Thom Holwerda Archive

AMD To Drop ATI Brand

Submitted by netpython 2006-08-07 AMD 30 Comments

Chip guru AMD has announced that it's going to drop the ATI brand name following its takeover of the Canadian graphics underdog. Gareth Cater from AMD told Custom PC that 'the new company will be called AMD', meaning that we could shortly be seeing AMD-branded Radeon graphics chips.

Fedora Core 6 Test 2 Released

Submitted by Finalzone 2006-08-07 Fedora Core 16 Comments

The Fedora Project announces the availability of Fedora Core 6 Test 2. One of noticeable features is the ability for Anaconda, the Fedora Core installer, to use other repositories, the support for MacIntel and for the first time, Firefox can now use Java through gcjplugweb. This distribution is aimed for testers due to bugs needed to be sorted. Download are available through torrent and mirror servers. Update by AS: Fixed typo. Update by ELQ: OSDir put up some shots of the FC6-test2.

Andrew Morton Moves to Google

Submitted by diegocg 2006-08-07 Google 35 Comments

In a surprising move, Andrew Morton, the Linux kernel co-maintainer, announced that he is moving to Google and that he will continue being a Linux maintainer. A detailed article can be found here: "It is beneficial to me (and to Linux) that I be in day-to-day contact with people who use Linux for real things. Hence Google is a good all-round fit."

SkyOS Gets WidgetGecko

Submitted by Tomasz Dominikowski 2006-08-07 SkyOS 10 Comments

Gecko, the powerful rendering engine used in Mozilla products like Firefox, is now available as an embedded widget in SkyOS. Using WidgetGecko you can easily add powerful HTML support to a SkyOS application with just a few lines of code. Embedded Gecko brings the SkyOS Media Station project closer to reality.

First Windows Browser Based on Apple’s Webkit

Submitted by anon 2006-08-07 Internet 34 Comments

"Welcome to GetWebKit, the home of the first and only WebKit based Windows web browser. Featuring the excellent rendering engine used in popular Macintosh web browsers Safari and Shiira, GetWebKit offers a free, powerful, and open-source internet experience." Seems like besides Opera, IE, and Gecko, there is now a 4th mature engine coming to the Windows platform.

Dell To Sell AMD-Based Notebooks

Submitted by Ashton Lee 2006-08-07 AMD 8 Comments

Following its recent partnership with AMD to put the latter's chip in its server product line, Dell Computer confirmed this week that it will launch AMD-based laptops as early as October. The move could deal another blow to rival Intel. Dell will release mobile computers running AMD's Sempron and Turion 64x2 processors in early October, representatives from both AMD and Dell, told CNET Taiwan. Initial plans will target consumer models equipped with 15.4-inch displays.

Finding the User Settings in Vista

Submitted by esther schindler 2006-08-07 Windows 6 Comments

For reasons nobody quite understands, Microsoft changed a lot of settings in Vista. Any programmer whose application hard-coded directory settings will soon discover that the application will fail to run well. This article summarizes the changes and how to code around the problem in a version-neutral way.

‘Forget About Open Source at Apple’

Submitted by Moulinneuf 2006-08-06 Apple 64 Comments

"We all cheered when Apple began experimenting with community-driven, open source development for its flagship operating system. But if those experiments are now drawing to a close, should anyone really be surprised? In his columns earlier this year, InfoWorld's resident Mac aficionado Tom Yager noted how Apple seemed to be backpedaling away from open source. Seen through that lens, last week's news that the OpenDarwin Project would be closing its doors looks like just another sign of the times."

Vista’s Virgin Networking Stack

Submitted by Khoji 2006-08-06 Windows 84 Comments

In a recent podcast Steve Gibson of grc.com has drawn attention to a detailed report by engineers at Symantec who demonstrate that Windows Vista contains a completely virgin network stack that has been programmed from the ground up. The Symantec software engineers have monitored the behaviour of the new stack through a series of beta releases and have documented that it contains most of the basic bugs and security holes that have long since been fixed in other stacks - even the Windows 95 stack. Since it has not had a chance to mature and develop in the wild, the likelihood that it contains new, uncharted holes and errors is very high. Some have already been found. Gibson stresses that the ramifications for the security of the new stack are disastrous.

The State of the Mainframe Today

Submitted by anonymous 2006-08-06 Hardware 4 Comments

Here's a sober talk about the reality of the mainframe today. This podcast discusses the mainframe's place in the forefront of modern day computing technology and debunks some myths about the mainframe. It also talks about the variety of development environments it has to offer developers, not just the old green-screen approach.

