How Do You Secure 100 Million Laptops?

  Submitted by Anonymous Penguin Hardware 16 Comments
If the plan is perfectly executed, Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child project will deploy 100 million laptops in the first year. In one fell swoop, the nonprofit organization will create the largest computing monoculture in history. Wary of the security risks associated with a computing monoculture - millions of machines with hardware and software of identical design - OLPC officials are seeking help from the world's best hackers to review the full specifications of the laptop's security model.
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My Dream Operating System

OS News 67 Comments
This article is a inspired by some of the ideas which seem be constantly floating around my mind whenever I think about or read about operating systems. Surely, every time-served OS-geek carries a mental list of this sort around with them? This is a summary of all of the features which I would like to see in my dream FOSS based Operating System.
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European Commission Boosts Open Source

  Submitted by elsewhere Open Source 7 Comments
"The European Commission has taken steps to promote the use of open source systems and software in the public sector. It has selected a consortium led by Unisys Belgium to create and manage the Open Source Observatory and Repository, the company announced. Other members of the consortium are the Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology, consultancy GOPA Cartermill, and the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos of Madrid. They will provide an internet service and portal enabling European administrations to centrally store and share the software code of their open source applications and exchange open source knowledge."
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Longhorn Server’s ‘Improved’ Security

  Submitted by Dolphin Windows 34 Comments
'The most secure Windows ever' may be very secure from hackers and malware - but what do you do when Longhorn Server let's you install the OS, set up Active Directory, and initialize the domain without once asking you to even create an administrator password? "What happened to Windows Server? Where did all of the stringent security checks and ultra-protection of Windows Server 2003 go? Windows Server 2000 was quite insecure, and Windows Server 2003 turned over a new leaf... But it seems Microsoft is more than willing to flip that page back - even Windows Server 2000 required an Administrator password at the very least."
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SkyOS Gets DMA Support

  Submitted by Tomasz SkyOS 16 Comments
SkyOS has gotten DMA support. "There's support for VIA, AMD, Intel and SiS chipsets, more will come. What does it mean? Less CPU usage and a huge speed increase for the supported PATA/SATA controllers, just check the changelog for initial benchmarks." It is available as an update for beta testers, which besides the DMA update, also includes updated drivers.
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The Windows XP Embedded Command-Line Tool

  Submitted by anonymous Wireless 6 Comments
Windows XP Embedded SP2 Feature Pack 2007, due to be released on Nov. 1st, will include a redesigned command-line scripting tool. This whitepaper introduces the new tool and gives a few examples of what it can do. XPECMD, as it's called, is said to be a major upgrade to CMI Explorer, the tool that shipped with XPe SP1.
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Version Control for Linux

  Submitted by ida General Development 13 Comments
"Version control systems, or source management systems, are an important aspect of modern software development. Not using one is like driving a car too fast: it's fun and you might get to your destination faster, but an accident is inevitable. This article provides an overview of Software Configuration Management systems and their benefits, including CVS, Subversion, Arch, and Git. It also reviews the most common SCM architectures. Finally, it explores some of the new approaches that are available and how they differ from the earlier methods."
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The Perfect Setup: CentOS 4.4

  Submitted by falko Red Hat 4 Comments
"This is a detailed description about how to set up a CentOS 4.4 based server that offers all services needed by ISPs and hosters; web server (SSL-capable), mail server (with SMTP-AUTH, TLS), DNS server, FTP server, MySQL, POP3/IMAP, Quota, Firewall, etc. This tutorial is written for the 32-bit version of CentOS 4.4, but should apply to the 64-bit version with very little modifications as well."
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Jackfield: Dashboard Compatible Widget Engine for GNOME

Gnome 29 Comments
"A desktop full of handy widgets to tell you about what's going on in the world and what's going on around your computer. This is Jackfield. Jackfield is an application for the Gnome desktop that plays host to widgets; small applications to do the things you need. It can run widgets from Apple's Dashboard, will eventually be able to run those from Yahoo's Widget Engine, Microsoft's Gadget Sidebar, and Opera Widgets, and you can write your own."
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‘Multiplied’ Linux Desktop Migration Strategy

