OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

GParted LiveCD 3.1-1 Impressions

Submitted by Deathspawner 2006-09-17 Linux 18 Comments

"Are you in need of a great partitioner? Don't want to spend lots of cash for the popular commercial products? The GParted LiveCD offers most of the features that the big boys do, and even some that they don't. The key benefit? This is free."

Apache Geronimo and the Spring Framework

Submitted by anonymous 2006-09-17 Java 6 Comments

Apache Geronimo is making news with its latest release, version 1.1. At its core is the Inversion Of Control model, which is also the core pattern for the Spring Framework. The Spring Framework was built on the principle that Java EE should be easier to use. This article provides information about the Spring Framework modules and how they relate to developing Java EE applications on Geronimo.

Submitted by nedvis 2006-09-17 Oracle and SUN 1 Comment

"With 20 years of experience in software development, Simon Phipps has helped guide Sun's open source strategy, including the OpenSolaris project. Now, as chief open source officer at Sun, Phipps has been given the weighty task of deciding how to open source all of Sun's software. Inner Circle recently sat down with Phipps to discuss open source licenses, working with communities of developers, and how governance of open source projects is critical to success."

AtomicOS – Another AjaxOS

Eugenia Loli 2006-09-16 OS News 17 Comments

There is at least one project that aims to build an Ajax OS from the ground up: Atomic OS. It has a ROM and a Kernel and build itself up much like a real operating system on real hardware. The only difference is that everything is written in Javascript.

Submitted by michuk 2006-09-16 Desktop environments 17 Comments

FVWM-Crystal is an eye-candy, functional and ultra-fast desktop environment for GNU/Linux and Unix, based on FVWM. Crystal can be used even on very old machines, thus it is a noticeable alternative to popular desktop choices like XFCE or Fluxbox.

Confessions of a Recovering NetBSD Zealot

Eugenia Loli 2006-09-16 NetBSD 28 Comments

BSD devcenter at onlamp.com has an interview with Charles M. Hannum, one of the creators of the NetBSD Project and the NetBSD Foundation, about the evolution of the project, funds management, problems with licenses and hardware documentation, the link with vendors, past and current mistakes, and what we can learn from the Linux development process.

How to Use Eclipse for C and C++ Development

Eugenia Loli 2006-09-16 General Development 22 Comments

Mike McCullough reviews briefly on the history of the Eclipse framework and provides details and perspective on new additions to the Web-based IDE, such as Eclipse Plugin Central (EPIC), Callisto, BIRT, and CDT. Also, learn Eclipse Callisto release GMF in 15 minutes.

VMware Player Now Runs Para-Virtualized Linux

Submitted by Alessandro Perilli 2006-09-16 OS News 14 Comments

At the last USENIX VMware and XenSource finally agreed to work on a joint project for hypervisor standardization, coordinated by Rusty Russell, Linux kernel hacker working for IBM Linux Technology Center, and called paravirt-ops. But VMware doesn't want to give up its own standardization implementation, VMI, and today released by surprise a working version of its Player able to run para-virtualized Linux distributions over a VMI compliant engine.

10 Programming Languages You Should Learn Right Now

Eugenia Loli 2006-09-15 General Development 88 Comments

By picking the brains of Web developers and IT recruiters, eWEEK selected 10 programming languages that are a bonus for developers to add to their resumes. Even better, they're great jumping-off points, with loads of job opportunities for younger recruits.

Submitted by SEJeff 2006-09-15 Ubuntu 41 Comments

With a slight delay, the next development snapshot of Ubuntu Edgy Eft has been released. As usual, it is available for x86, PowerPC, and AMD64. Edgy Eft's final release is scheduled for coming October. The proposed goals for Edgy Eft are listed on Ubuntu's Launchpad.

Microsoft Office Is Under EU Scrutiny

Thom Holwerda 2006-09-15 Legal 42 Comments

The European Union's antitrust commission plans to investigate complaints regarding Microsoft Office, EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said Thursday. Kroes, who was speaking at the Fordham Annual Conference on International Antitrust Law and Policy, did not elaborate on the investigation.

