Tutorial: Build Your Own Linux Distribution

Fedora Core 11 Comments
PCPlus has a tutorial on building your own Linux distribution with the customizations you want, derived from Fedora, using the graphical interface called Revisor. "We're used to thinking of Linux distributions being set in stone. They're either KDE or Gnome, use a certain kernel and bundle certain applications. But this doesn't have to be the case. If you find yourself making the same adjustments each time you install a new distribution, it's worth creating your own customised version. Revisor is a tool that lets you do just this, and in this tutorial, we'll show you how."
Read More

Report: IBM Researcher Says Moore’s Law at End

IBM 18 Comments
"Moore's Law is maxing out. This is an oft-made prediction in the computer industry. The latest to chime in is an IBM fellow, according to a report. Intel co-founder Gordon Moore predicted in 1965 that the number of transistors on a microprocessor would double approximately every two years - a prediction that has proved to be remarkably resilient. But IBM Fellow Carl Anderson, who researches server computer design at IBM, claims the end of the era of Moore's Law is nigh, according to a report in EE Times. Exponential growth in every industry eventually has to come to an end, according Anderson, who cited railroads and speed increases in the aircraft industry, the report said.
Read More

PC-BSD 7.1 ‘Galileo’ Released

  Submitted by Alexander Yerenkow PC-BSD 65 Comments
PC-BSD, the desktop-oriented FreeBSD variant, has released version 7.1, dubbed Galileo. In case you don't know, PC-BSD is a FreeBSD distribution with lots of customisations focussed on the desktop user. Its most defining features is the Push Button Installer, a self-contained package format with handy installers/uninstallers. PC-BSD 7.1 comes loaded with changes and updates.
Read More

CrunchPad Photos “Leaked”

  Submitted by Moulinneuf Hardware 25 Comments
A sexy 12" capacitive touchscreen tablet, runs Linux, boots straight into a WebKit-based browser, for 300 USD. We all want that, right? Michael Arrington, of TechCrunch fame, figured last year that we indeed all want something like this, and he started working on actually developing such a device. We've seen a few prototypes already, but the "leaked" photos published of the latest prototype are nothing short of stunning.
Read More

Microsoft’s ‘Hidden Apple Tax’ Misses the Mark

Microsoft 108 Comments
After the more-or-less positively received "You find it, you keep it" television advertisements, it seems as if Microsoft is quickly falling back to its previous mistakes of relying on easily countered FUD-like tactics. We already discussed the blog post regarding Linux on netbooks, which was easily countered on virtually every point made. However, it gets even worse: Microsoft has ordered a study detailing what the company calls the hidden "Apple tax" that you are supposedly paying if you go Apple. Now, I'm the first to state that Apple simply doesn't provide the optimal pricing for everyone, but this Microsoft sponsored study is so completely and utterly ridiculous it makes me wonder just who on earth would look at it and go "Yeah, this looks pretty convincing!"
Read More

Intel Aims for 2 Second Boot Time with Moblin Linux Platform

Intel 11 Comments
At the Linux Collaboration Summit in San Francisco, Intel Open Source Technology Center director Imhad Sousou discussed the company's plans for the next major version of its Linux-based open source Moblin platform. The aim of Moblin, Sousou says, is to improve the quality of the Linux user experience on Atom-based devices. For Intel, this is a broad mandate that reaches deep into the platform and will require improvements at many different layers of the stack. One especially important aspect of Intel's platform improvement agenda is to reduce overall startup time.
Read More

Google Adds Java to App Engine

  Submitted by ahmetaa Google 5 Comments
It's been a long time coming, but yesterday Google has announced that Java will be available on their App Engine. While the SDK is available for everyone to develop their applications locally, the initial sign up allowing people to upload their applications to the App Engine is limited to 10,000 users. The Java environment provides a Java 6 JVM, a Java Servlets interface, and support for standard interfaces to the App Engine scalable datastore and services, such as JDO, JPA, JavaMail, and JCache.
Read More

Sun Launches VirtualBox 2.2

Oracle and SUN 29 Comments
Sun has launched VirtualBox 2.2. Sun is adding support for the Open Virtualization Format standard to its VirtualBox virtualization software. With the OVF standard incorporated into VirtualBox 2.2, users can not only build virtual machines, but also export them from a development situation and import them into a production environment. Sun also is adding greater hypervisor optimization, 3D graphics acceleration for Linux and Solaris applications, and support for Apple's upcoming 64-bit Snow Leopard platform.
Read More

Intel Details ‘Moorestown’ Platform, Two New Atom Chips

Intel 1 Comment
At the Intel Developer Form in Beijing this week, Senior Vice President Anand Chandrasekher introduced and detailed Intel's 'Moorestown' - the next generation of the Intel Atom-based MID platform. In addition, Intel used the anniversary of the introduction of the Atom processors to offer two new Atom chips: the Z550 and Z515. These two new Atom processors are designed with gaming and small form factors in mind.
Read More

Sun Board Meets, Discuss Next Steps in IBM Acquisition Attempt

In the News 26 Comments
If all this works out, then IBM will be one of the luckiest companies in the world. eWeek has learned a lot of details regarding the IBM-sun acquisition talks, as well as that today, the Sun board is holding another meeting to discuss the talks. The outcome could be that IBM would buy Sun after all - but at a much lower price since Sun's shares fell 25% after it had broken off the negotiations with IBM.
Read More

Acer Predicts 100% Growth in Netbooks in 2009

Hardware 16 Comments
The world's largest netbook manufacturer, Acer, has just presented its forecasts for its own second quarter, as well as the rest of the year, and it is very positive about the netbook market and its own part in that market. In line with IDC predictions, the company predicts a 100 growth in 2009 for the netbook market, and predicts its own notebook and netbook shipments to rise with 35-40% this quarter.
Read More

xPUD: Linux with an XUL Interface, 10 Second Boot Time

  Submitted by google_ninja Linux 28 Comments
It's rare to see some truly interesting ideas in Linux distributions, as most seem content to just remaster Ubuntu with a different theme. Therefore, we at OSNews are always interested in fresh and interesting distributions that try to add something of value to the landscape. One such distribution is xPUD, a fast-booting, kiosk-like distribution that uses the Mozilla Gecko Runtime to display a simple user interface that allows you to launch normal desktop Linux applications.
Read More

Getting Leopard on an Unsupported G4 in a Few Clicks

macOS 20 Comments
Back when Apple introduced Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, there was a bit of a minor controversy around the artificially implemented cut-off point; you could only install Leopard on machines with G4 processors of 867Mhz or more, leaving out capable machines like the dual 733Mhz or dual 800Mhz. The community soon found ways around this limitation, and recently, I found myself in a situation where I had to do the same.
Read More