Thom Holwerda Archive

Trying to locate an unresolved plug-in dependency can be strenuous and time-consuming. Almost every plug-in depends on a bunch of other plug-ins, and those plug-ins, in turn, may depend on many more. This article shows you how to resolve plug-in dependencies more quickly by automating their discovery.

The Debian administration website has a nice introduction to using CFEngine for managing a whole LAN in three parts. The first part introduces the engine, the second part explains what you can do using CFEngine, and the final part describes how to setup a client-server setup to allow a whole LAN to be managed centrally.

The first Live-CD based on Debian GNU/kFreeBSD has appeared. Its name is Ging (for Ging Is Not Ging) and it includes a GNOME 2.10 desktop, Abiword, and a complete toolchain with gcc 4.0.

The X Window System (commonly referred to as X or X11) is a network-transparent graphical windowing system based on a client/server model. Primarily used on Unix and Unix-like systems such as Linux, versions of X are also available for many other operating systems. Although it was developed in 1984, X is not only still viable but also is in fact the standard environment for Unix windowing systems. This article thoroughly discusses X.

In the future, PCs infected with worms or viruses may try to contain the plague by putting themselves in quarantine. Automatic Network Outbreak Containment was one of a number of future technologies shown off on the final day of the Intel Developer Conference in San Francisco.

FreeBSD 6.0-BETA3 has been released to ftp. You can select a mirror near you from this list. There's no announcement yet, however, the release has been uploaded on August 24th.

The third beta of SUSE 10.0 has been released. The most important highlight is the PPC version, which is now also available. Furthermore, a lot of bugs have been fixed too.

When Google unveiled its instant messaging client yesterday, there was only one problem: Google Talk requires a Gmail account, which has been invitation-only since its beta debut in 2004. This changed on Thursday, however, as Google opened Gmail to anyone in the United States with a mobile phone. Other countries will follow.

"Kadischi is an application for Fedora-based Live CD generation. It is still in the early stage of development, but has basic functionality and can be run successfuly. If you are interested, you can download it via CVS and try it out. All comments and suggestions are welcome."

What is Cell? The Cell Broadband Engine Architecture (CBEA, or, informally, "Cell") defines a new processor structure based upon the 64-bit Power Architecture technology, but with unique features directed toward distributed processing and media-rich applications. This article provides a concise view inside the Cell's architecture.

Microsoft officials have admitted one of their biggest challenges in continuing to grow the company's Windows business is the impression among some of its installed base that older Windows versions are good enough. The users of Windows 95, which turns ten years old on Wednesday, are a case in point. Elsewhere, here is a story about the launch of Windows 95 exactly 10 years ago.

GNOME 2.12 RC1 has been released. Download: platform, desktop and bindings.

Intel, happy with its success launching the Centrino brand, on Wednesday introduced a new brand called VIIV for entertainment PCs. One feature of VIIV will be automatic transcoding--ensuring that audio or video encoded in one format can be translated into one the user's computer can actually handle without user intervention. Another feature will be instant shutdown and start-up that will work as fast as it does in consumer electronic devices such as DVD players.

The MorphOS team has released MorphOS 1.4.5 PowerUp for Commodore A1200, A3000 and A4000 computers equipped with PowerPC accelerator cards by phase5 & DCE. The MorphOS team does not provide any support, but community support is here.