Solaris on a Diet

Submitted by jamesd 2006-08-06 Solaris 20 Comments

Engineers at Sun are working on a 'small' version of Solaris 10. "I've got a modified Solaris miniroot with ZFS functionality which takes up about 60 MB (the compressed image, which GRUB uses, is less than 30MB). Solaris boots entirely into RAM. From poweron to full functionality, it takes about 45 seconds to boot on a very modest 1GHz Cyrix Mini ITX motherboard."

Lenovo Preloads SUSE on ThinkPad

Thom Holwerda 2006-08-04 SuSE, openSUSE 78 Comments

"Finally. For years, the holy grail of the Linux desktop has been to get a major computer vendor to commit to preloading a Linux desktop. It finally happened. On August 4th, we found out that Lenovo Group, the company that has taken over IBM's Personal Computing Division, had made a deal with Novell to preload SLED 10 on its ThinkPad T60p mobile workstation. For the first time, a major OEM has committed to preloading a Linux desktop."

Microsoft Gets Good Reception at Black Hat

Thom Holwerda 2006-08-04 Microsoft 20 Comments

Microsoft's presentations on Windows Vista are not the typical Black Hat talks, but attendees are welcoming the look behind the scenes at the software giant. "I haven't felt it as a marketing pitch. It was a very technical discussion about how code review is done at Microsoft," said Josh Hoover, a veteran Black Hat attendee from Phoenix who works in security at a large financial institution. "Of course, it is all lip service at this time, until we get to test it," he added.

Apple May Need to Restate Historical Financial Statements

Thom Holwerda 2006-08-04 Apple 13 Comments

Apple Computer has discovered additional evidence of irregularities relating to past stock option grants and will likely need to restate its historical financial statements as a result, the company said on Thursday. In late June, Apple proactively announced that an internal investigation discovered irregularities related to the issuance of certain stock option grants made between 1997 and 2001.

Debian Includes OpenVZ

Submitted by Kir Kolyshkin 2006-08-04 Debian 8 Comments

"The OpenVZ project today announced its operating system-level server virtualization software technology is incorporated into Debian GNU/Linux giving users full access to OpenVZ software, which helps increase server utilization rates. At the same time, the OpenVZ project revised licensing terms for its user-level utilities under the GNU GPL license to comply with the Debian Free Software Guidelines. Also, OpenVZ software now conforms with the LSB/FHS."

Breaking Into a Laptop Via Wi-Fi

Thom Holwerda 2006-08-03 Privacy, Security 14 Comments

An attacker could gain complete control over a laptop by sending malformed network traffic to a vulnerable computer, David Maynor, a senior researcher at security service provider SecureWorks, said in a presentation at the Black Hat security event. Maynor, along with researcher Jon 'Johnny Cache' Ellch, showed a video of a successful attack on an Apple Computer MacBook. However, the attack is possible also on other computers, both laptops and desktops, and not just MacBooks, the researchers said. The recent security fixes issued by Intel are not related to this issue.

Novell Goes on the Atkins Diet

Submitted by deanlinkous 2006-08-03 Linspire 83 Comments

"It was reported this week that Novell has banned all proprietary software from their Linux offerings. To me, this would be a bit like McDonalds announcing it will adopt an Atkins-only menu, selling only healthy, low-carb salads, and dropping fries, shakes, and the Big Mac as we know it. It might be a noble thing for McDonalds to only sell healthy items, but they would likely see a big decrease in customers. Most consumers want more balance in their menu choices, not less. Limiting choice, especially the most popular ones, is usually a bad idea."

Review: SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10

Submitted by Valour 2006-08-03 SuSE, openSUSE 16 Comments

"I've tested and/or reviewed every version of this operating system since the first version, and each time I start out impressed but end up walking away disappointed. SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 is not an exception to this tradition. While it may be a decent desktop operating system, I can't possibly recommend that sysadmins rely on SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 in a production environment."

IBM Commits to AIX and Linux

Submitted by taos 2006-08-03 IBM 13 Comments

Ross Mauri, general manager of IBM's pSeries System, says in this interview: "We want Linux to have a great home on the Power architecture. We will continue to contribute to the open-source development of Linux, as well as all of the packages that surround Linux, to ensure it performs well on Power. But as we have said, AIX is our flagship on System p."

What Is Fedora’s Prime Directive?

Submitted by elsewhere 2006-08-03 Fedora Core 29 Comments

"Is Fedora for its users, or is Fedora for Red Hat? That is, is Fedora a distribution that people should run and to which people should contribute, or is it really, as detractors have often claimed, simply a playground for new ideas on their way to Red Hat Enterprise Linux?"