David Adams Archive

Open Sourcing Netscape Servers and a New Document Viewer

Submitted by Rahul Sundaram 2005-01-06 General Development 9 Comments

Red Hat developer Christopher Blizzard, who maintains the Mozilla packages, has a rather extensive blog on the plans for Open Sourcing Netscape servers that Red Hat recently brought out from AOL. Another interesting Blog is on Evince, a new document viewer to replace GPDF and Gnome Ghostview by Redhat developer Bryan Clark.

New Opera Beta for Linux Now Available

David Adams 2005-01-06 Opera 10 Comments

Opera Software today released the much awaited beta version of its next browser for the Linux platform. The new version includes Fit-to-Window-Width, Fit-to-Paper-Width, improved RSS handling, Start Bar for easy access to main features, and automatic update checks, all presented in a simplified user interface.

One Benchmark Compares NetBSD 2.0 and FreeBSD 5.3

Submitted by Tim Hawkins 2005-01-06 Benchmarks 60 Comments

According to new benchmarks NetBSD's performance has increased. In this benchmark NetBSD surpassed FreeBSD in nearly every test.

Guardian: “Mad for Macs”

Submitted by Misty 2005-01-06 Editorial 46 Comments

Jason Walsh, in an editorial for The Guardian, wonders if the kind of fawning devotion that Mac users have for their computers could persist if the Mac were to achieve more widespread use. For example, fans of the ill-fated Cube and Newton are fanatical, but is it really cool to love an iPod, now that everybody has one? It's a timely question, with the spectre of a low cost mac on the horizon.

Microsoft Nixes Windows XP for Itanium

Submitted by Tudy 2005-01-06 Windows 21 Comments

Microsoft Corp. has pulled the plug on a version of Windows XP for Intel Corp.'s Itanium 2 processor. The move marks the end for Itanium 2 in Windows-based workstations and comes after major hardware vendors abandoned the 64-bit chip for use in workstations.

Understanding NetBSD 2.0’s New Technology

Submitted by fork 2005-01-06 NetBSD 3 Comments

NewsForge has published an interview with several prominent NetBSD developers: "NetBSD is widely known as the most portable operating system in the world. It currently supports 52 system architectures . . . To celebrate the release, we've asked several well-known NetBSD developers to comment on some of NetBSD 2.0's new features." Read the interview here.

Migration to Linux from Solaris

Submitted by Rahul Sundaram 2005-01-06 Rumors 53 Comments

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange has been migrating its servers from Solaris to Linux over a period of time with about 30% completed now "When the Merc began considering its Linux deployment more than a year ago, Sun knew it wasn't in a strong position to compete. 'We didn't have a good answer for them,' acknowledges Glenn Weinberg, vice president of the operating platforms group at Sun."

ReactOS 0.2.5 Released

Submitted by Joseph Childrose 2005-01-06 ReactOS 17 Comments

New ReactOS release includes "huge improvements in general and networking and stability" and will be the last 0.2.x release. See the changelog.

Enterprise MySQL Beta Imminent

Submitted by Rahul Sundaram 2005-01-06 Databases 8 Comments

MySQL, at the end of January, is expected to release a beta version of its MySQL 5.0 open source database, which is to feature enterprise-level functionality such as stored procedures and triggers, according to a company representative.

Apple Sues ThinkSecret Over Trade Secrets

Submitted by bogey 2005-01-06 Legal 48 Comments

Apple is suing thinksecret over recent stories, including the proposed headless Mac. Apple sites specific articles in the suit. It's not crazy to assume the speculative articles are based on good information.

Linux Continues Inroads into Server Market

David Adams 2005-01-05 Linux 14 Comments

The Linux server platform is becoming more varied -- and more capable, according to a recent report by IDC. The report noted that Linux is already well entrenched as a Web-centric server platform, in IT infrastructure roles and in the high-performance computing arena. In 2005, the report predicted, Linux will take on more workloads in the enterprise, such as hosting independent software vendor applications and databases.

Navicat 5.3.1 (Database GUI Application)

Submitted by kevin 2005-01-05 General Development 14 Comments

Navicat 5.3.1 (a cross-platform MySQL client, available for OS X, Linux and Windows) now offers support for customizable History Log path, resizable Manage User window and improves the import/ export wizards. The database management tool is an integrated GUI tool, which can perform MySQL administration and database development, enabling to import/export to and from different file formats, backup data, transfer database from server to server, create visual sql queries and manage multiple databases on local or remote MySQL server. It also includes a full featured graphical manager for setting the users and access privileges. Download an evaluation.

Firefox News Tidbits

Submitted by Rahul Sundaram 2005-01-05 Mozilla, Gecko 68 Comments

WSJ's Mossberg reviews Firefox. PC World thinks Firefox gives bloatware-haters hope. A not-quite-reliable, but interesting, claim that IE's share has lost 30% of the browser market.

Mandrakesoft Relesases Corporate-Oriented Distro

David Adams 2005-01-05 Mandriva, Mandrake, Lycoris 23 Comments

Mandrakesoft just released Corporate Server and Corporate Desktop. They come from a specific development effort to make them "enterprise-ready". The two products feature longer development cycles and a 5-year maintenance span. Read the press release.

Games Knoppix Review

Submitted by Jem Matzan 2005-01-05 Games 18 Comments

Games Knoppix is an entertainment-oriented version of the popular Debian-based LiveCD known as Knoppix. The idea behind Games Knoppix is excellent -- a LiveCD that you can give to your friends to show them some of the more frivolous aspects of GNU/Linux. Disappointingly, however, many of the games on the CD do not work, many more are duplicates of the same game, everything is in German, and there are driver problems with both the 2.4 and 2.6 kernel options. Linux.com has the review.

Apple’s XServe Reaches 2.3Ghz

Submitted by J@F 2005-01-04 Apple 36 Comments

The new XServe from Apple has dual 2.3 GHz G5 processors, and starts at $2,999 for a "cluster node" version, designed for use in High Performance Computing.

Matchbox 0.9 Released

Submitted by Matthew Allum 2005-01-04 Desktop environments 10 Comments

Matchbox is a base environment for the X Window System running on non-desktop embedded platforms such as handhelds, set-top boxes, kiosks and anything else for which screen space, input mechanisms or system resources are limited. Version 0.9 was released today.

Interview with Debian Project Leader on “Sarge” Release

Submitted by Rahul Sundaram 2005-01-04 Debian 20 Comments

Newsforge has a interesting interview with the Debian project leaders on the new debian release planned to be released in a short while

Introduction to Qt 4 Beta 1

Submitted by Johan Thelin 2005-01-04 Qt 17 Comments

The author of the Independent Qt Tutorial has published an example-driven article about Qt 4 beta 1. The text touches the new Designer and some of the code-level changes that will affect application developers.

Interview with Linspire CEO Michael Robertson

David Adams 2005-01-04 Original OSNews Interviews 76 Comments

OSNews "sat down" with Linspire CEO Michael Robertson for a Q&A about his company's efforts as the banner-carrier for Linux-on-the-desktop. We discussed the upcoming Linux Desktop Summit in San Diego and the perceptions and realities of the obstacles to widespread desktop Linux use. Linspire also extended a special offer to OSNews readers: a free download of Linspire and a 30 day CNR subscription, so put yourself in Granny's shoes (not literally, please) and give it a try. Correction: The free offer expires on January 15.