OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

D-Bus 1.0 Released

Thom Holwerda 2006-11-14 General Development 35 Comments

"D-Bus 1.0 was officially released last week. Developed by FreeDesktop.org, D-Bus is an open source interprocess communication system created to promote interoperability between various Linux desktop environments by providing a cohesive common platform for internal system and application messaging. D-Bus, which has been under active development for four years, is already used extensively in the GNOME environment and will eventually replace DCOP in KDE."

What Really Happened to Ubuntu’s Edgy Artwork

Thom Holwerda 2006-11-14 Ubuntu 33 Comments

"Casual Ubuntu users may have registered surprise when they first booted the distribution's Edgy Eft release this past October. Back at the beginning of the Edgy development cycle, much was made of the formation of a new, dedicated Art Team to develop a fresh look for the backgrounds and splash screens of the startup process. But when Edgy hit the shelves, the artwork was scarcely different from that of its predecessor, Dapper Drake."

OpenSSH Server Ported to Windows CE

Submitted by anonymous 2006-11-14 Wireless 11 Comments

The OpenSSH server has been ported to Windows CE, enabling secure remote access to a Windows CE device using the SSH protocol. The software is currently released at version 0.0.1, under a BSD-style license, and is available in binary and source form.

Submitted by koki 2006-11-14 Haiku 44 Comments

The Haiku Project recently introduced a new and more efficient scalable vector-based icon format, the Haiku Vector Icon Format, or HVIF for short. HVIF uses a special vector storage format specifically designed to store icons that is so efficient, that icons in Haiku take a meager 500 - 700 bytes on average. Following the introduction of this new icon format, the Haiku developer behind this new icon format, Stephan Assmus (Stippi), has published two articles, one introducing some interesting facts about HVIF, and another giving some details of why Haiku vector icons are so small.

Sun Exec Explains Open Source Java

Submitted by Jane Walker 2006-11-14 Java 22 Comments

Monday, Sun did what many pundits, media personalities, developers and IT managers wanted done months ago - it opened up Java so that it could be freely distributed under the General Public License. In this interview with SearchOpenSource.com, Laurie Tolson, the vice president of Java developer products and programs, discussed this milestone for Java and what it meant for Sun, developers, IT managers.

OLPC Nears Low-Cost Linux Laptop Production

Submitted by anonymous 2006-11-14 Hardware 6 Comments

The One Laptop Per Child project's onsite supervisor, Mark Foster, reported from Shanghai on Sunday that the first 10 prototypes of the Linux-powered OLPC XO-1 are up and running. This marks a key milestone toward an upcoming build of 900 units.

Intel Officially Launches Quad-Core Processors

Submitted by Ken Mahan 2006-11-14 Intel 29 Comments

Intel today formally launched its first set of quad-core processors, which officials say should give the chipmaker a comfortable headstart on archrival AMD (AMD quad-core offerings will not be due until the release around mid-2007). A review of one of these quad-cores has also been published.

FreeBSD Foundation Fall Fund Raising Campaign

Submitted by Joel Dahl 2006-11-14 FreeBSD 10 Comments

"The FreeBSD Foundation is kicking off its Fall Fundraising Campaign! The success of this effort will have a large impact on our budget for next year. There are many ways that you can help us meet our goal of raising over USD 200000."

The Rising Tide of Vista; Vista: ‘Polished, Speedy’

Thom Holwerda 2006-11-13 Windows 111 Comments

"Security is the lens through which I always view products like Windows Vista, and in that view it looks good. But there is a bigger picture with Vista for the industry: It's really, really different from previous versions. At many levels it requires a different approach." The Inq took a look at Vista RTM, and they find: "Suffice to say we're impressed. Vista has come a significantly long way since the RC2 build. It's polished, speedy, and looks good on the eye."

ZETA Gets Full pthreads Support

Thom Holwerda 2006-11-13 Zeta 35 Comments

One of the things that has been missing on the BeOS platform, either for BeOS, ZETA or Haiku, is pthread, and this was also something that yellowTAB experienced when they were working on a port of OpenOffice. Hence, the development team has released support for phthread. This improvement will be contributed to Haiku as soon as it reaches a more mature state.

Submitted by Rahul 2006-11-13 Fedora Core 37 Comments

"As a network professional, I have used various Linux-based systems for many years in troubleshooting and monitoring networks. However, Linux has never been my operating system of choice for my office desktop. Its limitations in other areas and often cumbersome installation and configuration, simply put, left it as a specialized operating system for specific needs. That is, until now. Red Hat recently released its latest free distribution of Linux, Fedora Core 6. I was so impressed with this release that I have replaced one of my two desktop machines operating systems with it. Here's why you, as a networker, need to seriously look at Fedora Core 6."

