Eugenia Loli Archive

Network software maker Novell continued its move into the Linux market with the release on Tuesday of its first Linux-based desktop services package.

"By now, Windows and Unix are functionally more similar than different. They both support the same major programming metaphors, from command lines to GUIs to web servers; they are organized around virtually the same panoply of system resources, from nearly identical file systems to memory to sockets and processes and threads. There's not much about the core set of services provided by each operating system to limit the kinds of applications you can create. What's left is cultural differences." Read the article by JoelOnSoftware.

IsComputerOn reports that Axel Dörfler, OpenTracker's maintainer, would like everyone's opinion on a new feature he is working on: If, let's say, you have folder A and folder B, both showing (their contents) in Tracker windows. You want to create a link (or move, or copy) folder A to folder B, you right-click and drag the little icon (screenshot) into folder B, no need to go to the parent folder of A and then drag it.

" I am talking about the architecture, problems that can not be solved without incompatibilities or at least a lot of work. A ‘modern GUI-based OS’ is, for me, a OS that does not require a user to know or use a command line tool, even for rare system-administration tasks. That does not mean that it should be impossible to work with the command line and a text editor, but the command line must not be the only way to do an administration task." Read the article at KDEdevelopers.org.

Microsoft plans to reorganize its Windows unit, creating a new division more tightly focused on the development of the core operating system, CNET News.com has learned. Also, Microsoft posted a review of their technology for 2003 and a preview for 2004.

This article looks at four open source development environments for working with Python code on Unix-like operating systems. He evaluates two general-purpose editors/environments and two Python-specific ones, and compares the merits of each.

Slashdot reports that Intel has released version 8.0 of their C/C++ compiler for both Windows and Linux. This release has been rumored for a long time to contain better GCC source and binary compatibility.

On Tuesday, developers from both the Debian and KDE projects will announce an ambitious initiative to provide a Linux desktop operating system aimed at the needs of large organizations. By working together the group intends to deliver an integrated solution for the desktop needs of government agencies, educational institutions and enterprises.

Slashdot reports that TICalc.org announced yesterday that Patrick Pelisier has released a new beta OS, called PedroM, for the TI-89 and TI-92+ under the GPL.

"One of the problems of computer security in practice is providing an easy mechanism for the user of a system to take advantage of the security features present in an operating system. A system may have significant security features, but absent an interface that allows the user to easily make use of those features the effective security of the system may be low." Read the PDF paper here. Elsewhere, BBC writes about Panther: "Apple, fed up with playing second string to Windows, has been taking its operating system from strength to strength."

GNUstep is a set of general-purpose Objective-C libraries based on the OpenStep standard developed by NeXT (now Apple) Inc. Changes include in NSWindow, DnD now works on the whole window, and events are propogated up to the first DnD aware view. Absolute paths and DnD work in OpenPanels.

The GNOME Development Release 2.5.1: "Hey, at least I'm housebroken", is ready for testing. It is available for immediate download on ftp.gnome.org and mirrors.

While it's no Indigo Espresso or a VAX Bar (though, of course, there is NetBSD/sgimips and NetBSD/vax), at least you can log in on a Mr. Coffee. And while the JavaStation has been running NetBSD for a while, full support is now completely in-tree:

KernelTrap posted an interview with William Lee Irwin III, aka 'wli', and a step-by-step guide to installing his performance improving -wli patchset.