OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing - Page 855

Canonical Begins Opening up Launchpad

Thom Holwerda 2007-07-10 Ubuntu 22 Comments

Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, has often been criticised for keeping their bug reporting and collaboration tool, Launchpad, closed-source. Today, Canonical has started opening up Launchpad by releasing its first open-source component, Storm. "Storm is an ORM that simplifies the development of database-backed applications in Python, especially for projects that use very large databases or multiple databases with a seamless web front-end", said Gustavo Niemeyer, lead developer of Storm at Canonical. "Storm is particularly designed to feel very natural to Python programmers, and exposes multiple databases as /stores/ in a clean and easy to use fashion."

What’s Coming in Mandriva Linux 2008

Submitted by AdamW 2007-07-10 Mandriva, Mandrake, Lycoris 16 Comments

After the technical specifications were mostly finalized recently, a new page has been created on the Mandriva Wiki which gives a guide to the most interesting user-facing features that will be included in Mandriva Linux 2008, including the latest GNOME, KDE and kernel releases, Compiz Fusion, a new network management tool and more. Also available are the more in-depth technical specifications, and the development schedule providing the targeted dates for the various development releases and the final release.

Linux Switches to CFS Scheduler in 2.6.23

Submitted by maverick 2007-07-10 Linux 36 Comments

The Linux kernel process scheduler, as you know it, has been completely ripped out and replaced with a completely new one called Completely Fair Scheduler. How fair it will be, remains to be seen. Here's what its original creator Ingo Molnar says: "80% Of CFS's design can be summed up in a single sentence: CFS basically models an 'ideal, precise multi-tasking CPU' on real hardware." Learn more about the new scheduler from the CFS design document.

‘How Microsoft Refused to Speak with Me About Error Reporting’

Submitted by estherschindler 2007-07-10 Microsoft 35 Comments

"Have you ever wondered what really happens to those Windows error reports you can send to Microsoft whenever a Windows app crashes? How many reports it must receive before taking action? Or whether it's worth your time and effort to send duplicate reports if the error occurs repeatedly? I did, and I asked Microsoft. Unfortunately, after a week and a handful of assurances that they were working on responses, the software giant refused to speak with me."

FreeBSD Status Reports Q2/2007

Submitted by dolores 2007-07-10 FreeBSD 33 Comments

"This report covers FreeBSD related projects between April and June 2007. Again an exciting quarter for FreeBSD. In May we saw one of the biggest developers summits to date at BSDCan , our 25 Google Summer of Code students started working on their projects - progress reports are available in this report, and finally the 7.0 release cycle was started three weeks ago."

When Microsoft Met GPLv3

Submitted by deanlinkous 2007-07-10 Open Source 67 Comments

"Now that Microsoft has declared itself untouched by any GPLv3 terms, everyone is trying to figure out if they have a leg to stand on. There is a whole lot of analysis going on, with some wondering if Microsoft is a distributor of software under GPLv3 by means of the voucher distribution and others wondering just what those vouchers included."

Sun’s OpenDocument Filter for MS Office Is Finished

Submitted by Flatline 2007-07-10 Office 33 Comments

Under the name Sun ODF Plug-in for Microsoft Office, Sun has released its import/export filter for the OpenDocument format, which the ISO has recognized as a standard, for versions 2000, XP, and 2003 of Microsoft's Office suite; the plug-in can be downloaded via our software repository. The extension allows users of MS Office to read and create text documents, spreadsheets, and presentations in the free OpenOffice suite and its commercial version called StarOffice.

Using ROX with Ion

Thom Holwerda 2007-07-09 Desktop environments 13 Comments

"Spending too much time organising your windows instead of getting things done? Tiling window managers aim to handle the layout for you. In this article, I'll show how to configure Ion 3 to work with ROX. The basic idea of a tiling window manager is to use all of the screen space for windows, without gaps or overlapping. So, if you have two windows side-by-side and you make one of them a bit bigger, the other one shrinks to make room. I often have several source files open, plus a couple of terminals and maybe a log viewer, so I started looking for something to make things a bit slicker."

Dell Gears up to Launch Linux PCs in Europe

Thom Holwerda 2007-07-09 Hardware 62 Comments

Dell is getting ready to launch systems with Ubuntu Linux, but is not yet releasing details of the final specifications. However, the company did say on Friday that as well as a consumer version of Ubuntu, it had plans to launch a small-business version 'in the future'. After some confusion over Dell's Linux strategy, the company said it felt the need to clarify things. "I wanted to be clear that Dell does have plans to offer Linux to more consumers in additional locations outside the United States," said Dell's Lionel Menchaca, digital media manager.

RISC OS Development Charity Taking Shape

Submitted by RISCOSMike 2007-07-09 RISC OS 6 Comments

An effort by users to produce a charity that will support future RISC OS software development is beginning to take shape. Using a mailing list to coordinate the project, a group of punters eventually hope to create a website that will allow people to offer cash and skills to developers.

Intel Buys Into VMware

Submitted by _mikk 2007-07-09 Intel 22 Comments

"Intel and VMware announced today that Intel Capital is taking a USD 218.5 million stake in virtualization company VMWare. Intel will purchase 9.5 million Class A shares at USD 23 per share, which, at the completion of VMware's forthcoming IPO, will give Intel about a 2.5 percent stake in the company. Because VMware's stock is split between Class A shares, which have less voting power, and Class B shares, Intel won't control that many votes in the company, but they will get a board seat."

