Eugenia Loli Archive

Christian Neumair a core contributor to the Nautilus and gnome-vfs project for GNOME detected some critical design flaws inside gnome-vfs and brought up some concerns wether these problems can be fixed at all. He also mentioned that these critical design issues might lead into loss of important data and other nasty things.

Businesses, educational institutions, governmental agencies and other organizations around the world are converting1 their computer operating systems from Microsoft Windows to Linux at an increasing pace. They are likewise converting their application programs from commercial software to free software (also referred to as open source software). There are at least 25 reasons for this situation, including:

NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab is using Linux extensively... on the desktop! "At the JPL, it is common to see Red Hat Inc., SuSE or Mandriva Linux running on users' desktops alongside Windows.". On a side note, they don't trust Linux on the server: "Our personal view is that Linux, period, is only for the desktop. We don't run our main servers on Linux, because there are too many flaws in main Linux kernel," he said.

It's early, but developers say they are laying the groundwork for the Mac and Windows to be interchangeable in the workplace if needed. Microsoft's Virtual PC will go Intel, and Office for the Mac will go XML.

Today virtualization is expensive for licensing. Microsoft asks people to license every OS installed on virtual machines, even if powered off. But something is changing. Since the release of Windows Server 2003 R2 Microsoft started approaching a per-use licensing model instead of a per-installation model. So that now Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition owners can run up to 4 virtual machines with same OS at no additional costs.

After 2 years of examination the U.S Patent and Trademark Office has reversed its two earlier unofficial decisions and decided that Microsoft's File Allocation Table file system constitutes a "novel and non-obvious" system enabling it to be patented. This coupled with Microsofts plans to charge licensing fees for use of the system could cause many problems for open-source operating systems that implement the file system, or even to mp3 players. Elsewhere, APCMag.com has an interview with Microsoft's "open source point man" Martin Gregory.

BentUser takes a look at the differrences between Windows XP SP2 and Windows Vista b5270. The differrences are interesting and help to show what improvements, if any, have been made in the oft-delayed operating system.

Serenity Systems International (SSI) today announced a beta testing program for the upcoming 2.0 release of eComStation, an OEM distribution of IBM's OS/2 operating system. This is the fourth release of eComStation, which was launched in 2000.

Samsung developed a new UI on top of Linux for their new line of touchscreen-based high-end phones. The phones sport QVGA touchscreens, Bluetooth, 2 MP camera, microSD storage and TV-out. For more information, pictures and links have a look at TuxTops.com.

A powerful 2D animation product, Synfig, was open sourced recently under the GPL after the company behind it failed in the market place. The application is still actively maintained by its original author, Robert B. Quattlebaum, which we interview today about.

A surefire way to ignite a Web flame war is to say one programming language is better than another. James Gosling, known the "father of Java," understands that as well as anybody.

Speculations are very strong just a few days before the Tuesday Steve Jobs keynote. Take the poll and choose from some of the most talked-about rumors around, or leave a comment if you have another opinion as to what Apple has in store for us.

At least three Linux-based phones were shown at CES this week. WNC's GW1 dual mode GSM/WiFi SIP phone is running a version of Trolltech's latest Qtopia Phone edition with VoIP/SIP capabilities. Motorola showed its new Linux-based ROKR E2 feature-phone too (pics, video), but the iTunes software is now removed. This feature phone uses Motorola's new softkey-based UI. Recently, information became known for Motorola's A1200, which uses the older touchscreen UI, same to the one we reviewed a few months ago. Unfortunately, the SDKs of these phones won't be released to developers at large to create native applications, as Motorola is not interested in creating a compatible Linux "platform" similar to Symbian/WinMobile/Palm platforms and instead is pushing just for generic Java apps.

We all know that PSP users who haven't upgraded their firmware beyond 1.50 are able to run third party hobby applications as opposed to just commercial ones. This community has ported a large number of emulators to the PSP able to run almost every console game ever released. Apparently, someone also ported the Basilisk-II 68k emulator which allows users to run a full copy of Mac OS 8.1 on it. Video here (since that video was made a new version of the port allows for a much faster runtime).