Monthly Archive:: October 2002

In this article, Daniel Robbins introduces the Enterprise Volume Management System (EVMS) for Linux. He explains what EVMS is, why it is so desperately needed, and why it will very likely transform the way storage is managed on Linux systems.

"Today, Microsoft launches its latest Windows XP version, XP Media Center Edition (MCE), at a special event in New York City's Bryant Park. Mike Toutonghi, vice president of the Windows eHome Division, will join actor and comedian Tom Arnold and other celebrity guests for the launch, which also coincides with the North American availability of the Hewlett-Packard Media Center PC, which runs XP MCE. Microsoft's latest OS combines the power of Windows XP with a remote control interface to digital media tasks and Digital Video Recording (DVR) functionality." Read the report at WinInfo. Update: Jim Allchin, Microsoft's Platforms Group vice president, talks about the future of specialized versions of XP.

Microsoft late Wednesday issued patches for three security holes affecting its Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP), Windows 2000 platform and versions of the Internet Information Server (IIS). The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant warned that the most critical of the three bugs was an unchecked buffer in PPTP (define) implementation that could enable denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.

Sun Microsystems-led Java Community Process Tuesday launched the latest iteration of its program, JCP 2.5, making it easier for Java-loving developers to write to the language with its focus on open-source licensing.

From DistroWatch: "A "promo" edition of Turbolinux 8 Server can now be had for free, after registration. The registration page is in Japanese only, but it's a simple matter to fill in your name (middle row) and email address (bottom row) and agreeing to the license by clicking on the long button on the bottom left. The next page will give you a login name and password to access the ISO image. Read the Release Notes and visit the product features page for detailed information."

There are enormous amounts of information now available about evaluating, and examining Linux for the desktop. Almost every vendor/distribution is making pitches for the desktop. The quality of the software has improved, and continues to improve. In my personal tests, there are still some missing elements that I thought I would convey to you the reader. Some of my points may have answers, and solutions available. I may not be aware of them however, so be aware of this and I look forward to your responses in the comments area below the article.

"SuSE is well known in Europe, though less so in the US. It is, however, often available in stores here, along with Red Hat and Mandrake versions of Linux. As a desktop OS, it offers a good installer, a vast selection of applications and an excellent set of utilities--features that make it an excellent business desktop choice. However, if you're a GNOME user looking for the latest 2.0 desktop, you'd better look elsewhere." Read the review at LinuxJournal.

Here is a poll we put together to better understand the nature of the OSNews readers. Please tell us about the level of experience you got with programming.

WindowsForDevices.com has obtained an exclusive copy of the powerpoint slides used in the keynote presentation at Microsoft's 3rd annual Windows Embedded Developer Conference at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. Also, according to data recently compiled by Evans Data Corp (EDC), Windows and Linux are running neck-and-neck in terms of developer use for future projects.

Microsoft Corp. has told beta testers of Office 11, its next-version Office desktop productivity suite, that the product will only work with the Windows 2000 operating system with Service Pack 3 installed, Windows XP and later desktop releases. While Office 11 is slated for release next year, today Win9x/ME/NT OSes still hold about 52% of the overall OS market, and by next year's Office release, this is still expected to be around 40%. This is a tremendous amount of sales getting wasted (Office is the main income for Microsoft), but Microsoft said that this decision was mostly taken in order to incorporate new technologies on Office that are only available on the 2k/XP OSes, and also for security reasons ("Windows 9x is inherently insecure" Sloan Crayton of Microsoft said).

The KDE Project yesterday announced the release of KDE 3.1 RC 1. This release, while important, will have but a short lifespan (RC 2 is scheduled for next Monday), and so binary packages are not planned. More info at the Dot.

Linux distributor SuSE is hoping to get desktop users to switch to its operating system with a new edition of its software specifically designed for office workers--including software that allows it to run Microsoft Office and other Windows applications. Read the report at ZDNews.

Recent research on reconfigurable hardware designs has highlighted novel ways in which computers can dynamically change their structure to increase performance and density. However, work has only just begun to develop operating systems that can exploit theses types of hardware. Akin to hitting a moving target, making stable operating systems that can adapt to rapidly changing hardware will be an interesting challenge to operating systems researchers.

The Middleware Company (market leader in enterprise Java training and consulting) has performed a new comparison of the performance and scalability of J2EE and .NET based on the familiar Pet Store application. This time, the Middleware Company has re-coded the J2EE Petstore and optimized the implementation for performance. Their report show that .NET outperforms Java in most of the specific tests they conducted. Lots of discussion already here.