Monthly Archive:: May 2002

The release of Apple's latest hardware offerings this month has caused quite a stir among Apple loyalists. This is only Apple's second foray into creating a truly dedicated server machine, the first of which being the "Network Server 500/700", which Apple sold in 1995 running AIX. The question on everyone's mind now is going to be what this means for Apple's prospects as a server platform. Certainly everyone agrees that the new machine looks nice, but how will it on the duties it will be required to perform. Furthermore, what kind of price/performance ratio is Apple offering when compared to the current group of servers.

OpenBSD 3.1 was just released with many improvements and new software installed (more than 1000 packages and XFree 4.2). Get it while it's hot.

"The GNOME 2.0 Desktop Beta 5 release, "Reciprocity", is ready for your bug-busting and testing pleasure! It is now available for immediate download. The GNOME 2.0 Desktop is a greatly improved user environment for existing GNOME applications. Enhancements include anti-aliased text and first class internationalisation support, new accessibility features for disabled users, and many improvements throughout GNOME's highly regarded user interface." Read more at LinuxToday.

"FreeBSD 4.6-RC1 (i386) is now available for download. The RC has been on ftp-master for over 24 hours so most of the mirrors have the ISO and FTP install tree, except for some reason ftp.freebsd.org. The build for the Alpha platform should be available within the next 24 hours." Read more at KernelTrap.

America Online has dropped Internet Explorer from a test version of its software for MacOSX, the latest sign that the Internet giant wants a rematch in the browser wars with Microsoft. Read more at ZDNews.

"As children, many of us watched TV shows like The Jetsons and dreamed about the day we might have our own robot maids, mechanics, and assistants. Evolution Robotics says it's making this happen. The Pasadena, Calif., company has released an operating system designed for the personal-robotics industry and says it hopes to do for that industry what Windows did for the PC. The Evolution Robotics Software Platform contains everything a company needs to develop and program robots, says Jennifer McNally, the company's senior director of marketing. It consists of a robot-control architecture, core software modules, and a set of developer's tools, she says." Read the story at InformationWeek.

"Linux is set to become the de facto standard in so-called "embedded" devices such as robotics, information appliances and automobile information systems. However, fragmentation could prove a stumbling block, said Inder Singh, chairman of the Embedded Linux Consortium (ELC)." Read the rest of the article at ZDNews.

The Lycoris Development Team is hard at work finishing Desktop/LX Update 2, a very exciting enhancement to the popular desktop operating system. Included, is a new Desktop/LX Control Center that makes it easier to accomplish configuration tasks in a simple, plain language way (screenshot). A new Desktop/LX Software Wizard allows you to install software from local media or right from the Internet using Iris, the Internet Rapid Installer for Software (IRIS). Lycoris also put work into the Desktop/LX Installer and some cosmetic changes are readily apparent (screenshot). "Fry's Electronics will be carrying Desktop/LX on the west coast. More to follow for sure. We are hard at work finishing Update 2 and dealing with our explosive growth." Jason Spisak of Lycoris told OSNews.

In an article posted at C|Net News.com sun has announced their intentions of expanding linux with Solaris features (and continuing to expand Solaris with Linux features) to make the two "similar". Perhaps this is seriously the next step in the Intel Unix market for Sun, if they have, in the end, chosen to do without Solaris/x86. In other news, according to the article, Solaris 9 will be released May 22nd.

"There are many toolkits to choose from for building Linux desktop applications. Some say this is Linux's downfall; others say it is its greatest feature. I'll stand somewhere in the middle and say choice is good if you choose what meets your needs. Most graphical user interfaces (GUIs) on Linux are based on X, a client/server architecture that allows for networked computers to share GUI applications." LinuxJournal has the tutorial.

Get the news first on OSNews: The long-awaited "stable" and recommended for full use, GCC 3.1, is finally released. Get it from Gnu's ftp site, while the mirrors are not fully updated yet. Update: And the release is now official. You heard it first, here, on OSNews. Again.

"Apple's CEO says it's tough times for corporate and education sales--but consumers are still buying. His biggest challenge? Convince the majority of Apple users to switch to OS X. At the start of the year, Apple had only 1 million of its 25 million Mac owners actively using OS X. That number is now in the range of 1.5 million to 2 million, although about 3 million Macs have been sold with the new OS on the hard drive. However, Jobs remains confident the company can end the year with 5 million OS X users." Read the report at News.com. Update: TheRegister features an article where they chat with Apple's Tevanian on Windows CIFS, networked Quartz.

Opera has just released version 6.02 for Windows, and the final version of Opera 6.0 for Linux while they announced support for Symbian's new exciting technology concept, "Magpie", when it becomes available as a commercial solution. In the meantime, Mozilla RC-2 was released a few days back.

"The long-awaited second major version of the GNOME desktop is days away from a fifth beta and on schedule for a full release on the first day of summer, according to its release manager. 'I'm quite sure we're going to make it, given that our UI and string freeze has just kicked in, and the number of 2.0.0 bugs we have left to go,' says Jeff Waugh, who is ramrodding the release. According to the release schedule, Beta 5 will be issued at the end of this week. It is to be followed by a release candidate, which developers hope to make public June 7. If all goes well, GNOME-2.0 will be released two weeks later." Read the rest of the news at LinuxAndMain.