OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

X11 R7.2 Released

Submitted by tyrione 2007-02-15 Wayland 43 Comments

The X.Org community is proud to announce the release of X11R7.2, the third modular release of the X Window System. It incorporates significant stability and correctness fixes, including improved autoconfiguration heuristics, enhanced support for GL-based compositing managers such as Compiz and Beryl, and improved support for PCI systems with multiple domains. It also incorporates the new, more extensible XACE security policy framework.

Vista Today, Tomorrow, What Never Was

Guest post by John Doe 2007-02-15 Windows 162 Comments

Shock and awe; Windows Vista has been released to the hounds (that would be us). As just about every publication has reiterated a thousand times over it took 5+ years of design and development and cost USD 5.5 billion both directly and indirectly. We were promised (maybe not even promised, but bullshitted) a revolutionary operating system and what we got is for you to determine for yourselves. I personally think it's a disappointment to say the least.

Parallels, VMware Won’t Virtualise Mac OS X

Submitted by MacosXrumors 2007-02-15 macOS 57 Comments

"Parallels recently made a definitive statement saying that the company won't be making it easy for users to run OS X in a virtual environment anytime soon. The reasoning behind this was because they don't want to put their users at risk of breaking the OS X EULA - unlike Windows Vista, there is no version of OS X that can be run under a virtual machine - and more importantly, they don't want to strain their (currently good) relationship with Apple. As a followup to that statement from Parallels, I was able to also get in touch with Srinivas Krishnamurti, VMWare's Director of Product Management and Market Development in order to get VMWare's official position on the matter. "Apple does not currently allow running Mac OS X in a virtual machine," he said. "Apple is an important partner and VMware respects Apple's intellectual property."

‘Why Vista’s DRM Is Bad For You’

Thom Holwerda 2007-02-15 Windows 93 Comments

"Windows Vista includes an array of 'features' that you don't want. These features will make your computer less reliable and less secure. They'll make your computer less stable and run slower. They will cause technical support problems. They may even require you to upgrade some of your peripheral hardware and existing software. And these features won't do anything useful. In fact, they're working against you. They're digital rights management features built into Vista at the behest of the entertainment industry. And you don't get to refuse them."

OpenSUSE 10.3 Alpha 1 Released

Submitted by Philipp Esselbach 2007-02-15 SuSE, openSUSE 26 Comments

OpenSUSE 10.3 Alpha1 has been released. "Since the openSUSE 10.2 final release, the most significant changes are: GNOME has been moved to /usr (lease do test especially updates from older distributions); KDE updated to KDE 3.5.6; Linux kernel updated to 2.6.20 (no Xen support enabled for now); pattern for minimal text install; update of OpenOffice.org to version 2.1.3; the whole distribution is build now with -fstack-protector to better guard against some buffer overflows; and much more."

KolibriOS 0.6.5 Released

Submitted by Rostislav 2007-02-15 OS News 20 Comments

KolibriOS is an operating system for the PC, written in assembly, which is based on the source code of MenuetOS. It fits on a single floppy. Some of the features are: NTFS read support, AC'97 player, drivers for Fat12/16/32/ISO9660, tcp/ip stack, network applications include ftp/http/mp3 servers, GUI with resolutions up to 1280x1024, 16 million colours, over 150 programs (text editor, paint editor, file managers, games, etc.), and much more.

Vista: Significant Security Improvement?

Submitted by anonymous 2007-02-15 Privacy, Security 6 Comments

In the new issue of the free (IN)SECURE Magazine read an article on Vista's security features, an interview with Ed Gibson (the Chief Security Advisor for Microsoft UK), a look at the new format and new protection/security policy in Office 2007, and an interview with Joanna Rutkowska, the security researcher in the news lately for discussing the 'very severe hole' in the design of UAC.

Submitted by lezard 2007-02-15 Mandriva, Mandrake, Lycoris 5 Comments

Metisse is a window manager developped by the In Situ project. It is available under the GPL Licence. Mandriva Linux is using Metrisse in its latatest Live-CD. Metisse differs from a 'classic' 3D desktop in the way that it offers innovative windows interactions, thus enforcing work efficiency. It is using basic openGL commands for most of its feature and can run on entry level 3D graphic cards. This workshop describes the hard disk installation and Mandriva One setup. Additionally you will find information how to use the Metrisse 3D Desktop.

Submitted by dumbkiwi 2007-02-15 Wayland 18 Comments

The Beryl project has often been criticised as being nothing more than eyecandy for the sake of eyecandy. However, there are numerous features in Beryl which could improve usability and workflow. In this series of three articles, some of the new usability features in Beryl 0.2.0 are highlighted and explained (article I, article II, and article III).

Submitted by lucasvr 2007-02-15 Linux 33 Comments

"GoboLinux is a unique distribution in many ways. It's built from scratch following the Linux From Scratch procedure and uses custom boot scripts, personalized directory structure, and a simple yet comprehensive source-based dependency-resolving package management system. GoboLinux is perhaps best known for its alternate filesystem hierarchy. Unlike Linux's traditional Filesystem hierarchy, where a program has bits and pieces scattered in several places like /etc, /usr/bin, and /usr/share, each program gets its own directory tree under GoboLinux."

