Thom Holwerda Archive

Opera Plans Widget ‘Platform’ for Mobile Devices

Submitted by danwarne 2006-07-26 Opera 2 Comments

Opera CEO John S. Von Tetzchner wants to put web apps - in the form of widgets - on mobile phones, TVs, game consoles and your car stereo. APC Magazine spoke to him about the open standards involved and whether he was going to attempt to swim from Norway to Australia.

Freespire Beta 2 Released

Submitted by chrishaney 2006-07-26 Linspire 10 Comments

Freespire has released the second beta release of Freespire (build 0.0.76). This is the Debian-based Linux distribution which legally supports (or has one-click access to support): MP3, DVD, Windows Media, QuickTime, Java, Flash, Real, ATI drivers, nVidia drivers, Adobe Acrobat Reader, proprietary WiFi drivers, fonts, and so on. It provides free access to the entire Freespire open source application pool using apt-get. There's also a screenshot tour.

Editors of Major Mac Website Switch to Linux

Submitted by Bryan 2006-07-25 Apple 115 Comments

The editors of ResExcellence.com, a popular Macintosh website and longtime Mac enthusiasts, have switched to Linux. "I've been making my living as Mac-specific developer for several years now... I was a true Mac die-hard," stated Bryan, who also runs a Mac software company, on his blog, "but the Macintosh community, with its bad attitudes and diva-esque nature, rained on my parade. Sure there were other reasons why I switched. But that was the tipping point."

Malware Evolution: Mac OS X Vulnerabilities 2005-2006

Submitted by Berislav 2006-07-25 macOS 25 Comments

This article looks at vulnerabilities detected in Mac OS X in the first half of 2006. It compares these vulnerabilities to those detected in the first half of 2005, providing an overview of the evolution of threats targeting this increasingly popular platform. While the author believes that Mac OS X is pretty secure by default, he states that "like any other platform, Mac OS X has software flaws. Such flaws inevitably draw the attention of malicious users, especially if users don't think they need to take action to protect against possible threats." In the meantime, Apple has launched a Bluetooth version of its Mighty Mouse.

Interview: Mark Shuttleworth

Submitted by anonymous 2006-07-25 Ubuntu 19 Comments

Mark Shuttleworth, millionaire cosmonaut and self-funded Linux guru, has managed to make his Ubuntu project the Linux distribution of choice in just two years. But now the friendly brown OS with the cute drumming noises faces an awkward journey towards the commercial mainstream.

A Look at AM2- AMD’s Newest Platform

Submitted by anonymous 2006-07-25 AMD 10 Comments

"The release of AMD's AM2 platform has left many consumers with mixed feelings. While some are looking forward to the progression of AMD's Athlon 64 line, there is much more to the platform than a new socket. Experts have repeatedly told us that the expected performance boost of moving to AM2 (from socket 939) will be limited and this new platform has largely been overshadowed by the upcoming arrival of Intel's Conroe (Core 2 Duo), but after the success of socket 939, AM2 definitely warrants a review."

Flash Player 9 for GNU/Linux: API Review

Submitted by Manuel FLURY 2006-07-25 Multimedia, AV 46 Comments

"What follows is a list of the APIs that the current Linux Flash Player 9 development version is using. I debated whether it was appropriate to publish this information. Then I remembered that anyone who knows what they're doing should be able to figure this stuff out by themselves anyway once the final Player is released."

DragonFly 1.6.0 Released

Submitted by pdumon 2006-07-25 BSD & Darwin 13 Comments

DragonFly BSD 1.6.0 has been released, and it includes a whole load of bigfixes and improvements. 1.6.0 Is the fourth ~~bug-fix sub-release in the 1.6 release branch~~ major DragonFly release. "DragonFly is an operating system and environment originally based on FreeBSD. DragonFly branched from FreeBSD in 2003 in order to develop a radically different approach to concurrency, SMP, and most other kernel subsystems."

PalmSource Offers Early Access to Linux Phone Stack

Submitted by anonymous 2006-07-25 Wireless 2 Comments

Developers interested in porting applications to PalmSource's Linux implementation for mobile phones are invited to a special "PalmSource Developer Day" at this year's LinuxWorld Expo in San Francisco. Attendees will receive early access to the Access Linux Platform, and get hands-on experience building applications for the platform.

OpenSSL May See Revalidation Soon

Submitted by lh8 2006-07-25 Privacy, Security 10 Comments

The on-again, off-again status of OpenSSL Certificate 642's validation by the National Institute of Standards and Technology seems to be coming to a conclusion as abruptly as it began.