Give the Gift of Pre-Installed Linux this Year

Submitted by D.C. Parris 2006-11-13 Linux 86 Comments

"A few months back, LXer reader, cyber_rigger, began compiling a list of vendors who offer GNU/Linux pre-installed. The list quickly grew, even drawing attention from other news outlets. Meanwhile, the LXer team went to work to produce a usable database that anyone can browse and search. We still have one or two features to implement, but users can quickly and easily browse the Pre-Installed Linux Vendor Database of 106 vendors. All vendors in the list offer reasonably-priced desktops and/or notebooks for home and office users, and either offer Linux only, or as an installation option on the system configuration page of their sites."

Submitted by Flatline 2006-11-13 Microsoft 37 Comments

"Exchange Server 2007 will be released to manufacturing in December and be available to customers within a number of days after that, Microsoft officials have confirmed. The formal announcement of Exchange 2007's RTM date was made in David Lemson's keynote on November 7 at the Exchange Connections conference."

Developing with Apache Derby – Hitting the Trifecta

Submitted by BlueVoodoo 2006-11-13 General Development 3 Comments

This article reviews how to modify an SQL query to group related rows together to provide summary statistics database information and introduces the concept of a view, which can be used to simplify database application development by creating a virtual table that represents the results of an SQL query. Also learn about database indexes, which you can use to locate specific table rows. After you've mastered these advanced database concepts, you'll be well positioned to begin developing Java database applications with Apache Derby.

First Superficial Look: Windows Vista RTM

Thom Holwerda 2006-11-13 Windows 103 Comments

Last week, Microsoft announced that Windows Vista went gold, and was released to manufacturing. The release has been long coming (five years of work) and was surrounded by controversies, rumours of rewrites, and legal threats by Microsoft's competitors. We got our hands on the RTM build (Microsoft Windows 6.0 (Build 6000)), so read on for the first superficial look at Windows Vista Ultimate.

Submitted by someone 2006-11-13 Java 105 Comments

The cat is out of the bag: Java will be released under the GPL. Joshua Marinacci writes: "I think it makes a lot of sense because it protects Sun's interest in preventing forks and also the community's interest in knowing that Java will forever be available in the public sphere. The GPL has always provided an option to fork just in case someone takes the code in a bad direction. Historically having this option available ensures that it never needs to actually be used, letting the community grow and thrive."

Submitted by samyem 2006-11-13 Databases 23 Comments

After 2 years in development, the Firebird Project today officially releases the much-anticipated version 2.0 of its open source Firebird relational database software during the opening session of the fourth international Firebird Conference in Prague, Czech Republic.

Submitted by nedvis 2006-11-12 Internet 106 Comments

"The Samba Team disapproves strongly of the actions taken by Novell on November 2nd. One of the fundamental differences between the proprietary software world and the free software world is that the proprietary software world divides users by forcing them to agree to coercive licensing agreements which restrict their rights to share with each other, whereas the free software world encourages users to unite and share the benefits of the software. The patent agreement struck between Novell and Microsoft is a divisive agreement. It deals with users and creators of free software differently depending on their 'commercial' versus 'non-commercial' status, and deals with them differently depending on whether they obtained their free software directly from Novell or from someone else. The goals of the Free Software community and the GNU GPL allow for no such distinctions."

Report from the Ubuntu Developer Summit

Thom Holwerda 2006-11-12 Ubuntu 30 Comments

Ubuntu developers and other interested parties from all over the world have swarmed to Google's offices in Mountain View this week for the Ubuntu Developer Summit to plan out the next release of Ubuntu. In total, about 140 people have registered for the summit. According to Jane Silber, Canonical's COO, only 30 of the attendees are actually employed by Canonical, the company that sponsors Ubuntu. The remainder of the participants include members of the Ubuntu community, representatives of upstream projects, and other parties who have an interest in how Ubuntu is developed.

Michael Wallent on the Windows Vista User Experience

Thom Holwerda 2006-11-12 Windows 5 Comments

Michael Wallent, General Manager for Windows Client, was interviewed by the Windows Vista Blog about the user experience in Vista. "We sat down with Michael to learn more about what's changed for the better from a quality perspective. In the video below, Michael speaks in particular to changes made in building in hardware driver support and adds that updates will continue to be made available via download via Windows Update. This advance in driver distribution avoids the 'step-function' improvement that users had experienced in the past; now, via network-available updates, the experience of using Windows Vista continually improves over time."