OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Opera 9.5 Released

Submitted by Jarle Anfinsen 2008-06-12 Opera 55 Comments

Opera 9.5 has been released, beating Firefox 3.0 to the punch which is supposed to be released soon as well. The marketing speak: "Opera's cross-device expertise, support for open Web standards and commitment to speed and performance culminate to create the most powerful Opera browser yet. Making its desktop debut in Opera 9.5, Opera Link blurs the boundaries between computers and mobile phones by enabling a seamless Web experience from device to device." Get it from Opera.com.

Apple To Put P.A. Semi Chips in iPods, iPhones

Thom Holwerda 2008-06-11 Apple 20 Comments

We're continuing our detailed coverage of all the bits and pieces dripping from the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Fransisco. As you all might recall, Apple bought a chip company called P.A. Semi not too long ago, a maker of low-power PowerPC chips, fuelling rumours Apple might use them in its own products such as the iPhone and iPod. This has now been confirmed by His Steveness himself.

Snow Leopard To Be Intel-Only?

Thom Holwerda 2008-06-11 macOS 37 Comments

The original rumours concerning Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard stated that it would be available only for 64bit Intel processors, leaving PowerPC G4, G5, and early Intel Macs out in the blue. While Steve Jobs' keynote and the preview pages at Apple.com did not speak of any hardware cut-offs, Gizmodo got their hands on a hardware requirements document for the Developer Preview release of Snow Leopard, and it contains bad news for PowerPC users.

Apple Updates DTrace in Mac OS X 10.5.3

Adam Scheinberg 2008-06-11 macOS 11 Comments

Remember back in January when Sun engineer Adam Leventhal shared that Apple had "crippled" DTrace? Well, it appears that the latest point release of Leopard silently restored DTrace to full function. According to Levanthal, on 10.5.3, the output of DTrace is "exactly what one would expect". DTrace can be used right now on your updated Leopard install.

Submitted by Coldfirex 2008-06-11 SkyOS 21 Comments

"We are proud to announce that the next version of SkyOS will ship with a new Mail client. In contrast to the already available Mozilla Thunderbird mail client, the new Mail application completely integrates with SkyOS. For instance, all mails are stored as separate files with various attributes attach to it. So you can easily and quickly find every mail using the SkyOS Viewer and its query system."

GNOME in the Age of Decadence

Thom Holwerda 2008-06-11 Gnome 77 Comments

The KDE project saw the writing on the wall. They saw that they had reached a certain limit when it came to what could be done with the KDE 3.x series - they named it the "big friggin' wall", and decided that in order to get over that wall, incremental updates wouldn't do - they needed massive changes, a big jump, and they went for it. It's been a rough road, but it seems as if KDE 4.1 is showing signs of the vision becoming a reality. And it now seems as if several people within the GNOME community are seeing the writing on the wall too: GNOME 2.x has reached its goal - now what?

Apple Shows off Mac OS X Server Snow Leopard

Thom Holwerda 2008-06-10 macOS 11 Comments

At the Worldwide Developer Conference currently underway in San Fransisco, Apple unveiled some of the new features coming in Mac OS X Server 10.6, Snow Leopard. Of course the new release gets the same improvements as the client version, but in addition to those, there are a few server-specific features underway too.

X Server 1.4.1 Is Released, No Joke

Submitted by capnix 2008-06-10 Wayland 24 Comments

Phoronix has up an article looking at the release of X Server 1.4.1. This maintenance release for X.Org, which many open-source operating systems depend upon for living in a graphically-rich world, is coming more than 200 days late and it doesn't even clear the BugZilla release blocker bug. According to Phoronix, there are more problems for X.org than just this one.

Submitted by stonyandcher 2008-06-10 Benchmarks 26 Comments

Green, power reduction, and climate change are all the rage these days, and the world of computers is not off the hook on this one. Software and hardware manufacturers are trying hard to keep power consumption down - while first something for mostly mobile computers, desktops and servers are now part of the effort too. PC World tested Windows Server 2008 and two Linux server offerings and compared their power usage patterns.

Submitted by sharkscott 2008-06-10 Linux 23 Comments

"In a recent article, Linux File Systems: Ready for the Future?, Henry Newman expands on what he feels are shortcomings in current GNU/Linux filesystems. Specifically, he believes current Linux filesystem technology cannot meet the demands that massive implementations of 100TB or larger require. He states he received some emotional responses trying to either refute his information or impugn his character, although those comments do not show on either of the article's pages. This prompted me to get the real scoop on how Linux filesystem technology is trying to keep pace with the ever-growing need for storage space."

