OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Give your Fingers a Break with Unix Shell Shortcuts

Eugenia Loli 2006-08-14 Unix 37 Comments

Every skilled trade has its secrets -- those little tricks, techniques, and tools that make light of even the most complex task. Programmers, system administrators, and other UNIX computer professionals have their own kind of specialized tools. Learn how to leverage the many shortcuts that the UNIX shell provides. With a little practice, you'll work smarter, not harder.

Extending the GPL for Application Service Providers

Submitted by lh8 2006-08-14 Open Source 11 Comments

Funambol CEO Fabrizio Capobianco is scheduled to announce a draft version of a modified GPL today that would add a provision requiring service providers to distribute changes to code, even if they don't "distribute" the code beyond their own servers. Capobianco calls this the Honest Public License (HPL), and the additional provision could add an entirely new wrinkle to free software.

Submitted by Flatline 2006-08-14 Debian 17 Comments

Debian is a steadfastly noncommercial version of Linux. But Hewlett-Packard will give it a big corporate hug Monday with the announcement of a plan to provide support for the open-source operating system.

Microsoft Gives XBOX 360’s SDK to the World

Eugenia Loli 2006-08-14 Games 61 Comments

Microsoft's XNA Game Studio Express targetting the XBOX 360 will democratize game development by delivering the necessary tools to hobbyists, students, indie developers and studios alike to help them bring their creative game ideas to life while nurturing game development talent, collaboration and sharing that will benefit the entire industry.

Linux Powers Unusual 16-Core Processor

Submitted by Shean Terry 2006-08-14 Hardware 43 Comments

A start-up called Movidis believes a 16-core chip originally designed for networking gear will be a ticket to success in the Linux server market. The Revolution x16 models from Movidis each use a single 500MHz or 600MHz Cavium Networks Octeon CN3860 chip.

Beyond DirectX 10 – A Glance at DirectX 10.1

Eugenia Loli 2006-08-14 3D 17 Comments

"DirectX 10 is likely to see a number of point revisions during its lifespan and the first of these, imaginatively titled DirectX 10.1, will be the first of these. It may surprise some of you reading this, but the features which will be added by DirectX 10.1 have already been decided upon and information made available about them, so in this article we'll be taking a look through what we can expect to see in DirectX 10.1 compliant hardware."

Hardware Virtualization Slower Than Software?

Eugenia Loli 2006-08-13 OS News 28 Comments

" a new white paper by VMWare that comes to the surprising conclusion that hardware-assisted x86 virtualization oftentimes fails to outperform software-assisted virtualization. My reading of the paper says that this counterintuitive result is often due to the fact that hardware-assisted virtualization relies on expensive traps to catch privileged instructions while software-assisted virtualization uses inexpensive software substitutions." Read more at Slashdot.

Inside Mac OS X v10.5, a Visual Preview

Submitted by Mark White 2006-08-13 macOS 48 Comments

Here are just a couple of screenshots from Leopard and explanation of some of the new features.

Advanced Installation Tasks in FreeBSD 6

Eugenia Loli 2006-08-13 FreeBSD 19 Comments

This chapter explains the ins and outs of non-standard FreeBSD installations. If you are installing FreeBSD on a system with another operating system previously installed, or if you aren't using a CD or DVD to install FreeBSD, you'll want to read this chapter before performing the installation.

Editing and Refactoring Code in NetBeans

Eugenia Loli 2006-08-13 Java 4 Comments

NetBeans IDE provides a wide variety of tools to support Java application development, but it is the Source Editor where you will spend most of your time. Given that fact, a lot of attention has been put into features and subtle touches to make coding faster and more pleasurable. This chapter covers the ins and outs of the Source Editor.

Fun with Fractals in Visual Studio .NET

Eugenia Loli 2006-08-13 .NET 1 Comment

If you're old enough to remember the 1970s, the current popular fascination with fractals probably flashes you back to those halcyon days of big hair and wild imagery. Whatever your age, you'll enjoy Peter Aitken's explanation of how fractals work. You can even plug in his Visual Studio demo program and make some fractals of your own.

Submitted by binarycrusader 2006-08-13 Intel 43 Comments

The driver source code released for the Intel 965 Graphics chipset recently isn't as open as first thought. Keith Packard posted a reply on the linux-kernel mailing list detailing what parts were not available.

Ubuntu vs. Debian: What Canonical Doesn’t Want You To Know

Eugenia Loli 2006-08-12 Debian 93 Comments

"Debian and Ubuntu. Ubuntu and Debian. How are they different? How are they the same? Well, most of the differences lie in the target userbase of the OSes. Debian is attempting the unattemptable by making a distro that's right for almost every use imaginable. Servers use it, workstations use it, monkeys I'm sure could use it too. That comes at a price." More here.

Take a Closer Look at the Most Secure Unix OS: OpenBSD

Eugenia Loli 2006-08-12 OpenBSD 36 Comments

OpenBSD strives to be the most secure UNIX derivation. Design principles, such as code auditing, extensive use of encryption, and careful configuration choices, combine to ensure OpenBSD's secure by default philosophy holds true. This article gives you a close look at the operating system so secure that it was once banned for use in a DEF CON competition, where crackers go after each other's systems.

Submitted by Rahul 2006-08-12 Fedora Core 16 Comments

"Overall, FC6 looks and feels like a more solid, polished version of FC5 rather than a wholesale revamp. I look forward to the finished product this fall." Check the short commentary here.

Submitted by Begasus 2006-08-12 Zeta 19 Comments

Magnussoft has posted a news item to let customers know that the first games have been ported for ZETA 1.21. These are pretty important releases for Zeta's software base.

No Open Graphics Drivers from AMD

Submitted by fish reloaded 2006-08-12 3D 77 Comments

Statement by ATI: "For other markets, such as workstation and consumer, performance and feature differentiation are key metrics. Proprietary, patented optimizations are part of the value we provide to our customers and we have no plans to release these drivers to open source. In addition, multimedia elements such as content protection must not, by their very nature, be allowed to go open source."

Yet Another Way to Browse OSNews

Eugenia Loli 2006-08-12 OS News 20 Comments

Between the full desktop version, the subscriber's ad-free version, the normal mobile version (via autodetection), the very lite mobile version and the WAP version of OSNews, here is one more: http://osnews.com/pda . This version is built around our RSS feed and it's geared towards cellphones (like the Motorola RaZR line) that can't quite manage to render our normal mobile front page (28 KB overall) while the very lite or WAP versions don't have enough information in them so they leave our readers with a bitter taste. Hence, we implemented this RSS-based middle-ground mobile version, like we also did for other popular sites yesterday (screenshots). The PHP source code that generates this mobile-friendly layout is freely available and ready to be deployed, courtecy of MoBits.com.

Talking Mono with Miguel de Icaza

Eugenia Loli 2006-08-11 Mono 39 Comments

Sam of Port25 sits down with Miguel de Icaza, VP Development Platform at Novell and co-founder of Ximian. In this interview Sam and Miguel talk about the history behind Mono, the current state of the project and Miguel's thoughts on Mono as it relates to .NET.

Submitted by Saad 2006-08-11 IBM 27 Comments

"August 12, 1981 marks the birth of the IBM PC, the computer that single-handedly turned personal computing to the business market. IBM's success forced Apple and others to change their focus, and most personal computer companies from the pre-IBM era have become historical footnotes. By 2006, even Apple Computer had followed IBM's lead and adopted Intel CPUs and built Macs that can boot Microsoft Windows." Yes, boys and girls, she's that old. A 'thank you' is in order, I suppose.