OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Ubuntu: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

Eugenia Loli 2007-04-25 Ubuntu 85 Comments

A month ago I wrote a review on Ubuntu's 7.04 version and in it I promised a second look once the final version was to released. Feisty Fawn was released last week and as it seems so far, it is one of the most (if not the most) successful Linux distro release ever. This means that we can't help it but compare it with XP and Mac OS X, after having tested it in 3 laptops and 2 desktops in my lab.

Xandros Linux Server First To Receive LSB Certification

Submitted by anonymous 2007-04-25 Oracle and SUN 9 Comments

Xandros today announced that Xandros Server 2.0 is the first product to be certified by the Linux Foundation through use of the LSB Distribution Testkit. Xandros engineers worked closely with their Linux Foundation counterparts in perfecting the new, automated testing procedures that will facilitate broad application developer support to Xandros Server 2.0 and all other standards-based Linux operating systems.

Put Your OpenSSH Server in SSHjail

Submitted by FreeRhino 2007-04-25 Privacy, Security 9 Comments

"Jailing is a mechanism to virtually change a system's root directory. By employing this method, administrators can isolate services so that they cannot access the real filesystem structure. You should run unsecured and sensitive network services in a chroot jail, because if a hacker can break into a vulnerable service he could exploit your whole system. If a service is jailed, the intruder will be able to see only what you want him to see - that is, nothing useful. Some of the most frequent targets of attack, which therefore should be jailed, are BIND, Apache, FTP, and SSH. SSHjail is a patch for the OpenSSH daemon. It modifies two OpenSSH files (session.c and version.h) and allows you to jail your SSH service without any need for SSH reconfiguration."

Next-Generation, High-Performance Processor Unveiled

Thom Holwerda 2007-04-24 Hardware 37 Comments

The prototype for a revolutionary new general-purpose computer processor, which has the potential of reaching trillions of calculations per second, has been designed and built by a team of computer scientists at The University of Texas at Austin. The new processor, known as TRIPS (Tera-op, Reliable, Intelligently adaptive Processing System), could be used to accelerate industrial, consumer and scientific computing. Professors Stephen Keckler, Doug Burger and Kathryn McKinley have been working on underlying technology that culminated in the TRIPS prototype for the past seven years. Their research team designed and built the hardware prototype chips and the software that runs on the chips.

Submitted by irbis 2007-04-24 Solaris 34 Comments

"If you're an OpenSolaris x86 user and are using a NVIDIA graphics card with NVIDIA's binary Solaris drivers, you can now enjoy Compiz on your desktop. Erwann Chenede has produced packages of Compiz 0.5.0 for OpenSolaris x86. In fact, to ease the process he has even written an OpenSolaris install script for Compiz. More information (download links) is available from Erwann's Sun Blog."

IBM Will Support x86 Linux Applications on System p Servers

Submitted by FreeRhino 2007-04-24 IBM 18 Comments

"Today, IBM announced a public beta trial of a virtual Linux environment that will let x86 applications run on its System p Unix servers without modification. The new IBM System p Application Virtual Environment technology will allow x86 binaries to run as well without modification, removing the biggest barrier against effective virtualization for some companies. As a result, customers will be able to consolidate dozens, if not hundreds, of servers into one virtual environment."

French Presidential Candidates on Free Software, Related Issues

Submitted by FreeRhino 2007-04-24 Open Source 127 Comments

"When free software supporters participate in the French presidential election on April 22 for the first round of voting, they will have information that may be unique in the world: position statements from all major parties on issues about free software, copyright, patents, and digital rights. Even more surprisingly - at least from a North American perspective - a majority of the candidates have heard of these issues and developed positions on them."

Discover the Linux Kernel Virtual Machine

Submitted by IdaAshley 2007-04-24 Linux 14 Comments

Recently a change in the Linux virtualization landscape has appeared with the introduction of the Kernel virtual Machine. KVM supports the virtualization of Linux guest operating systems - even Windows - with hardware that is virtualization-aware. Learn about the architecture of the Linux KVM as well as why its tight integration with the kernel may change the way you use Linux. Update: An interview with the KVM lead developer.

Sinclair ZX Spectrum: 25 Today

Thom Holwerda 2007-04-23 Hardware 61 Comments

"Clive Sinclair's ZX Spectrum is a quarter of a century old today. The machine that really launched the UK IT industry hit the streets of a depressed Britain on 23 April, 1982. Dark days, then. But lo, along came bespectacled Messiah Sir Clive Sinclair with the successor to his 1981 release, the black-and-white ZX-81. The ZX Spectrum boasted a visual cortex-melting eight colours at 256 x 192 resolution, blistering 3.5MHz CPU, and crucially, a crisp-repelling vulcanised rubber keyboard."

Fujitsu Debuts e-Paper Tablet Device

Thom Holwerda 2007-04-23 Wireless 32 Comments

Jon Stokes writes over at Ars: "At some point, I'm going to write my very last e-paper/e-ink article for Ars. After almost a decade of thin, flexible, low-power displays being "three to five years away," I can finally see that the time for e-paper's mass-market debut is almost upon us. A case in point is Fujitsu's new FLEPia portable tablet, samples of which are now available in limited supply as of this past Friday."