Submitted by Saad 2006-09-15 Apple 9 Comments

"Back in the mid-nineties, Apple was a company without focus. After the explosive growth of the Macintosh in the late eighties, Apple was flush with cash, but had little strategy to guide its investments. As a result, products like eWorld were developed while Apple's core products languished. Meant as a substitute to the very expensive AppleLink online service, eWorld was based on the AOL network, and presented a friendly face to several proprietary online services and limited internet connectivity. eWorld failed to gain much of a foothold in the market, and was quietly discontinued in 1996 (only months before CEO Michael Spindler, was ousted)."

Mozilla Updates Firefox, Thunderbird, Seamonkey

Submitted by george 2006-09-15 Mozilla, Gecko 34 Comments

The Mozilla Corporation today issued small updates for its popular Firefox Web browser and Thunderbird e-mail applications, primarily targeting security problems. The updates take both products to version 1.5.0.7, and were issued via the vendor's automatic update system this morning, Australia-time. The less popular SeaMonkey mail and browsing suite was also updated to version 1.0.5. Update: DesktopLinux has a detailed explanation on the changelog. Also, Camino 1.0.3 of OSX was released.

Top Ten Requests for Future iPod Games

Eugenia Loli 2006-09-15 Games 38 Comments

For the 5th+ iPod generation Apple has just introduced downloadable games and so far they offer 9 games for $4.99 each. Looking back in the classic era of computer gaming we remember some real gems that would fit right into the "keep it simple stupid" philosophy of the iPod. So, let's have some fun and suggest 10 classic games that would specifically work well with the iPod scroll wheel interface.

Free Download of Xandros Desktop 4 Trial Edition

Eugenia Loli 2006-09-15 Oracle and SUN 14 Comments

Xandros has announced that it started offering a free 30-day trial edition of Xandros Desktop 4 Premium for free download. Xandros Desktop 4 is a beginner-friendly distribution with a customised version of KDE and a host of intuitive desktop utilities designed to ease migration from Windows to Linux.

How Colour-Blind People See Your UIs

Thom Holwerda 2006-09-14 Graphics 32 Comments

"The color blindness is the inability to perceive differences between some or all colors that other people can distinguish. According to the medical studies, eight to ten percent of male population suffers from some kind of color blindness (figure for female population is much lower). What does it mean to the average Swing developer? Well, if you rely too much on color differences, you may be not conveying the information as well as you thought. Now you can run your application in debug UI mode and have a live preview of your UI as viewed by the color-blind population."

Microsoft’s Zune Launched

Thom Holwerda 2006-09-14 Microsoft 87 Comments

Usually, we do not report on .mp3 players. However, sometimes we cannot go around them. Today is one of those times: Microsoft has launched its supposed iPod killer, the Zune. "Not a lot of surprises in the specs department, but they've confirmed the basics we've known for a while, like WiFi, 30GB of HDD, built-in FM, a 3-inch screen and the basic music, pictures and video playback. They also finally let slip the screen res - an unsurprising QVGA - and some better news on the codec front: the Zune supports h.264, MP3, AAC and WMA."

KDE 4 ‘Krash’ Packages on Mac OS X, openSUSE, Kubuntu

Submitted by Smirnoff 2006-09-14 KDE 28 Comments

Packages for the first KDE 4 developers snapshot "Krash" have started appearing. Most exciting is packages for a whole new platform, Mac OS X. More details are on Benjamin Reed's blog. For the traditionalists packages are available from openSUSE and Kubuntu. If you are a KDE application developer, this is the easiest way to start porting your application to KDE 4. Meanwhile work is continuing on KDE on Windows where developers have successfully got all of kdelibs compiling. Finally the KDE Women project has a new tutorial to get you started in KDE4 development.

Fedora Core 6 Test3 Released

Submitted by Philipp Esselbach 2006-09-14 Fedora Core 53 Comments

The Fedora Project announces the third and final test release of the Fedora Core 6 development cycle, available for the i386, x86_64, and ppc/ppc64 architectures, including Intel based Macintosh computers. It features GNOME 2.16.0, KDE 3.5.3, desktop eye candy provided by the Compiz window manager using AIGLX, and much more. Get it via BitTorrent, or via http/ftp.

Submitted by Valour 2006-09-14 Mandriva, Mandrake, Lycoris 7 Comments

"MandrivaLinux will shortly introduce a new round of releases for its Corporate Server, Corporate Desktop, and PowerPack Edition GNU/Linux distributions. While preparing to review these operating systems I sent some interview questions to Mandriva's CEO, Francois Bancilhon."