  Submitted by Trevor Poapst SuSE, openSUSE 14 Comments
"Following is a six-page white paper that summarises the value of pursuing a Multiplied Novell SLED 10 or openSUSE strategy. Modern PCs spend most of the day idle. The Multiplied Linux Desktop strategy allows you to leverage this unused computing power and connect up to 10 full-featured workstations to a SINGLE, shared SLED 10 or openSUSE 10.1 computer. Ideal for Linux computer labs, Linux thin clients, Linux Internet cafés and Linux point-of-sale terminals."
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Qualcomm Hands Off Eudora to Mozilla

Mozilla, Gecko 36 Comments
Qualcomm on Wednesday joined up with the Mozilla Foundation to announce it is transitioning Eudora into an open source e-mail client that will be based upon Thunderbird. In turn, all future versions of Eudora will be free and Qualcomm will discontinue the current paid client. Although it may seem like Eudora is simply abandoning its e-mail software, which has a small but strong following of loyal users, the company claims the Thunderbird-based client will retain "Eudora's uniquely rich feature set and productivity enhancements".
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Apple Patent Posits ‘Home’ Folder iPods

macOS 48 Comments
Normally we don't report on every fart that gets patented by the big companies, but the following patent by Apple is actually pretty interesting: Apple has patented a method to store a user's ~/ directory (home directory) on external storage (the iPod?), making it portable. This will enable users to carry all their settings, programs, and files with them, so they can load up any Mac in the world with their own settings, programs, and files. Obviously, this is 'just' a patent, and by no means a definitive feature of Leopard or Leopard+1, but interesting nonetheless. Is this Apple's answer to Google's OS?
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Portland 1.0 Released

  Submitted by JCooper Linux 18 Comments
The Open Source Development Labs and Freedesktop.org announced the 1.0 release of the Portland common desktop interfaces today, less than a year after work started on the project. Portland was conceived last year at the first Desktop Architects Meeting in Portland, as a way of making it easier for ISVs to write applications for Linux.
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KDE 3.5.5 Released

KDE 32 Comments
The KDE team has released KDE 3.5.5, a maintenance release. Main changes: "Version 0.12.3 of Kopete replaces 0.11.3 in KDE 3.5.5, it includes support for Adium themes, performance improvements and better support for the Yahoo! and Jabber protocols; support for sudo in kdesu; support for input shape from XShape1.1 in KWin (KDE window manager); lots of speed improvements and fixes in Konqueror's HTML engine, KHTML; CUPS 1.2 support in KDEPrint; big improvements in the number of translated interface elements in Chinese Traditional, Farsi, Khmer, Low Saxon and Slovak translations."
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Behind the Debian and Mozilla Dispute Over Use of Firefox

  Submitted by brewin Mozilla, Gecko 15 Comments
As previously reported, Debian plans to release its newest version, Etch, in December, and wants Mozilla's Firefox Web browser to be part of the distribution. Mozilla, however, told Debian it couldn't release the software without its accompanying artwork. Now a legal expert says that the existing distinctions between copyright and trademark laws should have prevented this from becoming an issue in the first place. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols also discusses the issue.
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Police Charge Hans Reiser with Murder

  Submitted by JCooper In the News 55 Comments
We at OSNews have tiptoed around the following unfolding story for a while now, scared we would wrongly damage Hans Reiser's image. However, now that he has been arrested as a suspect in this case, we cannot ignore it any longer. "Oakland police today arrested the estranged husband of 31-year-old Nina 'Nenasha' Reiser on charges of murder even though in the month since she vanished, investigators have found no trace of her body. Hans Reiser, a man who has recently refused to cooperate with investigators, was arrested today along with two additional unidentified people around 11 a.m. at an acquaintance's home in the 6900 block of Simson Street, according to police."
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