OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Work Started on Haiku Office Suite

Thom Holwerda 2007-04-17 Haiku 82 Comments

Even more Haiku news today. Oliver Ruiz Dorantes, who will be monitoring GSoC student Salvatore Benedetto coming summer, has started work on what will become an office suite for Haiku. His blog already shows the first screenshots of the project. He is seeking for help on the project, so if you have the experience, feel free t help him out. Also, a new batch of icons has been added to Haiku.

Submitted by bornagainenguin 2007-04-17 Hardware 38 Comments

"Those flash-based laptops we're all dreaming about may be a lot cheaper than we expected. Asus just announced their plans to make five budget, solid state laptops this year priced from USD 199 to USD 549. Each machine will have a 7-inch display, and depending on the model it'll have a flash drive ranging from 1GB to 40GB. The lappies are expected later this year."

The Workaround Trap

Guest post by Jussi Pakkanen 2007-04-17 Editorial 79 Comments

Let me begin by telling you a little story. Some time ago I needed to run a script at work once a day. We had tons of machines ranging from big Unix servers to Linux desktops. Due to various reasons the script could only be run on a desktop machine. However using cron was disabled on desktops. All other machines allowed cron.

Submitted by Raffaele 2007-04-17 Amiga & AROS 15 Comments

AbiWord 2.5.1 has been released for AmigaOS4 using Cygnix. Besides AbiWord's usual word processing features, this package also includes a KHTML-based browser for AmigaOS4. "Additionally, for displaying the online help files the KHTML based browser, 'osb-browser', is included! This browser has following features: standards compliant (x)html rendering engine with CSS support; Javascript support; SSL support."

Interview: Mark Shuttleworth

Submitted by suka 2007-04-17 Ubuntu 50 Comments

The founder of the Ubuntu-project talks in an interview about the integration of proprietary drivers, the One Laptop per Child project, and 'great applications' from Microsoft. "I certainly would not push the large IT companies to put Linux on consumer PCs, because I understand that in their business, the cost of a user accidentally getting Linux, thinking that they get cheap Windows would be a problem for the companies selling the computers. So I don't think it is really ready yet for mass consumer sales of Linux on desktop."

Submitted by diegocg 2007-04-17 Multimedia, AV 42 Comments

Microsoft has released a Windows Media Player plugin for Firefox. The plugin obviously only works on Windows. "We couldn't respond as quickly as we would have liked to (we had to get Windows Vista out the door!), but now that it's shipped, the team has moved its attention to getting Firefox users up and running. This week we are happy to say that we have a new plug-in for Firefox that makes WMP work once again."

Submitted by danwarne 2007-04-17 Intel 8 Comments

APC has obtained a leaked document showing the technical details of Intel's Red Flag Linux software stack, as well as photos and screenshots of the suser-interface. On a related note, Transmedia plans to announce that its Glide productivity suite and media sharing environment for desktop and mobile devices is available for Linux users.

Microsoft: Silverlight More Than a Flash

Thom Holwerda 2007-04-16 Graphics 109 Comments

Microsoft has given a go-to-market name for its cross-platform, cross-browser plug-in for delivering the next generation of user experiences and rich Internet applications for the Web. The technology formerly known as WPF/E is now known as Silverlight.

Submitted by meianoite 2007-04-16 Haiku 25 Comments

Haiku enthusiast umccullough has posted two very interesting screenshots of Haiku. In the first screenshot, you see Haiku serving a web page using RobinHood, where the second one shows an XP box browsing said web page. The Haiku ~~groupies~~ ~~axe murderers~~ users and developers in #haiku explained, however, that people should not get the wrong picture; Haiku is not ready, in any way, for public consumption, nor is it capable of serving a web page for a prolonged period of time. Just so you know. Update: And another screenshot showing BeShare running on Haiku.

Hacking Ubuntu to Improve Performance

Submitted by Jeremy 2007-04-16 Ubuntu 24 Comments

"This feature includes various hacks to boost Ubuntu's performance, such as viewing running processes, identifying resources, finding process startups, tuning kernel parameters, and speeding up boot time. This is a complete chapter in the ExtremeTech book 'Hacking Ubuntu: Serious Hacks Mods And Cusomtizations'."

Greenphone Developer Challenge

Thom Holwerda 2007-04-16 Qt 7 Comments

"Trolltech today announced the start of the Qtopia Greenphone Developer Challenge, a global contest for innovative development of Linux-based mobile phone applications. Entrants can create their applications using either the community or commercial version of Qtopia Phone Edition."

