Singularity, a research operating system out of Microsoft Research which explored a number of new ideas, which is available as open source software. Singularity isn't the only research OS out of Microsoft; they recently released the first snapshot of a new operating system, called Barrelfish. It introduces the concept of the multikernel, which treats a multicore system as a network of independent cores, using ideas from distributed systems.
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Theora 1.1 (Thusnelda) Stable Release

  Submitted by clododunord Multimedia, AV 38 Comments
"We are pleased to announce a new stable release of libtheora, the Xiph.org Foundation's reference implementation of the royalty-free Theora video format. This new release, version 1.1, codenamed Thusnelda, incorporates all of the recent encoder improvements we have been making over the past year, though some of the code had its genesis all the way back in 2003. It also brings substantial speed and robustness improvements to the 1.0 decoder." For a more visual run-down of the changes, check out Mozilla's excellent article.
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Help Me Disinfect My Computer Lab

Bugs & Viruses 61 Comments
A non-OSNews-reader asks: "I've got 5 PCs that I'm trying to use to train disadvantaged young people. The problem is they are riddled with viruses and a firewall blocks me from updating them. The people in charge of maintaining the PCs won't fix them or give me the admin password (Win XP) to let me install a new or updated antivirus. The centre is being shut down in a few months. If they were working, I could still do a lot with them, so I've been looking for a good online virus scan - but they all try to download a little .exe onto your PC first, and the settings on the PCs won't allow that. Suggestions? Solutions? Links?" Read on for our recommendation. Update: It appears that this question is part of an elaborate email scam designed to propagate malware. See here for details.
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Serious Vulnerability Found in SVN

  Submitted by TommyCarlier Privacy, Security 9 Comments
From Smashing Magazine: "A few months ago, Anton Isaykin, in collaboration with the company 2comrades, found a huge vulnerability that is quite typical of big projects (we do not name names here). To test it, they obtained the file structures and even the source code of about 3320 Russian websites and some major English-language websites. Serious vulnerabilities like this aren't supposed to exist nowadays. Every serious or visible exploit is found and fixed quickly. But here we will show you something simple and ordinary yet very dangerous."
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Arrington Interviews Steve Ballmer

  Submitted by Moulinneuf Microsoft 5 Comments
TechCrunch conducted a lengthy interview with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and discussed "high level thoughts on major Microsoft products and strategies (including Windows, Windows Mobile, Internet Explorer, Bing, Azure, Mesh, Natal and others), competition, the future of search and search marketing, Microsoft's 'three screens and the cloud' strategy, the recent acquisition of Interactive Supercomputing and, yes, even his thoughts on Twitter."
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Security in Your Pocket: OpenBSD on ARM

  Submitted by lucas_maximus BSD & Darwin 1 Comment
InformIT has an interview with Dale Rahn, the OpenBSD ARM port maintainer, about the history of OpenBSD on mobile devices, and where some opportunities growing in the mobile space in the future. It covers the DARPA-funded origins of OpenBSD use in mobile (mostly about firms not wanting to use GPL code), and initial enthusiasm for the Zaurus among BSD guys. Rahn touts advantages that OpenBSD has over the more-popular mobile Linux distros, and some shortcomings that still need to be addressed.
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A Stick Figure Guide to AES

Privacy, Security 4 Comments
Software Engineer and encryption aficionado Jeff Moser has created an XKCD-esque stick figure comic explaining the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES): where it came from, why it was necessary, and most-illuminatingly, how it works. Your eyes may glaze over toward the end when it gets into some hefty math, but even if you skim that part, you'll know a lot more about encryption when you're done.
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