Exchange Server 2007 Is a Different Animal

Thom Holwerda 2006-07-24 Microsoft 21 Comments

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 is a far cry from Exchange Server 2003, based on eWEEK Labs' tests of the first public beta of the new messaging platform. Administrators thinking of moving to Exchange Server 2007 should take a hard look at this beta to understand the impact of the platform's many new features. Exchange 2007 Beta 2 became widely available on July 24 and is expected to ship in its final form at the end of 2006 or the beginning of 2007.

Review: Xandros Server 1.0

Thom Holwerda 2006-07-24 Oracle and SUN 11 Comments

Linux.com reviews Xandros Server 1.0, and concludes: "Xandros Server does have a lot to offer, though, particularly for organisations that have standardised on Windows servers in the past. I like the Xandros management tools, and it seems like a good solution for small and medium-sized businesses."

MINIX3 CVS Server Publicly Available; X11R6 Updated; fltk Ported

Thom Holwerda 2006-07-24 OS News 8 Comments

Some interesting tidbits on MINIX3 the last week. First, the MINIX3 team has set up a publicly accessible CVS server, running on a MINIX3 server (what else). You can access it via the ordinary CLI way, or via cvsweb. Secondly, the X11R6 release for MINIX3 has been updated and posted online. And lastly, MINIX3 now has a port of fltk, the fast light toolkit.

NetBSD 3.0.1 Released

Submitted by Rui Paulo 2006-07-24 NetBSD 7 Comments

The NetBSD release engineering team has announced that the update 3.0.1 of the NetBSD operating system is now available. NetBSD 3.0.1 is the first security/critical update of the NetBSD 3.0 release branch. This represents a selected subset of fixes deemed critical in nature for stability or security reasons. More details are available in the NetBSD 3.0.1 Release Announcement.

Server-Side Windows vs. Linux: Considering Today’s Differences

Submitted by Jane Walker 2006-07-24 Rumors 63 Comments

"Not long ago, choosing Linux in the data center meant a tradeoff. You had to give up some capabilities in exchange for freedom from Microsoft lock-in. But that has changed. These days the features of Windows and Linux stack up against each other very competitively. For the most part, administrators can choose Linux or Windows today without losing out. Some differences, however, must be considered. In this article, I look at several of those differences."

AMD Buys ATI

Submitted by Michael Bazaillion 2006-07-24 AMD 55 Comments

As rumoured about for weeks now, with the strongest rumours appearing a few days ago, AMD has bought ATI. "AMD, the world's second-biggest semiconductor maker, agreed to buy ATI for USD 5.4 billion, adding computer-graphics chips to its product lineup. ATI shares surged. AMD Chief Executive Officer Hector Ruiz is making the biggest purchase in the company's history to help escalate his challenge to Intel, which dominates the market for semiconductors. "

Technical History of Apple’s Operating Systems

Submitted by anonymous 2006-07-24 Apple 10 Comments

In this supplementary document for the first chapter of the new book 'Mac OS X Internals', Amit Singh outlines in detail the various operating systems that Apple has dabbled with since the company's inception, and many systems that were direct or indirect sources of inspiration.

Inside Windows Vista’s New Image-Based Install Process

Submitted by Dan Warne 2006-07-24 Windows 26 Comments

Vista's installation process is dramatically different to any previous version of Windows: rather than being an 'installer', the install DVD is actually a preinstalled copy of Windows that simply gets decompressed onto your PC. It is hardware agnostic so it can adjust to different systems, and you can also install your own apps into it so that your Vista install becomes a full system image install. There's an interview with a Microsoft Australia tech specialist as well as a story that looks at some of the pros and cons of image-based installs.

Intel Launching Notebook Processor, Merom

Submitted by IntellicaFlx 2006-07-24 Intel 11 Comments

Merom, a notebook processor and the third leg of Intel's Core architecture triumvirate, will also get a thorough airing at a launch party planned at the chipmaker's headquarters this Thursday. Merom will represent additional improvements in performance and power consumption. Like Conroe, it also will use the Core 2 Duo brand, with model numbers in the 5000 and 7000 range that will indicate performance.

Fedora Legacy Project Announces End of Life Times; RHEL 5 Prepped

Submitted by Rahul 2006-07-24 Fedora Core 15 Comments

"With Fedora Core 6 Test 2 set to be released July 26th, it is time we announce the End of Life of our various Legacy supported releases. After much discussion on fedora-legacy-list and the #fedora-legacy IRC channel on the freenode network, we have decided to end of life the following releases when FC6 Test2 is released: Fedora Core 1 & 2, Red Hat Linux 7.3 & 9." In the mean time, Red Hat is prepping its next big release, RHEL 5, supposedly a rival to Novell's SLED 10.