OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Windows Vista: More Than Just a Pretty Face

Eugenia Loli 2007-03-20 Windows 142 Comments

Windows Vista has had something of a troubled birth. Hyped features were pulled, and the project as a whole took far longer to complete than expected, partly due to standing still while MS dropped everything to work on WinXP Service Pack 2, but in part also due to a decision to "reset" and scrap much of the new development. This has led some commentators to dub the project a "train wreck."

Creating a Sane Beryl Settings Manager

Eugenia Loli 2007-03-20 Wayland 87 Comments

The Beryl project has won a lot of press time so far with its impressive tricks -- even more than its slower-evolving daddy, Compiz. There are several lose ends to Beryl's core engine and incompatibilities with existing applications or technologies. However, something that really put off a lot of people when they try Beryl is its dreadful settings manager.

The Nuclear Option in FLOSS

Submitted by Lord John 2007-03-20 Open Source 27 Comments

The FLOSS Movement is not yet recognized enough to develop peacefully. There are many obstacles in the way of its expansion: either internal (e.g. lack of standards) or external (e.g. stubborn hardware manufacturers). Those problems could be gradually overcome in a relatively short period of time but a question arises: What will happen if the paranoia wins?

Review: Zeta 1.5

Thom Holwerda 2007-03-19 Zeta 26 Comments

In July 2005, OSNews reviewed the 1.0 version of what was then YellowTAB Zeta. I concluded: "I have a clear-cut impression of what Zeta R1 is: it is by far the best 'distribution' of BeOS currently available. The hardware support is, when compared to r5, significantly better. Stability-wise, Zeta R1 is a huge leap forward when compared to older versions. Some areas still need work; but they are mostly minor things, nothing that will stop you from using this operating system as your full-time, primary system." A lot has changed over the past 15 months; YellowTAB went belly-up, Magnussoft took over the development of Zeta, and to top it off, Zeta went multiuser. Not too long ago, Mangussoft released Zeta 1.5; here is my review.

Submitted by elsewhere 2007-03-19 Red Hat 65 Comments

Red Hat is planning a packaged Linux desktop solution that it hopes will push its Linux desktop offering to a far broader audience than exists for its current client solution. The move is designed in part to compete with Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 platform, which includes SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, which were released in July 2006.

Submitted by novaburst 2007-03-19 Amiga & AROS No Comments

The AROS Show has interviewed Marco van den Heuvel (also known as Blacky Stardust). He offers his thoughts on AROS, other VICE ports and what led him to become a VICE Developer.

Submitted by Hiev 2007-03-19 Wayland 22 Comments

"Desktop computing technology has evolved considerably since the first graphical user interface was developed by researchers at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center in 1973. Microsoft's Aero Glass, Apple's Quartz 2D Extreme, and Sun's Project Looking Glass are all poised to transform the way that users interact with computers. Also at the forefront of innovation, the Linux community has some prodigiously impressive new user interface technologies of its own. Beryl, a new open-source window manager for Linux, features compelling visual enhancements like support for transparent windows and elaborate window animations."

Murdock: Debian ‘Missing a Big Opportunity’, Join Sun

Submitted by M-Saunders 2007-03-19 Debian 46 Comments

Debian Etch moves ever closer, and Ian Murdock - the project's founder - has been interviewed about Debian's politics, its lack of strong leadership, and Ubuntu's ever-growing fame. He feels that Debian is too enveloped in process and politics, making it impossible for anybody to make big decisions, thereby hindering the pace of development. In addition, on his weblog Murdock has announced he is joining Sun.

Submitted by vicious1 2007-03-19 Privacy, Security 43 Comments

"In response to Jeff Jones' Monthly Security Scorecard I did some research on Secunia and made some statistics to answer his. Jeff's Scorecard is quite minimal in my opinion and as pointed out by some of the comments, is missing some interesting facts. These facts include the outstanding advisories, for example, and of course the amont of software installed. Since Linux installs a lot more software the numbers are a bit skewed; however, even if I only take the numbers from Secunia with regard to advisories, vulnerabilites fixed, etc., things still look quite different then on Jeff's charts."

ReactOS Newsletter: Issue 20

Submitted by Z98 2007-03-19 ReactOS 14 Comments

The latest ReactOS newsletter is out. "Reactions have varied in regard to 0.3.1, though one response was consistent. The difficulty in getting it to work on real hardware. As mentioned many times, 0.3.1 was branched in the middle of a kernel rewrite."

