X.Org 7.2: ATI Open vs. Closed Drivers

  Submitted by Michael 3D 37 Comments
"Last October we had compared the performance of the open-source R300 display driver against the closed-source fglrx driver for ATI Radeon graphics cards. In that comparison a Mobility Radeon X300 was used with X.Org 7.1, but we have decided to take another look at this driver comparison under X.Org 7.2. In this last comparison, the fglrx binary blob had greatly outperformed the open-source driver. While the fglrx driver remains faster, has the performance delta between these two drivers decreased?"
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Mac TV Ads: Gates Loses Cool

In the News 90 Comments
"In his public appearances, Bill Gates often appears to be so heavily sedated that the the private, peevish Bill we know and love from his internal emails rarely erupts. So it's with some relief we learn that normal service has been resumed, after Newsweek magazine's Steven Levy, an Apple acolyte, solicited chairman Bill's opinion of its latest TV advertising campaign, 'I'm a Mac - I'm a PC'." The Guardian is also hosting a piece on the 'Get a Mac' campaign.
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Security Tools Fail Active Virus Test on Vista

  Submitted by Governa Windows 49 Comments
Security tools that work with Windows Vista have failed tests to see if they can detect viruses circulating online. Microsoft's Windows Live OneCare security tool was one of four products that failed independent tests carried out by the Virus Bulletin. The security testing group found that Live OneCare missed far more active viruses than any other program tested.
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How to: Install VirtualBox

  Submitted by falko OS News 11 Comments
This tutorial shows how to install and use VirtualBox on Fedora Core 6, CentOS 4, and OpenSuSE 10.2. InnoTek VirtualBox is a family of powerful x86 virtualization products for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU Public License. On a related note, Qemu 0.9.0 was released along with a new version of the Qemu accelerator (the latter's license being changed to GPL).
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Open Hardware License Draft Invites Comment

  Submitted by anonymous Open Source 3 Comments
A ham radio club in Tucson, Arizona, is inviting public comment on a draft license governing open hardware designs. The Tucson Amateur Packet Radio club's Open Hardware License version 0.9 is available online for comment and discussion through March 7. TAPR says its OHL was designed to help hardware designers engage in collaborative development, "just as open source programmers do today."
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Five Ways to Create Uniform Namespace with Autofs

  Submitted by IdaAshley Internet No Comments
"Do you have trouble accessing data exported from multiple file servers? If so, try using open source implementations of autofs and Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, with Network File System Version 3, to access data under the same global mount point. In this article, study and compare five different methods to create a uniform namespace using autofs. A handy table with a comparative evaluation is available to help you choose the best technique for your scenario."
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PA Semi Releases Its Chip

Hardware 45 Comments
Remember PA Semi? The company has just released, as promised, its first chipset. "They are full 64-bit PPC, support virtualisation, and would do Alitvec but that name is copyrighted by Freescale. Instead they do 'VMA'. The three parts run at a max wattage of 25, 15 and 10W for the 2.0, 1.5 and 1.0GHz parts respectively, with typical wattage listed at 13, 8 and 6W. The individual cores are said to have a 7W max and 4W typical power consumption at 2.0GHz." PA Semi was one of the prime reasons why Ars's John 'Hannibal' Stokes doubted Apple's reasoning for the switch to Intel.
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Foresight Is a Linux Distro to Watch

Linux 58 Comments
"It seems as if a new Linux-based operating system is born every day, with each facing the challenge of justifying its existence in a field that's already rather crowded with mature Linux distributions boasting active user bases and organized bodies to back them. But one relatively young Linux distribution worth keeping an eye on is Foresight Linux, a desktop-oriented distribution that hit its 1.0 release milestone at the end of January. What sets Foresight apart from the rest of the fledgling distro pack is the software management framework on which its built."
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Microsoft Raises Support Fees for Windows, Office

  Submitted by diegocg Microsoft 40 Comments
"Microsoft quietly raised last week its per-incident support prices across the board for Windows and Office. Support for Windows XP and Windows Vista now costs USD 59 per incident. Prior to the Vista launch, the per-incident support price for Windows was USD 39. Vista users get their first 90 days of support for no charge. Support for Office XP and Office 2007 now goes for USD 49 per incident, compared to USD 35 per incident prior to the January 30 Windows Vista/Office 2007 retail launch. Office 2007 users also get their first 90 days of support for free."
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Preview: Beryl 0.2.0

  Submitted by luna6 Wayland 94 Comments
"Beryl 0.2.0 will be released shortly and I spent time the last week testing out Beryl 0.2.0 RC2 on Kubuntu's Edgy Eft. The improvements found in 0.2.0 are simply amazing. Improvements in usability features, improvements in the pure 3D eye candy, and even the Beryl Settings Manager has been improved (the layout has become much more logically laid out). As you read through this preview of Beryl 0.2.0 and see some of the screenshots, I think you will get a firm grasp on how impressive Beryl can be. Basically, Beryl makes OS X and Vista look old and antiquated."
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The LWJGL Project Reaches 1.0

  Submitted by Marvin Java 22 Comments
Version 1.0 of the LWJGL has been released. "The Lightweight Java Game Library is a solution aimed directly at professional and amateur Java programmers alike to enable commercial quality games to be written in Java. LWJGL provides developers access to high performance crossplatform libraries such as OpenGL and OpenAL allowing for state of the art 3D games and 3D sound. Additionally LWJGL provides access to controllers such as Gamepads, Steering wheel and Joysticks."
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Linux Kernel 2.6.20 Released

  Submitted by diegocg Linux 34 Comments
After two months of development, Linux 2.6.20 has been released. This release includes two different virtualization implementations: KVM: full-virtualization capabilities using Intel/AMD virtualization extensions and a paravirtualization implementation usable by different hypervisors. Aditionally, 2.6.20 includes PS3 support, a fault injection debugging feature, UDP-lite support, better per-process IO accounting, relative atime, relocatable x86 kernel, some x86 microoptimizations, lockless radix-tree readside, shared pagetables for hugetbl, and many other things. Read the list of changes for details.
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Apple Seeds New Mac OS X 10.4.9 Build

macOS 11 Comments
"Apple seeded a new build of the Mac OS X 10.4.9 update to developers late last week, Think Secret has learned. According to seed notes accompanying the Intel version (build 8P2125) and PowerPC version (build 8P125) of the update, there are no known issues with the latest seed, suggesting that Version 10.4.9 may be nearing release. The latest seed fixed a handful of bugs, including issues with OpenGL, CoreImage, CoreData, iSync, and the Sync Services engine." The Adium X team also released version 1.0 of their program, which is used by a lot of Mac users.
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