Eugenia Loli Archive

802.11: Understanding the Alphabet Soup

Eugenia Loli 2003-02-17 Internet 13 Comments

"Wi-Fi's rise through the corporate structure has been meteoric. The technology has quickly progressed from an alternative wireless method to the de facto means to transfer data wirelessly within a LAN. However, before the mass adoption of Wi-Fi in the enterprise occurs, the advantages and disadvantages of 802.11a and the emerging 802.11g must be understood." Read the article at InfoWorld.

Colorful KDE 3.1 Performance On Low-End Hardware

Eugenia Loli 2003-02-17 KDE 102 Comments

"Variety is the spice of life for the Linux desktop of today. For sheer speed and few features you can run a minimalist desktop like BlackBox. At the upper end of the scale is KDE 3.1. This full-blown desktop offers advanced features, extreme customization and tight application integration." At LinuxPlanet.

MenuetOS version 0.73 Released

Eugenia Loli 2003-02-17 OS News 12 Comments

The version 0.73 of MenuetOS includes a tiny HTTP & Mp3 server, IRC client, real-time additions & demos. Also, SkyOS redesigned their driver handling, while Syllable is preparing an IDE driver.

Novell Revs Up NetWare

Eugenia Loli 2003-02-17 In the News 28 Comments

Network software pioneer Novell Inc. is dusting off its operating system and readying a version that highlights improved management and administration capabilities, as well as features targeted at the developer community. Read the article at eWeek.

Microsoft Loosens Apple’s Hold on Schools

Eugenia Loli 2003-02-17 Rumors 47 Comments

Apple Computer, formerly the undisputed leader in sales of personal computers to schools, has steadily lost ground over the years to lower-priced PCs that run Microsoft Windows software. And these days the company faces another threat in the education market: a proposed class-action legal settlement by Microsoft that could result in the donation of hundreds of millions of dollars of Microsoft software to needy schools throughout California.

Group is Working on a BeOS ‘Sequel’

Eugenia Loli 2003-02-17 Haiku 120 Comments

A handfull of well known --to the BeOS community-- developers have come together to create a new OS, which starts where BeOS left off. Bear in mind that this OS, named Sequel, is not a BeOS clone, but a brand new OS which adds new things in the mix while retains the best features found on BeOS and other OSes. The OS is closed source and it is in early stages: it currently boots off a floppy and has a shell. Editor's note: I am part of the small team, since its first days, a few months ago. I designed part of the UI for this OS, but I am looking forward to get a working GUI system before I dive in and do some "real" work on the UI and usability. Stay tuned for more news about Sequel in the future. UPDATE: Please note that this is NOT "my" project. I merely help out the guys on the UI, and nothing more. UPDATE 2: March 2003: I have resigned of my role on Sequel.

Attack of the Clones: Is Lindows the Real Deal?

Eugenia Loli 2003-02-17 Linspire 13 Comments

Lindows 3.0 promises fast installations, easy updates, and an interface built to please. Seth Fogie takes a closer look at this operating system to determine whether Lindows has accomplished its goal. Free registration required to read the article.

Journaled File System Available for Testing on FreeBSD-Current

Eugenia Loli 2003-02-17 FreeBSD 21 Comments

The Journaled File System for FreeBSD (JFS4BSD) Project has the goal of porting the JFS Technology from IBM/Linux to FreeBSD. It uses a log-based, byte-level file system that was developed for transaction-oriented, high performance systems. Scalable and robust, its advantage over non-journaled file systems is its quick restart capability: JFS can restore a file system to a consistent state, fsck times go down, and it is easy to fall-back to the last good state of the filesystem in a matter of seconds or minutes. The jfsutils is under a compilable state on FreeBSD. Read more at BSDForums.
Our Take: Anyone's working on porting SGI's XFS to FreeBSD?

Memory Hierarchy in Cache-Based Systems

Eugenia Loli 2003-02-17 General Development No Comments

This article at InformIT (free reg. req.) will help the reader understand the architecture of modern microprocessors by introducing and explaining the most common terminology and addressing some of the performance related aspects. Written for programmers and people who have a general interest in microprocessors, this article presents introductory information on caches and is designed to provide understanding on how modern microprocessors work and how a cache design impacts performance.