Acorn PC Card Linux Files Unearthed

Submitted by lollifant 2007-02-15 RISC OS 3 Comments

An ancient build of Linux for Acorn PC cards has been uploaded to riscos.info as part of a new drive to revive the PC Card Linux project. The zipfile dates back to 1994, and contains Linux 1.1.29 and suitable drivers for pre-RiscPC machines fitted with PC cards. During the 1990s, Acorn and Aleph1 produced a range of PC cards for RiscPC and pre-RiscPC machines, which featured Intel 486-compatible processors. This allowed RISC OS users to run Windows and PC applications from their otherwise ARM-powered desktop machines.

GNOME 2.18.0 Beta 2 Released

Submitted by Philipp Esselbach 2007-02-15 Gnome 18 Comments

GNOME 2.17.91 has been released, which is the second beta en route to GNOME 2.18, planned for a release in March this year. See the GNOME 2.17 page on the GNOME wiki for more details on the release schedule.

Novell CEO: We’ll ‘Fight’ Vista

Submitted by george 2007-02-15 Novell and Ximian 24 Comments

Novell will continue its march against Microsoft and any uptake of Vista despite a recent alliance with the software giant. "We're excited by the muted reaction to Vista," Ron Hovsepian, Novell president and CEO, told the media at a breakfast meeting in Sydney today. "We're going to attack vigorously and go after their footprint as much as we can," Hovsepian said.

System Management Suite Bridges Linux, Unix, Windows

Submitted by editingwhiz 2007-02-15 Oracle and SUN No Comments

"Xandros today introduced a new software suite for IT administrators that enables Windows-to-Linux server and desktop integration and management, and deployment of systems that mix Linux, Unix, and Windows platforms, according to the company. Without 'bridging tools', a company spokesperson said, a computing environment can devolve into an unmanageable and costly-to-administer set of silo infrastructure components. Many IT organizations suffer from higher administration costs and inefficient business processes through lack of integration, according to the spokesperson."

Vista First Look: Bugs and Confusion

Thom Holwerda 2007-02-14 Windows 97 Comments

El Reg has reveiwed Windows Vista. "So, there's our first look at Vista. It does benefit from a lot of good ideas, many of them Apple's, of course, but good nevertheless. It simply doesn't work very well, unfortunately. There are serious problems with execution; it's not polished; it's not ready. It should not be on the market, and certainly not for the outrageous prices being charged. Don't buy it, at least until after the first service pack is out. Don't pay to be a beta tester." Elsewhere, analysts believe Windows Vista will take a bite out of Mac's market share.

Submitted by ronaldst 2007-02-14 KDE 31 Comments

"Focusing again on applications this week, specifically I'll look at two of the promising document viewers for KDE 4, Okular and Ligature. They are two of the rising stars of KDE 4, but they both have their roots as KDE 3 applications that have grown up."

Microsoft Settles Iowa Consumer Antitrust Lawsuit

Thom Holwerda 2007-02-14 Legal 10 Comments

Microsoft reached an undisclosed settlement in a lawsuit claiming it used its monopoly position to overcharge Iowa consumers for software products including Windows and Word. Microsoft reached the deal with a statewide class of consumers who had purchased Microsoft products since 1994. The plaintiffs claimed the company violated Iowa antitrust law to charge inflated prices by taking advantage of its monopolies in personal computer operating systems and software applications.

Submitted by nstanosheck 2007-02-14 Linux 9 Comments

Originally Yellow Dog Linux v5.0 was slated for late December release, but after a few delays, they have announced the impending release of YDL 5.0 for Power Macs. YDL v5.0 has been available for the Sony PlayStation 3 since November, but here is the Mac delivery schedule: install and source ISOs available for download via YDL.net Enhanced accounts at the end of February 2007. Two weeks later, DVDs will ship from the Terra Soft Store. Two weeks after that, you can download install and source ISOs via the public mirrors.

Paper: Database Benchmark

Submitted by Antoine Martin 2007-02-14 Databases 16 Comments

DevLoop has just published a free paper (US mirror) benchmarking some popular database systems such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, Firebird, DB2, Informix, Sybase SQL Anywhere, on Linux using JDBC. The focus here is on non-real setups where we can analyze the individual aspects that might affect system performance. The code is available (GPL) so that anyone can reproduce the results.

Hacker, Microsoft Duke it Out Over Vista Design Flaw

Thom Holwerda 2007-02-14 Windows 22 Comments

Joanna Rutkowska has always been a big supporter of the Windows Vista security model. Until she stumbled upon a 'very severe hole' in the design of UAC and found out - from Microsoft officials - that the default no-admin setting isn't even a security mechanism anymore. Rutkowska believes UAC has a major flaw in the way it automatically assumes that all setup programs (application installers) should be run with administrator privileges.