OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Windows XP SP3: Problems, Performance Gains

Thom Holwerda 2008-05-13 Windows 43 Comments

Windows XP SP3, the final service pack for Windows XP, was released to manufacturing a few weeks ago, and popped up on Windows Update about a week later. Even though the service pack is rather light on actual new features, it still caused a few problems for some users. Despite these problems, some benchmarks show that while SP3 delivers better performance compared to XP SP2, Microsoft seems to have solved many performance issues with Vista, turning the company's latest OS offering into the better choice for gaming - according to ExtremeTech.

A History of the Amiga, Part 7: Game on!

Thom Holwerda 2008-05-13 Amiga & AROS 24 Comments

Ars Technica's Jeremy Reimer has published the 7th instalment in their series on the history of the Amiga platform. Part 7 deals solely with gaming on the Amiga, detailing various classic Amiga games that in one way or the other pushed the envelope. "The Amiga started out its life as a dedicated games machine, and even though it grew into a full computer very quickly, it never lost its gaming side. The machine's 4096-color palette, stereo sampled sound, and graphics acceleration chips made it a perfect gaming platform, and it didn't take long for game companies to start taking advantage of this power."

Submitted by diegocg 2008-05-12 Wayland 27 Comments

The X Windowing System is the graphical backbone of most UNIX-like operating systems (and OpenVMS) - despite lots and lots of criticism, the system has withstood the test of time. Despite its age, development on X has not slowed down - in fact, it only seems to have picked up. A few weeks ago, we had kernel-based mode setting, and today we have the X server running as user instead of root.

Microsoft To Discount Windows XP for ULPCs

Thom Holwerda 2008-05-12 Windows 70 Comments

Last week, we reported on a peculiar price difference in Australia between the Linux and Windows versions of the Asus Eee PC 900, the new model in the Eee line. The Windows model was 50 USD cheaper than the Linux model - the Linux model did have a bigger hard drive, but interestingly, the version with the smaller hard drive was not available as a Linux machine. This gave rise to speculation that Microsoft had been putting pressure on Asus to favour Windows XP over Linux. It appears Microsoft's assault in this segment of the market goes deeper than just Asus and the Eee alone.

Anatomy of Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux)

Eugenia Loli 2008-05-11 Linux 21 Comments

Linux has been described as one of the most secure operating systems available, but the National Security Agency (NSA) has taken Linux to the next level with the introduction of Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux). SELinux takes the existing GNU/Linux operating system and extends it with kernel and user-space modifications to make it bullet-proof. If you're running a 2.6 kernel today, you might be surprised to know that you're using SELinux right now! This article explores the ideas behind SELinux and how it's implemented.

The Popup Scrollbar Concept

Submitted by Thorsten Wilms 2008-05-10 Graphics 37 Comments

As you may remember from our series on common usability terms, I have a lot of interest in graphical user interface concepts. In addition, I applaud anyone trying to improve existing concepts, people that try to think beyond set conventions to come up with an improved version of that concept, or a new concept altogether. Thorsten Wilms took on the well-established concept of the scrollbar, and came up with a few interesting tweaks.

Submitted by rosebug 2008-05-10 Bugs & Viruses 52 Comments

1983. The year of the IBM PC XT, the Apple Lisa, Pioneer 10 leaving the solar system, and Hooters opening up shop in Florida. It's also the birthyear of a 25 year old BSD bug, squashed only a few days ago.

Perceptive Pixel’s ‘Magic Wall’ Finds New Niche

Thom Holwerda 2008-05-09 In the News 10 Comments

Multitouch has more or less turned into a buzzword these days - sometimes, its implementation makes sense and comes out as pretty useful (see the iPhone and Microsoft's Surface), however, other implementations turn out be debatable. There is another implementation out there, one that received a lot less attention from the press than the aforementioned cases: Jeff Han's Perceptive Pixel.

