The UFS file system is the general-purpose, disk-based file system that is shipped with Solaris today and has been the default file system since early versions of SunOS 4.x. This sample chapter covers its history, architecture, and some basic administrative concepts.

As Moore's Law continues to hold, IC designers are finding that they have more and more silicon real estate to play with. David Chisnall hazards some guesses as to what they might do with it.

In this chapter, learn how to create, register/unregister, and deploy custom .NET cultures.

The Web has been rife with bogus rumors of an Apple cell phone since 2004, and each ridiculous 'leak' or faked 'photo' sets off a torrent of fruitless discussion, speculation and hysteria. What does that say about current cell phones? That they're claustrophobic and oppressively complex. That the world craves a phone that conveys, like Apple's iPod, a feeling of beauty, elegance and instantaneous mastery. This week, a cell phone matching that description has finally arrived - but it's not from Apple. Its design comes from Bang & Olufsen, maker of expensive, hyperstylish stereos and cordless phones, and its guts come from Samsung.

"Leading PC manufacturer Acer has accused Microsoft of ratcheting up the cost of Windows by effectively forcing consumers to opt for the Premium version of Vista. Acer claims that the Vista Home Basic - the new entry-level Windows - is so poorly featured that consumers will simply reject it. "The new experience you hear of, if you get Basic, you won't feel it at all," said Jim Wong, senior corporate vice president at Acer. "There's no graphics, no Media Center, no remote control."

"Most developers care about application performance. Even if speed isn't the most important attribute of their software, they certainly don't want the application to be slow. But streamlining code may seem too complex, and require skills that you don't have. Relax. While code optimization certainly is the best way to improve your application's performance, you may be overlooking another option: adjusting the settings on the .NET Framework."

Setuptools framework, a side project of PEAK, provides easier package management and distribution than distutils. Setuptools lets you package your libraries in a single-file archive called an 'egg', similar to Java JAR file, but for Python. Like the Perl CPAN and Ruby Gems tools, the ez_setup tool bootstraps the rest of setuptools. The ez_install tool that comes with it does the same thing in conjunction with 'Cheeseshop' (PyPI).

"Slackware is one of the oldest (arguably *the* oldest) Linux distributions still around today. It is the pet project of one Patrick Volkerding who, love him or hate him, has ruled his distribution with an iron fist since the beginning. This is fine if you agree with his choices, but like all dictators, Patrick doesn't always make decisions based on the good of the populace, but rather sheer unmitigated ego. Here is my experience with his latest iteration, Slackware 11." More here.

"On October 18th, OpenBSD celebrated its 11th birthday and ten years of punctual biannual releases. Now it's time for OpenBSD version 4.0, which includes tons of new drivers for wireless, network, and storage chips. Discover what's new and what battles developers must face daily to access documentation and support new hardware."

Another review of Ubuntu 6.10: "While using Edgy Eft during the RC series and now the final version, I can say that Edgy Eft is a sweet little operating system that gets the job done. Unfortunately there isn't anything in the standard install of Edgy Eft that will make people drool with delight or think it is truly 'Edgy'. Nevertheless Ubuntu 6.10 is noteable for its solid group of features and consistent amount of polish throughout." Update: One more review, here.

"On Monday I posted Geekbench results for my Sun Ultra 20 M2 running Solaris and Windows. Afterwards, I received a number of requests asking how Linux performed on the same hardware. Now that I've finally managed to download Fedora Core 6, here are the Geekbench results for Fedora Core 6 (and Solaris, as a comparison) on a Sun Ultra 20 M2."

Red Hat has officially responded to Oracle's 'Unbreakable Linux' move. "The opportunity for Linux just got bigger. Oracle's support for Linux reaffirms Red Hat's technical industry leadership and the end of proprietary Unix. It's no accident that Red Hat was chosen #1 in value two years running. Want to know what else we think? Read on." This article has more reactions.

Alan Cox, one of the most respected figures in the UK open source community, has warned of complacency over the security of open source projects. Speaking to delegates at London's LinuxWorld conference on Wednesday, he emphasised that considerable sums of money were being spent to try and hack into open source systems. And he cautioned that many open source projects were far from secure. "Things appear in the media like open source software is more secure, more reliable and there are less bugs. Those are very dangerous statements," Cox said. My take: Agree wholeheartedly. Security complacency, often seen in OSNews' comments sections, is very, very dangerous.

Demonstrating a perhaps more aggressive path than anticipated, Sun Microsystems is set to announce the open-sourcing of the core Java platform within 30 to 60 days, Sun President and CEO Jonathan Schwartz said at the Oracle OpenWorld conference on Wednesday morning.