Using Java for Real-Time Systems

Submitted by BlueVoodoo 2007-04-16 Java 18 Comments

"This article, the first in a five-part series on real-time Java, describes the key challenges to using the Java language to develop systems that meet real-time performance requirements. It presents a broad overview of what real-time application development means and how runtime systems must be engineered to meet the requirements of real-time applications. The authors introduce an implementation that addresses real-time Java challenges through a combination of standards-based technologies."

BlackBerry OS 4.2 Ready for 8700, 7310; Widgets for Symbian S60

Thom Holwerda 2007-04-16 Wireless 1 Comment

Research In Motion's newest BlackBerry devices, the Pearl and 8800, run on BlackBerry OS 4.2. An upgrade to this platform from version 4.1 is ready to go for the older 8700 and 7310 models, according to an unnamed RIM executive who leaked this and some additional information The Boy Genius. On other mobile news, Nokia today announced the addition of Widgets and Web Run-Time to its S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 smartphone platform (to be released next year).

Intel To Launch Linux-Powered Mobile Internet Device

Submitted by george 2007-04-16 Intel 35 Comments

Intel is developing its own take on the mini-tablet, with a new ultra-mobile PC platform to be announced at this week’s Intel Developer Forum in Beijing. The big surprise? It’s based on Linux. In the meantime, Intel announced new details of its forthcoming Santa Rosa PC platform, including a significant revision of the Core 2 Duo chip.

Review: NeoOffice 2.1

Submitted by FreeRhino 2007-04-16 Office 25 Comments

NewsForge reviews NeoOffice 2.1 and concludes: "All in all, NeoOffice 2.1 is an incremental improvement over NeoOffice 2.0 Beta 3. Microsoft Office OpenXML compatibility is still a weak point, and if you are looking for help, you are better off avoiding the inconsistent and outdated documentation on the wiki and heading directly to the discussion forum. Nevertheless, NeoOffice remains far superior to the X11-based Mac builds of OpenOffice.org. The OS integration work is impressive, and the new features make the suite as a whole all the more indispensable."

Integrating ROX Desktop Into Ubuntu

Thom Holwerda 2007-04-15 Desktop environments 9 Comments

This article details how to make Ubuntu use the ROX Desktop without using ROX Session. "Can we get rid of ROX-Session? It should be possible to integrate ROX with your existing session manager. In this experiment, I configure a fresh Ubuntu installation to run ROX, without using ROX-Session."

Apple Launches Final Cut Studio 2, Server

Thom Holwerda 2007-04-15 Apple 31 Comments

During a special event at the National Association of Broadcasters conference today, Apple introduced some new products. They introduced Final Cut Server and Final Cut Studio 2. "Final Cut Studio 2 puts a powerful new version of Final Cut Pro at the center of an integrated post-production workflow. Final Cut Pro 6, Motion 3, Soundtrack Pro 2, Compressor 3, DVD Studio Pro 4, and Color - a brand-new application for professional color grading - are all included in Final Cut Studio for USD 1299."

The Sorry State of Open Source Software

Eugenia Loli 2007-04-15 Open Source 92 Comments

"We're now more than a decade later than the moment when I judged the open source to have gained a decisive momentum - 1996-1997, when Slackware was the reference, Red Hat was 'the other choice', KDE and GNOME were just emerging, Walnut Creek was selling CD-ROMs, and SunSITE mirrors were the home of most of the relevant software. The worst thing that happened was that Yggdrasil Linux died. But the Earth kept spinning..." Read the rest of the editorial at TheJemReport.

JMicron Supports SATA Implementation in Haiku

Submitted by caius roman 2007-04-15 Haiku 29 Comments

"We are pleased to announce that JMicron Technology Corporation has offered to give our project support in the implementation of SATA technology for Haiku. JMicron has pledged to support the development effort by providing the required technical documentation as well as hardware for testing. Haiku developer Marcus Overhagen will be working closely with JMicron with the eventual goal of achieving full support for JMicron's SATA products in Haiku in the future."

Submitted by shykid 2007-04-15 Hardware 25 Comments

"In the first purchase of his collection, Sellam Ismail loaded the trunk of his car with old computers he stumbled upon at a flea market for USD 5 apiece. He soon had filled his three-car garage with what others would consider obsolete junk. Years later, his collection of early computers, printers and related parts is piled high across shelves and in chaotic heaps in a 4500-square-foot warehouse near Silicon Valley. And it is worth real money."