OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing - Page 844

Fully Time Deterministic Java

Submitted by Jean-Marie Dautelle 2007-09-21 Java 26 Comments

For cost reasons the space agency is more and more interested in using Java for safety-critical missions. Until recently the lack of a time-predictable standard library has been a major hurdle to Java adoption in that particular field. It is no more the case as demonstrated by this AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics) paper presented the first day of the Space 2007 conference (Long Beach, CA) and introducing the first fully time-deterministic (and open-source) library for Java: Javolution.

‘Time for Apple to Face the Music?’

Thom Holwerda 2007-09-20 Apple 111 Comments

Columnist Bill Thompson at the BBC asks whether the time has come for Apple to be put under the EU microscope in the same way as Microsoft has. "If Apple was serious about building a music industry around downloads and digital devices then it would open up its devices and interfaces to allow greater innovation and greater competition."

HP To Expand Effort On Linux PCs

Submitted by Rahul 2007-09-20 Hardware 46 Comments

Hewlett-Packard, the world's Number 1 PC maker, will try selling pre-loaded Linux on PCs in several countries as it expands a test program - evaluating a market that some competitors have already entered - and moves its personal computer business into a new generation of form factors and functionality.

Haiku’s 2007 Google Summer of Code Summary

Submitted by _yc_ 2007-09-20 Haiku 25 Comments

Haiku has listed the accomplishments of Haiku's Summer of Code students. "2007 Was our first year involved in the Google Summer of Code. Looking back on it, it is easy to say that it was a resounding success. We were able to handle 8 students. Work accomplished included a mostly-complete FireWire stack, major improvements in networking, and more."

New 10.4.11 Build Adds Further Fixes

Submitted by SK8T 2007-09-20 macOS 17 Comments

Apple recently seeded developers with yet another build of Mac OS X 10.4.11, destined to be the final update to Tiger. Builds 8S155 (PowerPC) and 8S2155 (Intel) deliver an additional number of bug fixes, including remedies to issues with the BSD Kernel and interlock timeouts, ASR and scanning and restoring, CoreText Layout, and a bug with ImageCapture that creates problems downloading images from an iPhone when the phone has a large number of saved photos.

OpenSUSE 10.3 RC1 Released

Submitted by JJ 2007-09-20 SuSE, openSUSE 41 Comments

The openSUSE development team has announced that openSUSE 10.3 Release Candidate 1 is available for testing. "After quite a few rebuilds and testing, the openSUSE team is happy to announce that RC1 looks brilliant and is now available for download. We consider this release to be feature complete, stable, and suitable for testing from any user. For more information on the release schedule, take a look at the Roadmap."

Interview: Benedikt Meurer, Xfce

Submitted by Scott Ruecker 2007-09-20 Xfce 22 Comments

LXer interviews Benedikt Meurer, a developer of the Xfce project. "One of advantages over KDE and GNOME is the simplicity. You can still get to know the code base in less than a week and you are able to understand the basic design decisions. This way, Xfce 4.x has still a lot of potential, while the major desktop environments are in need for a rewrite (KDE already started the rewrite, a lot of GNOME contributors/maintainers are voting for a 3.0 rewrite)."

GNOME 2.20 Released

Submitted by JCooper 2007-09-19 Gnome 77 Comments

GNOME 2.20 has been released. "The improvements in GNOME 2.20 include: Improved support for right-to-left languages; desktop search integrated into the file chooser dialog; convenient new features in the Evolution email and calendar client; enhanced browsing of image collections; simplified system preferences; efficient power management and incredibly accurate laptop battery monitoring. Developers receive more help with application development thanks to a new version of the GTK+ toolkit, improved tools, and a great new documentation web site."

FreeBSD Summer of Code 2007 Results

Submitted by Oliver 2007-09-19 FreeBSD 4 Comments

"The FreeBSD Project is proud to have taken part in the Google Summer of Code 2007. We received more high quality applications this year than ever before. In the end it was a very tough decision to narrow it down to the 25 students selected for funding by Google. These student projects included security research, improved installation tools, new utilities, and more. Many of the students have continued working on their FreeBSD projects even after the official close of the program. We are happy to report that all students made some progress towards their goals for the summer, and the 22 students listed below completed the program successfully."

Interview: Gordon Moore

Submitted by SReilly 2007-09-19 Hardware 12 Comments

"The next step in the silicon industry's steadfast pursuit of ever smaller and faster chips has been unveiled. Intel has shown off what it says are the world's first working chips which contain transistors with features just 32 billionths of a metre wide. Their production means the industry axiom that has underpinned all chip development for the last 40 years, known as Moore's Law, remains intact. Speaking to BBC News, Dr Gordon Moore said that he expected the proposition that bears his name should continue 'for at least another decade'."