Ubuntu’s Migration Assistant Tested

Submitted by Jamie 2007-03-19 Ubuntu 20 Comments

"Earlier this month I covered Ubuntu's Migration Assistant, which is one of the features that will be found in Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn. The migration-assistant is designed to make it very easy for Microsoft Windows converts to jump into the Ubuntu world by automatically transferring files and settings. However, when I originally tried out Ubuntu migration-assistant I had run into a few bugs that ultimately rendered the assistant useless. However, in that post Evan had commented that the two major bugs being recently corrected, so this morning I gave this installation assistant another shot."

A Look at Vista’s Speech Recognition

Eugenia Loli 2007-03-18 Windows 22 Comments

It's Sunday afternoon here, there is no better time to spend by having some fun with some of the abilities of operating systems. There is definitely quite some rocky road still for speech recognition and in extend natural language & artificial intelligence. Hopefully we will still be alive when that happens.

Bluetooth Proximity Detection on OS X

Eugenia Loli 2007-03-18 macOS 5 Comments

"One thing that I've been playing with off and on for some time is a small efficient little solution for handling basic Bluetooth proximity detection, specifically for being able to perform certain actions when a cell phone or other Bluetooth device is in range of my Powerbook." More here.

Submitted by gorkem 2007-03-18 General Development 17 Comments

Python is becoming popular, and using Python within a distribution in every aspects has just become real. Pardus is extensively built on Python, starting from init subsytem through installation, hardware configuration and system management. Read on to see how Pardus developers started with Python and built a mature system using Python APIs.

Syllable Gets a BitTorrent Client

Submitted by Kaj de Vos 2007-03-17 Syllable, AtheOS 24 Comments

Thanks to improvements in PThreads support in the new version 0.6.3 of the Syllable desktop operating system, the Transmission BitTorrent client could be ported. Currently only the CLI version works. The project is looking for a volunteer to put a GUI on it, possibly by porting the BeOS GUI. Transmission is included in a new version of the Network Necessities package collection. Furthermore, there are new versions of the Developer's Delight and PERL Pit collections, with many updated packages. Most notably, GCC is now the new version 4.1.2. Also, a new version was released of the sIDE native integrated development environment. Lastly, there is now a driver for the popular SysKonnect/Marvell Yukon1 gigabit ethernet chips.

Linux and Symmetric Multiprocessing

Submitted by IdaAshley 2007-03-17 Linux 41 Comments

"As evidenced by major central processing unit vendors, multi-core processors are poised to dominate the desktop and embedded space. With multiprocessing comes greater performance but also new problems. This article explores the ideas behind multiprocessing and developing applications for Linux that exploit SMP."

Ubuntu Feisty Fawn: Desktop Linux Matured

Eugenia Loli 2007-03-17 Ubuntu 200 Comments

During my 8 years of Linux on and off usage I have tried more distros than I have chocolate bars. Each one of my previous encounters meant that I had to spend at least 2 days configuring before I have a desktop that I was somewhat comfortable with. With Ubuntu Feisty Fawn's latest test beta --for the first time ever-- this was not the case. I was up and running with all the niceties I wanted within 2 hours.

Xandros Server 2.0 Targets Microsoft SharePoint Shops

Thom Holwerda 2007-03-16 Oracle and SUN 7 Comments

"With the release of Linux-based Xandros Server 2.0 Standard Edition, well-known Linux desktop vendor Xandros offers compatibility and other services that may give Microsoft SharePoint Server some competition. In the new server, due in April, Xandros will include Netherlands-based O3Spaces Workplace 2.0 office collaboration software. With Workplace 2.0, users will be able to use OpenOffice.org, StarOffice, and/or Microsoft Office to work on documents in commonly hosted Xandros workplaces. At the same time, Xandros claims, the system enables everyone involved in the project to track the work being done on it."

OpenSUSE 10.2 Images Changed Due to License Issue

Submitted by anonymous 2007-03-16 SuSE, openSUSE 19 Comments

The openSUSE team has released slightly changed openSUSE 10.2 ISO images. The reason for putting out these updated ISOs is a license issue, which had to be addressed. The ISOs on the mirrors have been updated to reflect the changes. Also, openSUSE 10.3 alpah 2 has been released.

Submitted by kaiwai 2007-03-16 Solaris 58 Comments

OSNews reader kaiwai has published a review of Solaris 10 11/06, and concludes: "Solaris Express is coming along; and for those who do want bleeding edge, ultra-super-duper features, then Solaris probably isn't your best bet, then again, assuming you're into that stuff, you'd be better catered for by the likes of Gentoo for example - for those of us who would prefer to have stability above features, then give Solaris a go and if you can make a contribution to Solaris by way of code contributions, then by all means do so."