Thom Holwerda Archive

From the AppleInsider forum comes an interesting discovery about ZFS and Apple. A user who has the Leopard WWDC preview searched the system with Spotlight and found a mention of ZFS. He says: "There is no file system bundle for it, nor is there a mount utility or any other one (no fsck, now newfs, etc.). There is, however, a changed vnode.h."

Mandriva 2007 will have support for 3D desktop effects through Xgl/AIGLX. The choice between AIGLX and Xgl will be made automatically according to the graphic card driver possibilities. The support is currently being tested in Mandriva Cooker, and will work for both GNOME and KDE through Free as well as proprietary drivers.

"This article shows how to secure a CentOS server using psad, Bastille, and some other tweaks. psad is a tool that helps detect port scans and other suspicious traffic, and the Bastille hardening program locks down an operating system, proactively configuring the system for increased security and decreasing its susceptibility to compromise."

"Rumor, innuendo, demands, and all of the other juicy elements that one expects from a sordid love triangle have been cropping up in the AMD-ATI-Intel story over the past few days. I've been following the twists in the tale primarily via the ever-vigilant TR, so I thought I'd put together an Ars rundown with my own information and analysis for those of you who haven't been keeping track."

Sony launched on Tuesday the Vaio VGC-LS1 desktop, which serves dual roles as personal computer and TV. The system comes with a wireless keyboard and mouse, as well as with a remote control that can switch the monitor from a Windows-based PC to a TV, thanks to a built-in tuner. With technology similar to a digital video recorder, TV shows can be saved on the computer's 250GB hard drive and burned onto DVDs. Sony has also designed its new computer for space efficiency: Like Apple Computer's iMac, the VGC-LS1's hardware is packed into the back of its LCD screen.

Red Hat and Novell, the two top Linux sellers, have only just begun building Xen virtualization software into their products. But they're already planning to add a higher-level option. Xen is a 'hypervisor' that lets a single computer run several operating systems simultaneously, using an idea called 'virtualization'. This enables companies to use a single server more efficiently - something that could save them money. Now 'containers', a higher-level virtualization approach that makes a single operating system look like many, is also getting traction.

DesktopLinux.com has launched its 2006 Desktop Linux survey, asking users of Linux desktops to identify what distributions they use, as well as their choice of windowing environment, web browsers, email clients, and Windows-on-Linux solutions.

NetBSD 3.1-RC1 has been released. "NetBSD 3.1 is a feature update for NetBSD 3.0, and features domU support for Xen3, massive LFS stability improvements, and lots of other, smaller improvements, additions, and bug fixes." Get it here.

Even though by now the bug is fixed, many people alerted us about the fact that updates to Xorg in Ubuntu broke X, leaving users with a command-line machine. If you happen to be one of the unhappy few, Ubuntu user tseliot provides the commands to fix your system. In the meantime, others are wondering how such a bug got past testing.

Microsoft wants to help aid in the development of Firefox. It sounds pretty scary, doesn't it? If you're still here, let me tell you that it's not as bad as it seems. Sam Ramjii, Director of Microsoft's Open Source Software Lab, has extended an invitation to the Firefox and Thunderbird developers asking them if they'd like to visit the company's open source research center. Microsoft's hopes are that, in a four-day span, the company can provide the open source developers with enough information to get the popular web browser running smoothly on Windows Vista.

Dell and Sony knew about and discussed manufacturing problems with Sony-made Lithium-Ion batteries as long as ten months ago, but held off on issuing a recall until those flaws were clearly linked to catastrophic failures causing those batteries to catch fire, a Sony Electronics spokesman said. Spokesman Rick Clancy said the companies had conversations in October 2005 and again in February 2006. Discussions were about the problem of small metal particles that had contaminated Lithium-Ion battery cells manufactured by Sony, causing batteries to fail and, in some cases, overheat.

Debian.org reports - The Debian Installer team is proud to announce the third beta release of the installer for Debian GNU/Linux Etch. Major new features introduced with this release includes the option to install using a graphical user interface on i386 and amd64. OSDir has some shots of Etch Beta 3 graphical installer in the Debian Installer Etch Beta 3 Screenshot Tour.

Following in the footsteps of DTrace, another major OpenSolaris feature is making its way to FreeBSD. FreeBSD developer Pawel Dawidek has announced a port of ZFS, Sun's next generation filesystem. In just 10 days of work, Pawel already has ZFS filesystems mounted, with the ability to create files and navigate directories.

"The biggest technology roadblock to building the USD 100 laptop championed by Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of the One Laptop per Child organization, is close to resolution. That roadblock has been developing a display that is rugged, inexpensive and readable in a wide variety of conditions from low light to bright sunlight." A Google Summer of Code project started the porting of GTK+ to this technology, with Manu Cornet especially testing to determine the tweaking necessary to usual GUI themes, for the goals of performance and display clarity.