Slackintosh Reborn: Interview with Adrian Ulrich

Submitted by nicoladagostino 2007-09-19 Linux 7 Comments

"Slackintosh was a little-known PPC port of Slackware Linux which after some years of development was put on indefinite hiatus. Adrian Ulrich has recently restarted the project and is again providing (together with Marco Bonetti) a Slackware distribution for Apple (and non-Apple) RISC-powered hardware. We contacted him for a short interview to ask him what happened, what is his role and what is the distribution’s status."

Serverwide Performance Benchmarking

Submitted by raoulduke 2007-09-19 Benchmarks 1 Comment

"Before installing a new shared Linux database- and webserver I wanted to get an idea of the real world performance of various filesystems combined with the noatime and atime flags. This article contains a brief analysis of the results of my testing. To get a good idea of the relative impact of the chosen filesystem I also tuned the amount of shared buffers used in the PostgreSQL database software, which powers a number of sites on the server. On top of that, I also took a look at the benefit of using APC, the Advanced PHP Cache."

USB 3.0 To Bring Optical Connection in 2008

Submitted by Geoda 2007-09-19 Hardware 67 Comments

Intel and others plan to release a new version of the ubiquitous Universal Serial Bus technology in the first half of 2008, a revamp the chip maker said will make data transfer rates more than 10 times as fast by adding fiber-optic links alongside the traditional copper wires. Intel is working with fellow USB 3.0 Promoters Group members Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Texas Instruments, NEC and NXP Semiconductors to release the USB 3.0 specification in the first half of 2008, said Pat Gelsinger, general manager of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group, in a speech here at the Intel Developer Forum.

Microsoft Releases Office 2003 Service Pack 3

Thom Holwerda 2007-09-18 Microsoft 21 Comments

Microsoft is making the third service pack for Office 2003 available for free download Sept. 18, which the company says strengthens the product's defenses against malicious software. "While SP3 will be available as a free download on Sept. 18, customers will also begin to get notified of its availability via Microsoft's AutoUpdate over the next few weeks," a Microsoft spokesperson told eWEEK.

‘Desktop Linux? Stick a Fork in It!’

Submitted by highwayman 2007-09-18 Linux 126 Comments

"It's over. The magic is gone. The dream is dead. The egg has fallen off the wall and no amount of 'sudo' super glue can put his pieces back together again. I'm referring, of course, to the not-so-recent departure of Con Kolivas from the Linux kernel development community. Con - that champion of all things desktop centric - hung-up his keyboard this summer, the victim of an ideological rift within the Linux community." Update: And the first rebuttal appeared.

Windows Vista: Five Broken Promises

Submitted by Adam Scheinberg 2007-09-18 Windows 81 Comments

"Before I launch into my tirade, I need to make a confession. I like Vista. I use it daily, but I also use it with the full knowledge that it's a pre-service pack 1 OS from the boys in Redmond. That necessarily means it will have glitches, bugs, and annoyances. That's a given. I'm willing to put up with all those headaches. But there were several things I was really looking forward to in Vista that are simply missing in action or broken. These are features I'd really hope would improve my productivity and make life a little easier."

IBM To Offer Office Software Free in Challenge to Microsoft’s Line

Submitted by jchildrose 2007-09-18 IBM 63 Comments

IBM plans to mount its most ambitious challenge in years to Microsoft's dominance of personal computer software, by offering free programs for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations. Steven A. Mills, senior vice president of IBM's software group, said the programs promote an open-source document format. The company is announcing the desktop software, called IBM Lotus Symphony, at an event today in New York. The programs will be available as free downloads from the IBM Web site.

Testing Gnash 0.8.1 on FreeBSD

Submitted by Oliver 2007-09-18 Graphics 14 Comments

"Here it is, at last. Gnash 0.8.1 no longer segfaults on FreeBSD, I've solved all configure problems, all dependencies are checked, all test builds completed successfully. Behold, native Flash player for FreeBSD. It seems like I'm the first to try it, so why not do some tests while the port is being committed? I wonder, can I play flash games now? Can I be see those shiny flash banners? Can I watch YouTube videos at last?"

AMD Launching Triple-Core Phenom

Submitted by Hendra 2007-09-18 AMD 18 Comments

AMD announced plans to introduce a desktop PC processor with three cores in the first quarter of 2008. The three-core chip will carry the same Phenom brand name that AMD plans to attach to its quad-core desktop chips due to ship to PC companies by the end of this year.

OpenOffice.org 2.3 released

Submitted by maxx_730 2007-09-18 Office 28 Comments

OpenOffice.org 2.3 has been released. "Available for download now, OpenOffice.org 2.3 incorporates an extensive array of new features and enhancements to all its core components, and protects users from newly discovered security vulnerabilities. It is a major release and all users should download it."