Samba Adopts GPLv3 for Future Releases

Submitted by Rahul 2007-07-09 Open Source 61 Comments

"After internal consideration in the Samba Team we have decided to adopt the GPLv3 and LGPLv3 licences for all future releases of Samba. The GPLv3 is the updated version of the GPLv2 license under which Samba is currently distributed. It has been updated to improve compatibility with other licenses and to make it easier to adopt internationally, and is an improved version of the license to better suit the needs of Free Software in the 21st Century. To allow people to distinguish which Samba version is released with the new GPLv3 license, we are updating our next version release number. The next planned version release was to be 3.0.26, this will now be renumbered so the GPLv3 version release will be 3.2.0. To be clear, all versions of Samba numbered 3.2 and later will be under the GPLv3, all versions of Samba numbered 3.0.x and before remain under the GPLv2."

The Evolution of LINQ and Its Impact on the Design of C#

Submitted by tuttle 2007-07-09 .NET 11 Comments

"I was a huge fan of the Connections series, hosted by James Burke, when it aired on the Discovery Channel. Its basic premise: how seemingly unrelated discoveries influenced other discoveries, which ultimately led to some modern-day convenience. The moral, if you will, is that no advancement is made in isolation. Not surprisingly, the same is true for Language Integrated Query (LINQ). In simple terms, LINQ is a series of language extensions that supports data querying in a type-safe way; it will be released with the next version Visual Studio, code-named "Orcas." The data to be queried can take the form of XML (LINQ to XML), databases (LINQ-enabled ADO.NET, which includes LINQ to SQL, LINQ to Dataset and LINQ to Entities), objects (LINQ to Objects), and so on."

Texts Rasterisation Exposures

Submitted by GhePeU 2007-07-09 Graphics 76 Comments

"Joel Spolsky in his article 'Font smoothing, anti-aliasing, and sub-pixel rendering' compares Microsoft and Apple ways of text rendering and explains why windows people don't like Safari. Text in Safari looks too blurry and that must be why. I want to go further and sum up my experience and observations about it. I'm not an expert in digital typography, but I 'have something to say'. At least, some ideas may be useful for the GNU/Linux community."

Linux 2.6.22 Released

Submitted by jjmckay 2007-07-09 Linux 51 Comments

Linus has announced the release of the 2.6.22 kernel. Much has happened in this development cycle, including the addition of the mac80211 (formerly 'Devicescape') wireless networking stack, the eventfd system calls, some new TCP congestion control algorithms, a rewritten CFQ I/O scheduler, a new IEEE1934 (Firewire) stack, support for the Blackfin architecture, the long-awaited IVTV TV tuner driver, and much more. See the KernelNewbies 2.6.22 page for vast amounts of detail, the long-format changelog for even more detail, or the short-form changelog for a (relatively) concise listing of patches in this release.

A Brief Hands-on with the Linux Intel Classmate PC

Submitted by AdamW 2007-07-09 Intel 5 Comments

"Ars Technica recently got its hands on the new Intel Classmate laptop computer, one of the new projects competing for a share of school-aged computer users in developing countries. I was able to survey this machine thanks to Helio Chissini de Castro of Mandriva. The unit I looked at was powered by a specialized version of Mandriva 2007, with customizations aimed at school-aged children."

Yellow Dog Linux 5.0.2 Released

Eugenia Loli 2007-07-09 Linux 10 Comments

Version 5.0.2 of Yellow Dog Linux was recently released. It includes kernel 2.6.22rc4, SDK v2.0 for Cell BE, more than 70 bug fixes and updates, continued support for both 32- and 64-bit systems and has beta IBM 'System p' support.

Ion3 RC3 Released

Thom Holwerda 2007-07-08 Desktop environments 22 Comments

The third release candidate for Ion3 has been released. "This third 'rc' release again simply fixes some minor problems in the previous release." Get it from the download page. Ion is a tiling tabbed window manager designed with keyboard users in mind.

Feds Snub Open Source for ‘Smart’ Radios

Submitted by flanque 2007-07-07 Open Source 61 Comments

Mobile-gadget makers are starting to take advantage of software-defined radio, a new technology allowing a single device to receive signals from multiple sources, including TV stations and cell phone networks. But a new federal rule set to take effect Friday could mean that radios built on 'open-source elements' may encounter a more sluggish path to market - or, in the worst case scenario, be shut out altogether. U.S. regulators, it seems, believe the inherently public nature of open-source code makes it more vulnerable to hackers, leaving 'a high burden to demonstrate that it is sufficiently secure'.

‘Windows Developers Begin Slow Defection to Linux’

Submitted by flanque 2007-07-07 Rumors 95 Comments

"Two years ago, the number of developers writing applications for the Microsoft Windows platform fell, while the opposite was true for Linux - this has now become a trend. Instead of the Web stealing away Windows Users, as people have predicted for years, it's Linux and handheld devices. According to analysts at the Evans Data Corporation research house, 64.8 percent of North American developers are writing software for Windows, down from 74 percent only a year ago. The decline in popularity of the world's most prevalent operating systems appears to coincide with the rise of Linux, as the number of developers targeting the open-source environment has gone up by three percentage points from 8.8 percent to 11.8 percent in the same year."