Eugenia Loli Archive

The weekend is ahead and the day of relaxing from coding furiously all week, should also be near. Given that most OS coders love sci-fi, here are some sci-fi movie and TV news: One of the most highly anticipated new sci-fi series, a revival of 70s cult classic Battlestar Galactica, has been shelved after director Bryan Singer jumped ship to direct 'X-Men 2'.

With the 2.4 release of Linux come a host of new filesystem possibilities, including Reiserfs, XFS, JFS, and others. These filesystems sound cool, but what exactly can they do, what are they good at, and exactly how do you go about safely using them in a production Linux environment? Daniel Robbins answers these questions by showing you how to set up these new advanced filesystems under Linux 2.4. In this installment, Daniel takes a look at ext3, a new improved version of ext2 with journaling capabilities. Make sure you read the also incredibly interesting previous articles: Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.

From TheRegister: "Sun is expected to announce the introduction of Gigahertz processors on Monday, the first time Sun has shipped SPARCS clocked higher than 1GHz. The SunBlade 1000 will be the first to receive the 1,050MHz SPARC IIIs. It isn't the first RISC chip to reach the milestone: Compaq's Alpha can claim that prize..."

Some weeks ago we hosted an interesting interview with Guillaume Maillard regarding the BlueOS effort to 'save' the BeOS by using a modified Linux kernel as its basis. The team has just released a new screenshot based on the BlueOS GUI, running under the BeOS app_server for the moment instead of under XFree. However, a preliminary BeOS-alike app_server for XFree, is already on their CVS.

DirectX is the multimedia system foundation for Windows operating systems. This latest version of DirectX (released very recently) offers updated graphics, faster frame rates, and support for massive multiplayer games. It also offers more immersive audio when running and displaying programs rich in multimedia elements, such as full-color graphics, video, 3D animation, and surround sound. The Windows2000 binary is 7.6 MB while for Windows98/98SE/ME, the download weighs 11.5 MB. Users of Windows XP do not need to install DirectX 8.1 as it is already included, while Windows95 is not supported at all anymore.

KDE 3.0 is mostly a release for supporting QT 3.0 rather than a full blown release with major new featues. Some new features (like font fading) and other minor visual changes do exist, but primarily this release will feature lots of new bundled KDE applications compiled for QT 3. Screenshots of KDE 3 can be found here (mirror page here) and even more info can be found at dot.KDE.org.

"This is probably the greatest week ever for gamers. The Xbox and GameCube will be launched while the PlayStation 2 is at the top of its game. Will players buy Microsoft's deal: a CPU based on a 733MHz Pentium III, 8GB hard drive, ethernet port and strong game lineup? Physically, this is probably the largest video game console ever and Bill Gates and the WWF's The Rock will attest that it's the best. See what's inside that makes it rumble." Special on ZDNews.

SuSE Linux announced the release of SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 7 for S/390, the latest version of its server operating system for deployment in enterprise mainframes. Based on kernel 2.4, this SuSE server version now supports S/390 servers as well as IBM eServer zSeries z900. SuSE offers a solution for consolidation of mission-critical e-business applications with HiperSockets support, Logical Volume Manager and Journaling Filesystem. SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 7 for S/390 will be available from the end of November from SuSE and SuSE Linux Enterprise Partners. Prices start at $4,500 USD.

Apple has posted Mac OS X 10.1.1 and it is installable via via System Preferences' Software Update pane. Last week's Installer Update 1.0 must be installed first. MacOSX 10.1.1 "delivers improvements for many USB and FireWire devices, including support for additional digital cameras, and overall improvements to CD and DVD Burning. The update includes enhancements to AFP, SMB and WebDAV networking, updates to the Finder and Mail applications, as well as improved support for printing. In addition, hardware accelerated video mirroring has been enabled for the new PowerBook G4." The download weighs in at 14.4 MB.

"It's hard to browse the Web or read a computer magazine without finding a reference to Linux, the operating-system wunderkind created by Linus Torvalds and developed by a host of others. But although Linux steals the headlines, ISPs and system administrators often choose one of the BSDs - a group of operating systems based on code polished during more than 20 years of research at one of America's leading academic institutions. What are the BSDs? And why should you consider using them if you're looking for a non-Windows operating system?"

Opera Software ASA today unveiled Opera 6.0 for Windows Beta 1, introducing a browser with an array of new and improved features, including a completely new default user interface, skins, buttons and panels. With the release of Opera 6.0 for Windows (3.2 MB), Opera reaches out to users accustomed to competing browsers' single document interface (SDI) and targets users in regions that previously could not use Opera.

Be, Inc. announced that the stockholders of Be have approved the sale of substantially all of its intellectual property and other technology assets to a subsidiary of Palm, Inc., pursuant to the terms of a previously announced asset purchase agreement between Be and Palm. The stockholders of Be have also approved the proposed dissolution of Be pursuant to the terms of a plan of dissolution. It is anticipated that the transaction with Palm will close within the next two business days. We hope that the sale of Be's IP to Palm will have a positive outcome regarding the BeOS and the BeUnited effort to license the BeOS source code.

"ATi and nVidia both launched mobile graphics chips yesterday, the first aimed at retaining ATi's leadership of this market segment, while the nVidia part is designed to wrest the crown away from it. ATi's part is the Mobility FireGL 7800, a high-end mobile workstation-oriented chip (hence the FireGL branding) that supports up to 64MB of 128-bit DDR SDRAM. The chip is clocked at 270MHz. nVidia's NV17M is the successor to the GeForce2Go. The new part clocks in at 250MHz and supports up to 64MB of frame buffer memory." Read the rest of the news report at TheRegister.

"Will your next portable computer be a tablet PC? Microsoft hopes so, and it has lined up a handful of partners that are showing prototype models of its reference design and plan to ship the real thing in mid-2002. For the second year here at Comdex, the software behemoth is pushing tablet computing that combines the portability of a laptop, the convenience of pen and paper, and of course Microsoft software." Read the rest of the news report at PCWorld.