OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Comprehensive Linux Terminal Speed Comparison

Submitted by SEJeff 2007-09-05 Benchmarks 43 Comments

"Linux has an abundance of excellent terminal applications. Interestingly, I could not find any decent comparison of their text display performance. Since I use the command line a lot, I want text output that is as fast as possible. When you compile a large project, you don’t want the console output to be the limiting factor. I took the burden on me to do a comprehensive comparison of the text through of all possible terminals."

Review: Nokia 6120 Classic

Eugenia Loli 2007-09-04 Wireless 28 Comments

Hi-Mobile.net sent us in one of the most down-to-earth, powerful and yet no frills, smartphone Nokia ever released, the 6120 Classic. Read on for our review of the SymbianOS S60 v3.1-based smartphone.

Palm Cancels the Foleo

Eugenia Loli 2007-09-04 Wireless 48 Comments

Palm CEO Ed Colligan has posted a letter to Palm Customers, Partners and Developers on the official Palm blog. In the post, he states Palm will cancel the Foleo mobile companion product in its current configuration, and will undertake efforts to focus entirely on Palm's next-generation (Linux-based too) smartphone platform. My Take: A right move for Palm, the market is not ready for this sort of device.

Submitted by archiesteel 2007-09-04 Office 179 Comments

Microsoft has failed in its attempt to have its Office Open XML document format fast-tracked straight to the status of an international standard by the International Organization for Standardization. The proposal must now be revised to take into account the negative comments made during the voting process. Microsoft expects that a second vote early next year will result in approval, it said Tuesday. That is by no means certain, however, given the objections raised by some national standards bodies.

Continuing Dual-Licensing Discussions

Thom Holwerda 2007-09-04 Legal 36 Comments

Discussion continues on the Linux Kernel mailing list about the legality and morality of re-licensing BSD/GPL dual-licensed code under only the GPL. Alan Cox replied to Theo de Raadt's comments suggesting he was encouraging people to break the law, "re-read my email and then apologize. I do question the .h files where they are BSD licence and no changes were made to the work. I also point out that the dual licence on that code appears to give permission to distribute under one of those licences by choice." In response to Theo's request that code be shared both ways rather than converted to a sole GPL, "that's about the first thing I would agree on - its somewhat rude and not something I personally would usually choose to do."

NetBSD 4.0 RC1 Released

Submitted by Daniel Sieger 2007-09-04 NetBSD 22 Comments

The NetBSD Release Engineering Team announced the release of NetBSD 4.0 RC1 today. The release candidate is directly available from the project's FTP server. A list of significant changes and features can be found here. "The NetBSD4.0 release provides numerous significant functional enhancements, including support for many new devices, integration of hundreds of bug fixes, new and updated kernel subsystems, and many user-land enhancements. The result of these improvements is a stable operating system fit for production use that rivals most commercially available systems."

Submitted by troy.unrau 2007-09-04 KDE 54 Comments

Ars takes a look at KDE 4.0 Beta 2, and concludes: "This beta may not be the end result yet, but there has definitely been a lot of progress since the last one. For the first time I have been able to stop writing about individual features within KDE 4 and start to talk about the level of integration, and general feel of the system to get an impression of how KDE 4.0 will feel like to use."

Submitted by adstro 2007-09-04 Solaris 54 Comments

Sun seeks to apply the lessons of Linux and turn open source Solaris into an operating system to rival Linux and to be as commonly used as Java. Sun Microsystems has ambitious plans for the commercial and open-source versions of its Solaris operating system, hoping to achieve for Solaris the kind of ubiquity already enjoyed by Java. In addition, Sun released Update 4 for Solaris 10 (also called Solaris 08/07), introducing a major enhancement in its OS virtualization technology called Solaris Containers.

Opera 9.5 Alpha Released

Submitted by abdavidson 2007-09-04 Opera 90 Comments

Opera has released an alpha build of their upcoming 9.5 release. "Following the release of Opera 9 last year, we re-wrote Opera's rendering engine for the coming Opera 9.5 release. As a result, Opera 9.5 contains more than a year's worth of speed, standards and performance improvements."

PC-BSD 1.4 RC1 Released

Thom Holwerda 2007-09-03 PC-BSD 25 Comments

PC-BSD 1.4 RC1 has been released. "After a month of refinement, the PC-BSD team is pleased to make available the 1.4RC release. This update addresses many of the reported bugs from 1.4BETA, as well as adding working i18n support for international languages. PC-BSD 1.4RC can be downloaded via our mirrors or via Torrent on the 1.4 download page."

Ion3 RC5 Released

Thom Holwerda 2007-09-03 Desktop environments 10 Comments

The last release candidate for Ion3 has been released. "This release features a few minor fixes. If no major problems are discovered, this is likely to be the last 'rc' release before the first and hopefully final 'stable' release." Ion is a tiling tabbed window manager designed with keyboard users in mind.

