Thom Holwerda Archive

Key-Based SSH Logins with PuTTY

  Submitted by falko Privacy, Security 23 Comments
"This guide describes how to generate and use a private/public key pair to log in to a remote system with SSH using PuTTY. PuTTY is an SSH client that is available for Windows and Linux. Using key-based SSH logins, you can disable the normal username/password login procedure which means that only people with a valid private/public key pair can log in. That way, there is no way for brute-force attacks to be successful, so your system is more secure."
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Gartner: OS X More Appealing Than Desktop Linux

macOS 103 Comments
OS X is more appealing to enterprises as a desktop operating system than ever before and although it is unlikely to take market share away from Windows, the Mac could reduce the number of Linux-based desktops, according to research group Gartner. In a report published by Gartner this week titled Enterprise Mac Clients Remain Limited, but Apple's Appeal is Growing, analysts Michael Silver, Neil MacDonald, Ray Wagner and Brian Prentice, said that administrators will most likely have to prepare for more Mac systems in their environment even though OS X is "not a suitable enterprise wide platform". Ars weighs in on the issue as well.
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‘Vista Minimum Requirements Unrealistic’

Windows 54 Comments
A white paper published this morning by hardware analysis firm iSuppli, based on its studies of Microsoft Windows Vista running on multiple grades of computer hardware, has concluded that the software publisher's stated minimum requirements for the system - which include an 800 MHz processor, 512 MB of RAM, and a 35 GB hard drive - may not be nearly enough. "Despite Microsoft's claims that Vista can run on such trailing-edge systems," writes Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst for compute platforms research, "iSuppli believes the reality is quite different."
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Microsoft Hits Back at Its OpenXML Critics

Office 140 Comments
Microsoft has hit back at critics, including IBM, which voted against approving the company's Office OpenXML format as an Ecma standard, claiming it is nothing more than a vendor-dictated specification that documents proprietary products via XML. Ecma International announced the approval of the new standard Dec. 6 following a meeting of its general assembly and said it will begin the fast track process for adoption of the Office OpenXML formats as an ISO international standard in January 2007.
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Unheralded Larrabee Plots AMD, Nvidia Takedown

  Submitted by borker Intel 26 Comments
A shadowy organization called Larrabee Development Group has set a most ambitious goal: unseating AMD/ATI and Nvidia as the largest producers of high-end graphics chips. And it might just succeed. It may seem unfathomable for an unknown such as Larrabee to knock off two of the most powerful processor companies. That is until you realize that Larrabee is little more than a weak disguise for Intel. The chip giant has, in fact, ramped up its graphics efforts in recent weeks to create a product code-named Larrabee theoretically capable of besting AMD and Nvidia's best kit.
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First Impressions: Efika

  Submitted by ironfist Morphos 29 Comments
Pegasos.org has (one of) the (only) first reviews of the Efika, the system on a chip thing from Genesi (or bPlan? I lost track). "What can I say? It's a great piece of hardware. bPlan lives up to our expectations yet again. They even exceeded them about its media capabilities. For thin client or tiny desktop usage it will work just fine as long as you choose a low footprint window manager. As a network workgroup server I can't see any difficulties with this hardware. Configure it and you're set."
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OpenSUSE 10.2 Released

  Submitted by horsnell SuSE, openSUSE 86 Comments
Michael Loeffler has announced the release of OpenSUSE 10.2 to the ftp servers. "As usual, we ship all the latest open source packages available at the time. But we want to give special mention to the redesigned GNOME and KDE desktop, Firefox 2.0, ext3 as new default file system, support for internal SD card readers, new power managment and last but not least our improved package management." Update: Screenshots.
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Haiku Network Stack Starts Walking

  Submitted by sogabe Haiku 27 Comments
The Haiku network stack currently under heavy development is reportedly working with the Vision IRC client. Haiku developer Axel Dörfler reports that the network stack can now successfully run the Vision IRC client (screenshot on the Haiku website). At this stage, the network still needs to be configured manually, but this can be easily done by editing a couple of files as explained here. Haiku can use BeOS network drivers, so if your NIC is not supported, you can try finding a driver on BeBits.com.
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Ulteo Sirius Alpha 1 Released

  Submitted by anonymous Linux 40 Comments
Gael Duval has announced the first test release of Ulteo, a new distribution started by Mandrake-founder Gael Duval. From the release announcement: "Here is the first public version of Ulteo! Its codename is 'Sirius' because we want to make it a star." From the release notes: "This installable live CD is based on Debian and Ubuntu packages. It's installed on the hard-drive using 'Yuch'. A daemon, called UGD (Ulteo General Daemon), is always connecting to Ulteo servers to see if a newer, more up to date system is available. It can then upgrade to this new system." Ulteo is based on Ubuntu 6.06 and uses kernel 2.6.15, X.Org 7.0, KDE 3.5.2, and Firefox 1.5.0.8. The CD image is available for download. Update: Screenshot tour. Rejoice, boys and girls.
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