Review: Vista SP1 Beta

  Submitted by Corinne Iozzio Windows 46 Comments
PCMag takes a look at the Vista SP1 beta, and concludes: "The actual first beta of SP1 may not deserve a fanfare, simply because - like all first betas - it has its own set of issues to resolve. But by the time you can get SP1 on the Microsoft Update site or as part of a new Vista installation DVD, you'll want your PC to have it. Nothing dramatic here, but SP1 is a solid, useful upgrade that makes the operating system a little safer and a little faster."
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Review: openSUSE 10.3

  Submitted by luna6 SuSE, openSUSE 66 Comments
A review of OpenSUSE 10.3, which concludes: "While openSUSE's efforts to simplify Linux or Window-fy Linux can be commended, the inconsistency in their implementation is its downfall. Opening applications quickly becomes a chore with the excessive amount of clicks needed to find the application you want. The application browser loads slowly, looks cluttered, and uses icons that are too large. Yast has been improved but still feels slow."
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eBay: ‘Phishers Getting Better Organised, Using Linux’

Privacy, Security 131 Comments
When it comes to launching online attacks, criminals are getting more organised and branching out from the Windows operating system, says eBay's security chief. eBay recently did an in-depth analysis of its threat situation, and while the company is not releasing the results of this analysis, it did uncover a huge number of hacked, botnet computers, said Dave Cullinane, eBay's chief information and security officer, speaking at a Microsoft-sponsored security symposium at Santa Clara University. "The vast majority of the threats we saw were rootkitted Linux boxes, which was rather startling. We expected Microsoft boxes," he said.
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Apple Gives Hint About ZFS for Leopard

macOS 41 Comments
Developers have received from Apple a 'ZFS on Mac OS X Preview 1.1' package, which offers preliminary support for the ZFS file system, originally developed by Sun Microsystems for their Solaris OS. Currently, the Mac OS is based on the HFS+ file system, but leaked screenshots of earlier versions of Leopard showed options for formatting hard drives for ZFS. Reportedly, this preview allows full read and write capabilities with the latest developer build of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Apple's upcoming version of its OS X operating system.
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First Syllable Server Development Release

  Submitted by Kaj de Vos Syllable, AtheOS 22 Comments
The first development release of Syllable Server is available. It provides a text mode Linux environment, but also contains a preliminary graphical environment built on the framebuffer device, with DirectFB and SDL on top. The planned graphical environment from Syllable Desktop is not included yet. The installation procedure is short, but is still manual - and resembles the installation procedure for the old AtheOS. Included are tools such as a graphical web browser, a file manager and an editor. One thing Syllable Server is designed for is to function as a light-weight virtualisation platform for running other operating systems (or multiple instances of itself). The QEmu virtualisor/emulator is included, and the KQEmu Accelerator kernel module is integrated into the system. There's a screenshot of Syllable Server running on Syllable Desktop, installation and usage instructions, a torrent (preferred), and an installation package .
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Introducing MonaOS

OS News 31 Comments
"MonaOS is a free operating system. It's new, small, simple, open source and well structured. So, MonaOS may be suitable for education of operating system and program at school." It's a microkernel-based operating system, MIT-licensed, and available for IA-32.
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‘Ten Ways to Make More Humane Open Source Software’

  Submitted by Christoph Plamper Open Source 52 Comments
"A lot of bandwidth has been wasted arguing over the lack of usability in open-source software/free software. Some people say that bad usability is endemic to the entire OSS world, while others say that OSS usability is great but that the real problem is the closed-minded users who expect every program to clone Microsoft. Some people contend that UI problems are temporary growing pains, while others say that the OSS development model systematically produces bad UI. In an effort to understand usability in the OSS world, I've researched the stories behind my favorite - and least favorite - OSS programs. I've found a fascinating variety of personalities, design philosophies, and project organizations. Although I've only scratched the surface, there are already themes that come up again and again."
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Thirty Days of PC-BSD

  Submitted by Flatland_Spider PC-BSD 77 Comments
Jan Stedehouder has used PC-BSD for thirty days to see what living with it is like. On day thirty, he concludes: "Does PC-BSD have the potential to be a serious contender for the open source desktop? I answered that question with a yes, because the potential is there. The solid FreeBSD roots, the very strong and very accessible information, the friendly and mature community and the PBI system provide the foundations for that potential. I don't think it is ready now and I couldn't recommend it yet to someone in the early stages of moving away from Windows to an open source desktop. But I do think that the PC-BSD team has the right target audience in mind and is building an system and a support system that addresses it's needs."
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Leopard Estimated to Ship Last Weekend of October

  Submitted by adkilla macOS 40 Comments
"Apple has begun preparatory measures for significant announcements to take place during the last full week of October, AppleInsider has been told. While sources have requested that we not go into detail regarding the specific measures being put into place, they say the announcements are likely to arrive any time between the 22nd and 27th of the month. Obviously, such a timeframe would coincide with Apple's self-imposed release schedule for Mac OS X Leopard, which the company - after having delayed the software once - has promised for 'October'." Think Secret thinks the same.
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New wmii Snapshot Released

Desktop environments 10 Comments
A new snapshot of wmii has been released. "wmii is a dynamic window manager for X11. It supports classic and dynamic window management with extended keyboard, mouse, and filesystem based remote control. It replaces the workspace paradigm with a new tagging approach. Its minimalist philosophy attempts not to exceed 10.000 lines of code (including all shipped utilities and libraries), to enforce simplicity and clarity."
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Laptop with a Mission Widens Its Audience

  Submitted by Rahul Hardware 49 Comments
"In November, you'll be able to buy a new laptop that's spillproof, rainproof, dustproof and drop-proof. It's fanless, it's silent and it weighs 3.2 pounds. One battery charge will power six hours of heavy activity, or 24 hours of reading. The laptop has a built-in video camera, microphone, memory-card slot, graphics tablet, game-pad controllers and a screen that rotates into a tablet configuration. And this laptop will cost USD 200."
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OpenSUSE 10.3 Released

  Submitted by te_lanus SuSE, openSUSE 124 Comments
OpenSUSE 10.3 has been released today. "This version contains new beautiful green artwork, KDE 3.5.7 and parts of KDE 4, SUSE-polished GNOME 2.20, a GTK version of YaST, a new 1-click-install technology, MP3 support out-of-the-box, new and redesigned YaST modules, compiz and compiz fusion advances, virtualisation improvements, OpenOffice.org 2.3, Xfce 4.4.1, and much more!"
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Fedora 8 Test 3 Released

  Submitted by Rahul Fedora Core 17 Comments
Fedora 8 Test 3 has been released. "Fedora 8 Test 3 is here! This is the last test release before the development freeze and a great time to test all those packages that you know and love. Test 3 is for beta users. This is the time when we must have full community participation. Without this participation both hardware and software functionality suffers."
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What Every Programmer Should Know About Memory, Part 1

  Submitted by diegocg General Development 25 Comments
"Ulrich Drepper recently approached us asking if we would be interested in publishing a lengthy document he had written on how memory and software interact. Memory usage is often the determining factor in how software performs, but good information on how to avoid memory bottlenecks is hard to find. This article is the first in a serie of articles (the original has over 100 pages) that will get published on LWN weekly. Once the entire series is out, Ulrich will be releasing the full text."
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