Thom Holwerda Archive

Mono 1.1.13 has been ported to SkyOS. All mono assemblies for .NET 1.1 and .NET 2.0 have been ported as well. Porting Managed.Windows.Forms has begun and is almost finished. SkyOS's lead developer, Robert Szeleney, was responsible for this difficult port. He has written an account of that process. "Porting Mono was not an easy task at all."

"Microsoft may not make flawless software, but its proprietary strategy is hard to fault. In particular, Microsoft has mastered desktop lock-in, undermining users' confidence in any alternatives and creating a slew of minor difficulties that irritate those who do switch. Two themes dominate the stories I hear about the tribulations of using and adopting non-Microsoft business desktops: the difficulty in finding compatible hardware and the stranglehold Microsoft Word has on users. In the last week, IT pros have shared their experiences with these two adoption inhibitors. They're representative of other stories I've heard."

"Love it or hate it - Windows is the dominant operating system in the world today. For all its flaws, Windows still rules the OS space for home users, probably because that is what they have been accustomed to use for a long time. This guide will show how to achieve a lean and mean Windows XP installation (using nLite) that runs smooth as a baby's butt."

"The third International Forum on Free Knowledge brought together many groups and individuals interested in the development of free software worldwide to the city of Maracaibo. One reason Venezuela choose to host this event is because starting in January (2006), their new free software law, directive 3.390, comes into effect, which mandates all government agencies to migrate to free software over a two year period. I was invited to speak about Telephonia Libre: the use of free software in telecommunications."

Yesterday, VNUnet.com published a story claiming that there was unrest within OpenOffice.org over Sun's continueing ownership of the underlying code. IBM, Sun, and now the OpenOffice.org community manager himself all say 'no way'.

"The Unofficial Apple Weblog has posted a short story on the top five mistakes made by new Mac users. It includes closing an application window and thinking it has quit, downloading software and then running it from the disk image (runs slowly, can't eject disk image), and Windows .exe files littered around the desktop after they've tried to download software and install it. The comments attached to the article are entertaining, and pick up many other common mistakes. Here's a precise list of things that TUAW and its users said in comments, and a few of my own."

"This interview with Opera Software CEO and co-founder Jon S. von Tetzchner covers the Norwegian browser company's history, products, and roadmap. It sheds light on the growing importance of Linux in the embedded market, and the growing importance of the embedded market to Opera."

It seems like Linus Torvalds cannot make up his mind about whether or not to use the GPL3 for the Linux kernel. After clearly rejecting the idea of using the GPL3 ('and I don't see that changing'), he now opens the option up again. "It's 'quite possible,' said Torvalds that the GPL 3 could be used, 'but on the other hand, there's a purely practical problem with any change of license when you have tens of major copyright holders and hundreds of people who have written some part and thousands who have submitted one-liners and small fixes. There are, after all, benefits to putting the kernel under the GPL 3,' Torvalds said."

Big Blue announced it would use the Cell processor designed by it, Sony and Toshiba in a range of high end servers. Applications that need good processing power and can render graphics are the target of Big Blue's desire. The first systems will become available in the third quarter of this year.

Sun's ambitions have grown another size larger. The server and software company launched its servers based on its own UltraSparc T1 'Niagara' chips in December, a major part of a drive to restore its lost luster and financial strength. But alongside the hardware launch came a more quiet software push: an attempt to make the Linux and BSD Unix open-source operating systems a serious option for buyers of Sparc-based computers. To promote the technology combination, Sun is trying to coax an accompanying software business into existence.

Virtual Iron Software continued on its quest to push Linux and virtualization further into the heart of enterprise data centers today with an announcement that Novell SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 would support its virtualization and data center management platform. Novell will now ship a preconfigured kernel with SLES9 and has guaranteed that all existing independent software vendor certifications will not be affected.

"New releases made by large free software projects usually means that a lot of people want the new release NOW, and the recent Debian and Ubuntu releases are no exceptions. This writeup details how we, Academic Computer Club at Umea University, Sweden, managed to saturate the 2Gbit/s of available internet capacity with a zero-currency budget."

"Serenity Systems International is pleased to announce the publicly available beta of eComStation 1.2R German. The eComStation 1.2 Media Refresh resolves known issues and provides the latest codebase. This version does not significantly change functionality. This release includes fixes to many reported problems, as well as significant enhancements migration and installation."

Parallels launched the beta program for Workstation 2.1, an upgraded version of their desktop virtualization solution. This version adds new features like USB support, PAE-mode support, wireless networking support, and a new tools package. The program runs Solaris virtual machines too. The beta is fully functional for 45 days.