A Review of SuSE Linux Office Desktop

Eugenia Loli 2003-02-16 SuSE, openSUSE 15 Comments

"If there is one thing I can say about SuSE Linux, it's that they know how to put together a desktop distro. This has been evident for quite some time, and nothing has changed. Their new Office Desktop release is built upon the solid foundation that is SuSE's desktop expertise." Read the review at MadPenguin.

GCC Myths and Facts

Eugenia Loli 2003-02-16 General Development 13 Comments

"Since my good old Pentium 166 days, I've liked to search for the best optimizations possible so programs can take the maximum advantage of hardware/CPU cycles. If I have a nice piece of hardware, why not run it at its full power, using every little feature? Shouldn't we all try to get the best results from the money invested in our machines?" Read the article at FreshMeat.

XPde 0.2.0 Released

Submitted by FH 2003-02-16 Desktop environments 63 Comments

There is a new version of the X11 desktop environment which emulates Windows, XPde.

YellowTab Updates Web Site, Secures Finance and… OS

Submitted by Andre Reavis 2003-02-16 Zeta 73 Comments

YellowTab has updated its web site, added some screenshots from Zeta's betas, while recent press releases from the group are mentioning YellowTab getting financial support and collaborating with another firm on securing Zeta.

FreeBSD 4.8 Release Schedule Announced, Firewire Updates Added

Eugenia Loli 2003-02-15 FreeBSD 17 Comments

The new FreeBSD 4.8 Release schedule has been announced. Hidetoshi Shimokawa has added new functionality to Firewire on this scheduled FreeBSD 4.8 release. New features include built-in DV support, improved recovery process & timeout stability and Write/ioctl support for /dev/fwmem0. He has not tested this on PAL and is looking for volunteers.

Preview 1 of Opera 7 for Linux Available

Submitted by Many 2003-02-15 Opera 29 Comments

Espen Sand announces the availability of first preview of Opera 7 for Linux. The Linux specific features from 6.1 no longer exist, the new preview release comes with an email and news client. You can pick from a static or shared (dynamically linked) packages. Read the email and get the download links from BSDForums. Additionally, Opera released yesterday a funny version of Opera 7 for Windows, as an answer to the MSN problems. In other browser news, Apple released a third Safari beta (v60) recently.

Windows XP Passwords Rendered Useless

Submitted by Matthias Toth 2003-02-15 Windows 49 Comments

"Windows XP, which has been marketed by Microsoft as "the most secure version ever," has been found to have a flaw so bone-headed that it renders passwords ineffective as a means of keeping people out of your PC. Reader Tony DeMartino alerted me to the problem, which all administrators of Windows XP machines should immediately take to heart:" Read Brian's article at BrianBuzz.com.

Intel, Red Hat Cure Open-source Hiccup

Eugenia Loli 2003-02-15 Open Source 11 Comments

Red Hat and Intel have settled a licensing hiccup that threatened to prevent the Linux company from contributing to Intel's open-source project--a reminder of the frictions that can arise between the commercial tech world and the open-source community.

New Linux Support Policies are Ominous

Eugenia Loli 2003-02-15 Privacy, Security 35 Comments

Red Hat and Mandrake are cutting support for older versions of their Linux distributions... The results will be a security nightmare for the Internet, says Jon Lasser.

Gotchas when Porting UNIX Software to Mac OS X

Eugenia Loli 2003-02-15 macOS 2 Comments

"Over the past year and change I've worked on porting quite a few projects to OS X. At first, it's a pretty scary ordeal, but most of the issues you'll run into are easily solved if you know how. To save yourself the trouble of figuring this out yourself, read on..." The article is located at Advogato. More porting tips at Fink's site.

A Chat with Bill Gates

Eugenia Loli 2003-02-15 Microsoft 25 Comments

At January's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, PC Magazine editor-in-chief Michael Miller talked with Microsoft chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates. The conversation ranged from Tablet PCs and Microsoft's effort—dubbed SPOT—to infuse watches and other everyday objects with online intelligence, Longhorn, to a slated Xbox Live showdown between Gates and NBA star Shaquille O'Neal. "I'm a little worried," Gates conceded, regarding the face-off with Shaq.