Submitted by linuxbeta 2007-04-23 KDE 86 Comments

"Stephan Binner, a well-known KDE and openSUSE developer, has released a set of live CDs featuring the latest development snapshot of KDE 4 (screenshots). Unlike the SLAX-based live CD called KLAX, which he used to develop in order to demonstrate new KDE releases, his 'KDE Four Live' images are based on openSUSE. After a large, uncompressed live DVD released earlier in the week, a set of smaller live CDs (compressed with Squashfs) is now also available for download. Don't expect trouble-free computing with these early KDE 4 snapshots, but as demonstration tools designed to give KDE users an early taste of things to come, they aren't too bad. The first alpha build of KDE 4 is scheduled for release early next week."

Submitted by michuk 2007-04-23 Red Hat 55 Comments

"CentOS is an enterprise class GNU/Linux distribution based on the publicly available source packages of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Just like RHEL or Debian stable, CentOS focuses on stability and security, sacrificing the 'latest and greatest' packages. Is CentOS 5 really that stable? And does it fit on the average Joe's desktop? This is what I'm gonna find out."

Dear SJVN: Please Open Your Mind

Guest post by Neeraj Singh 2007-04-23 Windows 156 Comments

If you shout something loud enough and many people are saying it, does it become true? Some groups of people (include tech journalists and Linux advocates, such as Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols) have a psychological need to find Vista lacking. Mr. V-N has predicted that Vista will have all manner of problems, so his clear interest is to point out everything that is wrong with the OS. Who cares if he has to even make some stuff up?

New Amiga Hardware Announced

Submitted by Peter Gordon 2007-04-23 Amiga & AROS 57 Comments

They better check that thermostat down in hell, because, believe it or not, AmigaOS4 has found a computer to run on - a computer which we will actually be able to buy. I kid you not. "After months of designs and negotiations Amiga, Inc. and ACK Software Controls, Inc. are pleased to announce that new hardware is on its way for Amiga users. Initially, two systems will be produced that address two different market needs. The first is a consumer entry design that will offer a complete product with a target price point of USD 500, while the second will be of a power design that would have a target price point of USD 1500. The PowerPC architecture will continue to be the architecture of choice for these new systems. Manufacturing and final price information along with product launch schedules will be following in the next week." Sure they can fly.

Submitted by Governa 2007-04-23 Internet 24 Comments

The Shiira Project has announced the release of latest version of their Mac OS X Web browser, Shiira 2.0. Shiira is a web browser based on Web Kit and written in Cocoa. The goal of the Shiira Project is to create a browser that is better and more useful than Safari. All source code used in this software is publicly available. One of the features of Shiira is Tab Expose. Tab Expose shows all open tabs the same way that Expose shows all open windows (similar to IE7). Shiira 2.0 requires Mac OS X 10.4.

GNU Classpath 0.95 ‘Take Five’ Released

Submitted by Mark Wielaard 2007-04-23 Java 1 Comment

"Full merge of 1.5 generics work. Bootstrappable with OpenJDK javac compiler. URLConnection timeout support. TimeZone can use platform zoneinfo file when available. The Collection classes, lang.management and util.spi have been updated to 1.6. Addition of 1.6 ServiceLoader. Speedup for cairo and freetype Graphics2D support. The ASM library is now included. Better detection of browser plugin mechanisms for gcjwebplugin applet support in mozilla, iceweasel and firefox." See also the full announcement and some nice screenshots.

Linux: The Completely Fair Scheduler

Thom Holwerda 2007-04-22 Linux 32 Comments

Ingo Molnar released a new patchset titled the 'Modular Scheduler Core and Completely Fair Scheduler'. He explained, "this project is a complete rewrite of the Linux task scheduler. My goal is to address various feature requests and to fix deficiencies in the vanilla scheduler that were suggested/found in the past few years, both for desktop scheduling and for server scheduling workloads."

Xmonad: a Tiling Window Manager Written in Haskell

Submitted by ryan 2007-04-22 Desktop environments 19 Comments

Xmonad was announced today on the haskell-cafe mailing list. It supports multiple monitors through xinerama. The unique part of this window manager is that it is written in Haskell in under 500 lines. Haskell is a purely functional programming language with very strong static typing to ensure correctness.

Submitted by BluenoseJake 2007-04-22 Legal 59 Comments

Little-known intellectual property agency IP Innovation LLC and its parent Technology Licensing Corporation this week became the latest to claim that Apple had abused a patent they hold. Filed April 18th in a US district court in Marshall, Texas the four-page formal complaint purports that Apple has engaged in 'willful and deliberate' infringement of a computer control patent by selling its current Tiger operating system. On a related note, Microsoft has similar problems.

Broadcast Your Application’s Content with iChat Theater

Submitted by Hakime 2007-04-22 macOS 23 Comments

"Since its introduction iChat has become the de facto Instant Messaging client on Mac OS X, allowing users to communicate using text, audio, and even video chat. The new version of iChat in Leopard opens up these capabilities to other applications on the system, allowing those applications to provide content through an iChat session." My take: Now, if Apple would implement support for MSN and other protocols for those of us (especially in Europe) who do not use AIM/ICQ, this could be a whole lot more interesting.