Fedora Includes Sun OpenJDK/GNU Classpath Fusion IcedTea

Submitted by Mark Wielaard 2007-09-03 Java 15 Comments

Just in time for Fedora 8 test 2 IcedTea has landed in Fedora RawHide. The IcedTea project provides a harness to build the source code from the Sun OpenJDK project using Free Software build tools (gcj) and provides replacements for the non-free binary plugs with code from the GNU Classpath project. Installing this experimental GPL Java platfom is now as easy as yum install java-1.7.0-icedtea. In addition, Sun has promised to provide a Test Compatibility Kit soon so people can see how 'officially Java' this package really is.

Nouveau Driver Q&A

Submitted by Michael Larabel 2007-09-03 3D 26 Comments

"On the Phoronix Forums we have been running a Q&A with the developers of the Nouveau project. For those out of the loop or new to Linux, the Nouveau project aims to provide an open-source 2D/3D graphics driver for NVIDIA hardware. After collecting a number of questions from our readers, KoalaBR and Marcheu have answered these questions. The questions range from whether there will be open-source SLI support to asking if NVIDIA has ever contacted the Nouveau developers."

Haiku Gets Samba, FireWire Support

Thom Holwerda 2007-09-02 Haiku 43 Comments

Two interesting bits of news from the Haiku front. First, Haiku now has basic support for FireWire, thanks to GSOC student JiSheng Zhang. You cannot connect a FireWire hard drive just yet, though. Second, Russian BeOS hacker Troeglazov Gerasim has ported Samba 3.10 to Haiku, so you can now browse your Windows shares in Haiku, as well as share files through Samba in Haiku. IsComputerOn has the details, as well as some screenshots.

Raymond: MS Makes it Hard to Be Treated Equally

Thom Holwerda 2007-09-02 Open Source 224 Comments

Eric S. Raymond writes on his blog: "There's been a lot of debate in the community about how OSI should properly handle Microsoft's planned submission of some of its licenses for OSD certification. That debate has been been going on within OSI, too. OSI's official position, from the beginning, which I helped formulate and have expressed to any number of reporters and analysts, is that OSI will treat any licenses submitted to Microsoft strictly on their merits, without fear or favor. That remains OSI's position. But I find that my resolve is being sorely tested."

OpenBSD: Stealing vs. Sharing Code

Submitted by anonymous 2007-09-02 Legal 202 Comments

OpenBSD project creator Theo de Raadt detailed his concerns regarding BSD-licensed code and Dual-BSD/GPL-licensed code being re-licensed under only the GPL (as previously discussed): "Honestly, I was greatly troubled by the situation, because even people like Alan Cox were giving other Linux developers advice to... Break the law. And furthermore, there are even greater potential risks for how the various communities interact." Regarding the concern that the BSD license allows companies to steal code, Theo reflected: "GPL fans said the great problem we would face is that companies would take our BSD code, modify it, and not give back. Nope - the great problem we face is that people would wrap the GPL around our code, and lock us out in the same way that these supposed companies would lock us out."

Submitted by martini 2007-09-02 OS/2 22 Comments

The second release candidate of eComStation 2.0 has been released. "This is the sixth public beta release of eComStation 2.0. This product is available for download to all registered eCS customers with active Software Subscription Services (see this explanation). This version of eComStation 2.0 is the second Release Candidate, no big changes or additions will be added before the GA version, it mainly consists of updates to drivers and installation scripts."

‘Apple’s Pages ’08 Is All Grown Up’

Thom Holwerda 2007-08-31 Apple 66 Comments

"With the latest release of Apple's office productivity suite, iWork '08, the Pages application moves into the ranks of full-fledged word processing applications. Previously known more for its page layout capabilities than for its word processing capabilities, Pages now enables users to switch seamlessly between writing and designing documents. In addition, the application offers 140 document templates and a snazzy track-changes feature, both of which work to position iWork '08 as an apt rival to Microsoft's Office 2004 for Mac in the OS X-compatible office productivity arena."

Submitted by diegocg 2007-08-31 KDE 156 Comments

The KDE project has delayed the release of KDE 4.0 by two months. "We, The Release Team, hereby announce that we are extending the KDE 4.0.0 schedule 2 months by inserting an extra 2 Betas, as follows: September 24: Beta3. October 22: Beta4. November 19: Total Release Freeze. November 21: RC1. December 5: RC2. December 20: 4.0.0 tagged. We feel that there are crucial elements of the release that need more development time. The feature freeze (less exemptions) remains in effect."

Quick Review: Dell Inspiron 1420N, the Dell/Ubuntu Laptop

Submitted by dell/ubuntu laptop review 2007-08-31 Hardware 25 Comments

Starryhope.com has a quick review of one of the Dell Ubuntu laptops, and concludes: "Overall, as a Linux geek, I'm very happy with my decision to get the Inspiron 1420N. The notebook is by far the fastest I've ever used and it's comfortable to work with on a desk or on your lap. The price is reasonable and comes in quite a bit cheaper than a Macbook. Unfortunately, Dell and Canonical have fallen short of releasing a truly great product. With just a little extra work and closer attention to the pre-installed software and drivers, they could be shipping the perfect Linux notebook. The way it is now, I wouldn't recommend this notebook for anyone who's not a seasoned Linux geek." The review is slightly outdated (two weeks old) but interesting nonetheless. In addition, Dell may also pre-install Ubuntu on servers.