Memristors Discussed on Talk of the Nation

David Adams 2008-05-09 Hardware 14 Comments

Today's NPR Talk of the Nation Science Friday radio program discussed the recent Memristor advances for the non-Electrical Engineer: "The possibility of such a circuit element, known as the "memristor," was first described in 1971, but no one was able to find a device with the properties of that missing element. Now, a group of scientists at HP Labs has found that in nanoscale materials, the "memristance" property becomes easier to see. The finding could lead to lower power, instant-on computers, as well as novel types of circuitry. HP Senior Fellow Stanley Williams, one of the discoverers of the modern memristor, talks about the find and its potential applications." The 13 minute program is available online

Microsoft To Appeal Record EC Fine

Thom Holwerda 2008-05-09 Microsoft 44 Comments

In February 2008, the European Commission fined Microsoft for the record-breaking amount of 899 million Euros, for not complying to the 2004 ruling from Brussels. Today, Microsoft announced it has decided to appeal the fine. "We are filing this appeal in a constructive effort to seek clarity from the court. We will not be saying anything further," the company stated.

Submitted by Moulinneuf 2008-05-09 Legal 21 Comments

In July of 2007, Skype lost a court case over their failure to include a copy of the GPL in their WSKP100 VoIP phone - it ran Linux, GPL software, which means a copy of the GPL license must be included. The case was started by the gpl-violations.org group. Skype decided to appeal against the decision, but it has decided to withdraw that appeal.

Google Addresses Antitrust Issue on Yahoo Ad Deal

Thom Holwerda 2008-05-09 Google 50 Comments

Last week, when Microsoft's attempt at buying Yahoo stranded, Steve Ballmer specifically mentioned Google, and how a possible deal between Google and Yahoo would limit choice and competition in the marketplace. Google explained yesterday how it would fend off possible antritrust concerns following an ad-sharing deal with Yahoo. In addtion, Google noted the irony in Microsoft's complaints.

Syllable, SkyOS, ReactOS Move Forward

Thom Holwerda 2008-05-08 OS News 54 Comments

There are quite a few operating systems which have moved beyond the simple hobby operating system stage, onto a more lasting plane of existence. AROS, ReactOS, SkyOS, Syllable, Haiku; they're no longer basement products, coded by a single programer - they are now projects in which a lot of people have invested time, and possibly money too. They won't go away any time soon. The last few days have seen news on three of these systems: ReactOS, SkyOS, and Syllable.

MySQL Remains ‘Fully Functional and Open Source’

Thom Holwerda 2008-05-08 Databases 7 Comments

When Sun announced it would offer certain plugins and features for enterprise customers only, and maybe even make them closed-source, the open source community was up in arms. It seems that MySQL and Sun have listened to the criticism, as these plans are now off the table. In fact, these plans did not originate within Sun in the first place.

Submitted by irbis 2008-05-07 AMD 18 Comments

AMD had a bit of a setback with their Barcelona server processor, the company seems to have moved on. During a conference call today, the company laid out its plans for the server space for the coming years, putting 6 and 12 core processors on the horizon.

Limp

Thom Holwerda 2008-05-07 Comics 24 Comments

Comic: "Limp".

Windows XP Eee PC Cheaper than Linux Variant

Submitted by Dan Warne 2008-05-07 Hardware 120 Comments

As we all know, the Eee PC, running a modified Xandros, has been a major hit for Asus, and because of that, also a major hit for Linux. The device proved that a computer with a pre-installed Linux distribution can still be s successful machine, and many hoped that this would push Asus and other vendors to produce more computers with Linux pre-installed. This hope could be in vain after all if the new Windows XP-based Eee PC has anything to do with it.

Submitted by elsewhere 2008-05-07 Qt 51 Comments

Yesterday, Trolltech released the final version of Qt 4.4, their graphical toolkit which forms the base for, among a lot of other things, the KDE project. It still features the dual-license model (of course), so proprietary developers can license Qt, while open source developers can get a GPLd version (both GPL 2 as well as 3). Read on for a quick overview of the new features, as well as some findings by Ars Technica.

Submitted by irbis 2008-05-06 Solaris 97 Comments

Yesterday, the OpenSolaris team released OpenSolaris 2008.05, the fruit of Project Indiana. The first review we found was published over at Blogbeebe, which is overall fairly positive. At the same time, Practical Technology believes that "OpenSolaris has finally been released just in time to die".

iMac’s 10th Anniversary

Thom Holwerda 2008-05-06 Apple 42 Comments

"Today, I'm incredibly pleased to introduce iMac, our consumer product. And iMac comes from the marriage of the excitement of the internet, with the simplicity of the Macintosh." With these words, ten years ago today, Steve Jobs unveiled the product that would literally save Apple from certain doom. The all-in-one, translucent computer would become a revolutionary product.