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Preview

Thom Holwerda 2008-06-10 macOS 74 Comments

Earlier this month, we reported that The Unofficial Apple Weblog's as well as Ars Technica's sources said that Apple was working on the next version of Mac OS X, dubbed Snow Leopard. The news was that the new release wouldn't focus on new features, but on performance. During yesterday's WWDC 2008 keynote, Steve Jobs confirmed this rumour, and now Apple has published a preview page.

Apple News Roundup

Adam Scheinberg 2008-06-09 Apple 50 Comments

Now that the WWDC08 keynote has come and gone, we've learned very little that we didn't already know. The iPhone 3G will be here on July 11, and will retail for $199 for an 8GB phone, $299 for a 16GB phone, available in white or black. OS X 10.6 will, as expected, be code-named "Snow Leopard," additional details to follow for sure. The App Store will feature some amazing new software, and Apple's new MobileMe is mere weeks away. Watch the "read more" link on this story for continued updates from around the web. If you'd like to read the play-by-play on the WWDC announcement, see Macrumors Live. UPDATED within.

What’s Steve Jobs Going to Unveil?

Adam Scheinberg 2008-06-09 Apple 35 Comments

The 2008 Apple Worldwide Developer's Conference keynote is just over an hour away. The Apple Store is down. What do you think Steve Jobs is going to unveil? Will it be the much rumored 3G iPhone? Or the newest rumor, the Mac Fusion? Perhaps Jobs will unveil the codename of OS X 10.6? Feel free to discuss in the comments or chat about the it live at OSNews Talk.

Windows Embedded ‘Quebec’ Due in 2010

Thom Holwerda 2008-06-09 Windows 16 Comments

Windows Embedded? Windows CE? Windows Mobile? I must admit I lost track long ago of which Windows is what in the mobile and/or embedded space, but fact is Microsoft is working hard on bringing new releases in those spaces. It's working on a new Windows XP-based Windows Embedded release, dubbed Windows Embedded Standard 2009, but the company is also working on a Windows Vista-based embedded release.

Submitted by sonic2000gr 2008-06-08 Legal 110 Comments

The story of Hans Reiser, the eccentric file system programmer, is a tragic one. The author of the ReiserFS was arrested under suspicion of the murder of his wife Nina Reiser in 2006, and was declared guilty in April 2008. Some still placed doubts about the conviction, stating that he might be innocent. It now seems that all doubt has been quelled, since Alameda County District Attorney Thomas Orloff has revealed that Hans Reiser will disclose the location of Nina's body for a reduced sentence.

Submitted by andymc 2008-06-08 OS News 10 Comments

The partitioning 'live' CD known as Partition Logic, which is a specially-configured version of the alternative operating system Visopsys, has been chosen as one of PC World magazine's "The 100 Best Products of 2008". Okay, so it's only at number 96, but it's still an honour.

Submitted by constantine 2008-06-08 Linux 2 Comments

The Linux kernel is one of most complex open source projects. Even though there are a lot of books on the Linux kernel, it is still a difficult subject to comprehend. The Interactive Linux kernel map gives you a top-down view of the kernel. You can see the most important layers, functionalities, modules, functions, and calls. Each function on the map is a link to its source code. The map is interactive. You can zoom in and drag around to see details.

Is This The New iPhone?

Adam Scheinberg 2008-06-07 macOS 24 Comments

Crunchgear has posted pics that they believe are a real ad for the upcoming 3G iPhone, revealing the much discussed video conferencing feature many have been anticipating. Recent patents filed by Apple corroborate this evidence. In addition to showcasing a Product (RED) version, the ads also suggest the release of iChat for Windows. It also appears that the new firmware will support UMTS/HSDPA, as expected.

The 10 Best Linus Torvalds Quotes

Thom Holwerda 2008-06-06 Linux 62 Comments

Linus Torvalds - a classic example of the love-it-or-hate-it type of person. Brilliant programmer, of course, and the father of one of the most extraordinary software projects in the world, but sometimes, he can be utterly arrogant any annoying, yet the other moment completely sensible and utterly spot-on in his statements. CBR listed the ten best Linus Torvalds quotes.

Silverlight 2 Beta 2 Released

Thom Holwerda 2008-06-06 Microsoft 34 Comments

As Bill Gates promised earlier this week during his last public speech as chairman of Microsoft at TechEd 2008, the company has released the second beta of Silverlight 2, Microsoft's Flash competitor. Silverlight 2 beta 2 comes as a 4.66MB download, but as Ars Technica already noted, the Silverlight homepage has not yet been changed to reflect the new release, but there is a changelog that details many of the changes in this release. The Mac OS X version has not yet been released.