Archive
In the
previous article, our computer newbie family, Mike, Diane, Mary and Carla, had decided they wanted GNU/Linux installed on the new family/business computer. Debian, via Libranet 2.0, was installed on the system, with appropriate business/office software, as well as the Gnome desktop environment. The next steps involved getting the system configured for easy use and adding various minor tweaks. Mike, Diane and the kids were not involved during the configuration phase of the system.
I can't take anymore comments like "Debian/Gentoo/OpenBSD/etc. are not good/user-friendly because they lack a graphical installer." Searching the web, I couldn't find a comprehensive site describing the good and the bad about graphical installers for various OSes throughout the years, so in this article I hope to debunk a few of the myths on the basis of my own personal and professional experience.
The paper considers a mathematical model of the behavior of an assembly of N stars. The 'Kepler' Microsoft Windows demo application based of this model enables to perform real-time simulation of star clusters dynamics for N~=2500. Such performance rate is possible through the use of the Intel Integrated Performance Primitives (IPP) library. The paper also estimates the efficiency of the IPP application and provides an example of C-code with the IPP functions calls. Computer-simulated images of the spiral galaxy forming process, as well as the real galaxies photos, are presented.
The Nomad Team has
revealed their first piece of software for the AmigaDE and AmigaOS,
NomaGMS a Game and Multimedia application programming interface. For the
latest Q&A session with the Amiga CTO, turn to the
AmigaWorld community portal.
Here is - at times frustrating, and at times exhilarating - the journey I made trying to get Linux working on my desktop. This is the experience of someone who tried using Linux for the first time (most Linux veterans will probably find nothing surprising here). The whole experience reminded me of all the fun I used to have playing with Windows 3.1. Although it was not easy, it does show that a novice can make Linux work with a little persistence.
Amiga has released an
article describing its application launcher AmiDock in AmigaOS4. The article originally appeared in the March issue of Club Amiga Magazine. This description is meant as an addition to the AmigaOS4
feature list. Note however that the default appearance of AmigaOS4 is yet to be revealed.
I was desperately looking for something to write about when I happened to chance upon Apple’s new shipping system – a dual 1.42GHz Power Mac G4. A new system, a faster system, but does it mean a brighter future for Apple?
I have read many OS/distribution reviews in the last couple of years, but it always seems like it is distros like Red Hat, SuSe and Mandrake (and the fairly new distro, Lindows) that get all the attention. The light has sometimes moved towards other less "user friendly" distros as Slackware, Debian and so forth, but the main concern of the authors has always been the distros meant to be used by Joe User.
This (quite long) article has been written by me for two primary reasons: One, to hopefully save someone else the time and hassle associated with trying out various Linux distributions, and two, to promote some discussion and feedback regarding what a modern Linux distribution should be, and of course to contrast this with what is currently available. I am exploring the offerings of MS Windows, BeOS and MacOSX, and then taking on a number of well-known Linux distributions.
I'm going to warn you now - this editorial is as much rant as anything else, you have been warned! One of the things that really bugs me in the comments often found in articles is the "my OS can do this better/bst" type stuff, it's not just Windows or Linux Users, it comes from a lot of camps. And puts me in mind of Usenet at times it gets so bad.
We have all heard the horror stories of how GNU/Linux is difficult, if not almost impossible, as far as general desktop usability is concerned. In particular, there seems to be a continuous stream of gripes printed across the Internet, from Microsoft Windows users who wish, or have tried, to migrate to GNU/Linux, yet gave up in frustration. But what happens when complete computer newbies are introduced to GNU/Linux? By computer newbies, I am referring to those who have no computer experience whatsoever, in either a Windows, Mac, Linux, Unix or other environment.
Before I get started on my views, I would like to point a few things out. I'm not in high school or college. I'm 35 years old and have been in the computer business a long time. My experience goes all the way back to the hey days of punch cards. I still have a few cards over at my folk's house. I think one of the 'programs' prints out a snoopy. I've worked for several large corporations including IBM and GTE. I'm bringing this up not to brag but to point out that I know a thing or two about computers. Now that that's out of the way, I'll continue.
This is by no means a technical review - it is just a summary of my experience as I was going along, installing and configuring a Red Hat Linux 9 machine. I installed the standard "workstation" installation on my 2 year old desktop machine. I like Gnome at home, KDE at work, but this review only covers my experience with the default Gnome installation.
Media files and a transcript of Alan Redhouse's AmiGBG speech are now
available for download. The speech was held at a
Swedish Amiga show last Saturday and includes information on plans for a MicroATX version of the AmigaOne-XE board, to be targeted mainly at server farms and a SE-lite version targeted at embedded uses.
Slackware is the oldest surviving Linux distribution out there. For those who believe that Slackware was the first Linux distribution I have news, because SLS was before Slackware, but that is another story. It is the most
*NIX like distribution and has borrowed many of the things we can find in
BSD *NIX. Here is a mini-review of their latest release, 9.0.
The
GPL is a wonderful license for community works, for the basic reason that it starts out with the premise that the point is the source code. The program, someone is trying to make. Not the programmer, not the programmer's company, or the programmer's pay check. What it basically says is that there is no way for one to act as a stop-gap to the flow of code development and the organic way that code tends to build upon itself.
Recently, some sharp criticism has been displayed against the OS reviews posted on OSNews by third parties. In an effort to make the reviews more substantial, I have put together some guidelines in addition to the
generic guidelines OSNews already provides for the readers who want to have their voices heard on this site.
After much delay, the first 2 Amiga Gamecards (offering 4 games each) are currently selling at CompUSA stores. This was
shared in latest of the weekly held AmigaWorld Q&A sessions with Amiga's CTO. Some of the most notable games were written by the AmigaDE/AmigaOS software development house
Zeoneo Limited.
Jason Filby has notified us: "
ReactOS 0.1.1 is out, and features much improved windowing and GDI abilities; WineMine can be played to a limited extend and the MS VGA and VMWare VGA drivers can be used. There is also better disk drive detection and support as well as registry, IO and console improvements. The usetup installer has also progressed well." For more infomation and screenshots, turn to the
ReactOS website.
Some of the people complained about the two previous posted reviews being incoherant and you said "write your own", so I thought I would throw my two cents in...
