A Week with Linspire 4.5
Linuxbeginner.org spent a week with Linspire 4.5 and they have written down their experiences.
Monthly Archive:: April 2004
A virtual tour of Microsoft’s embedded “Device Alley”
In case you missed the recent Embedded Systems Conference in San Francisco, WindowsForDevices presents a virtual tour down Microsoft's embedded "Device Alley," showcasing a wide range of next-generation cool gadgets and smart, connected devices that incorporate the company's embedded software platforms including Windows CE .NET and Windows XP Embedded. The slide show includes over 80 devices ranging from PDAs to set-top boxes, robots, and even a sewing machine.
Interview with Miguel de Icaza at NetCraft
Miguel de Icaza talks to Glyn Moody about Mono's progress, how Ximian was bought by Novell, and why he is so scared of Microsoft's Longhorn. Read the interesting interview here.
Refining for usability; The Rise of Interface Elegance in OSS
Jono Bacon is editorializing on his blog regarding usability on FOSS applications. UPDATE: Acts of Volition looks at how "creeping featuritis" has affected interface design in different open source software projects. The article notes that while some projects have succumbed to the problem, others have managed to tame the beast.
Interview wtih Dan Joncas of ALT Software
ALT Software is a company well-known in the embedded market, offering several solutions via firmware, device driver and system level programming . Desktop users used ALT's graphics drivers (2D and OpenGL) on BeOS back when ALT was working with Be. Today we feature an interview with Dan Joncas of ALT regarding the company's current projects.
Overview of Intel’s next-generation BIOS architecture
This whitepaper provides an overview of the architecture, benefits, and features of the Platform Innovation Framework for Extensible Firmware Interface, a modular, platform-independent architecture for implementating boot and other BIOS functions recently. The Framework, developed by Intel, is driver-based, enabling binary-linking of modules; and it is C-based, clean, scalable, and modular, allowing it to support diverse CPU architecures - such as Intel's IA-32, Itanium & XScale - within a single source tree.
Red Hat ES 3.0 vs. SuSE Server 8.0: Battle for the Enterprise
Even at the enterprise server level, there are wide differences between Linux distributions, not only in price, but in ease of installation, included features and software, and particularly in ease of administration. See how the two most popular Linux enterprise server distributions match up.
XDevConf: The Future of X11
There is a three day X Developer's meeting from Wednesday, April 28, through Friday, April 30, 2004, at the Cambridge Research Laboratory (CRL) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Ximian's Federico Mena-Quintero was there and outlined the talks of Keith Packard & Jim Gettys regarding where X11 should go.
Critical Update for Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004
This critical update for Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 enhances the stability and performance of Media Center Edition 2004 and resolves these issues.
On 1st Birthday, iTunes Unwraps New Features
Apple Computer on Wednesday celebrated the first birthday of its iTunes Music Store by unveiling more than a half-dozen new features for the popular online music service. More info on MacMinute.
The Return of WordPerfect?
Here's a review of Corel's new WordPerfect products: WordPerfect Office 12 for Windows, and WordPerfect for Linux. The latter is an improvement on their previous WP for Linux products that were discontinued some time ago. Could this be the start of big-name proprietary software for GNU/Linux?
Subjectivity and Operating System Choice
While most people bicker about which OS is best, the truth is much vaguer: what computer is sitting on your desk has more to do with your comfort level than intellectual choice.
Trolltech Releases Qt 3.3.2
Trolltech today announced the release of Qt, version 3.3.2. Qt, Trolltech's C++ multiplatform application framework. List of changes here.
Editorial: Linux on Your Desktop
"When you think of a personal computer, you probably think of one running Windows. Microsoft's near-ubiquitous operating system runs on 94 percent of desktop PCs, according to experts. But could the upstart Linux OS soon replace Windows on a computer near you?" Read the article by Scott Spanbauer.
Gentoo 2004.1 Released
The Gentoo Linux Release Engineering team is proud to announce the release of Gentoo Linux 2004.1. Read more on DistroWatch or the press release.
Windows XP SP2 RC2 & RTM Delayed
According to WinBeta, Windows XP Service Pack 2 has just been pushed back a bit further than originally expected. These delays will effect both the second Release Candidate along with the Release to Manufacturing/Release to Web. The following are the new expected delivery dates: RC2: May 26th, 2004 (previous date was May 12th) and RTM: July 21st, 2004 (previous date was June 23rd). However, MSFN has different dates to report.
Linux Viewpoint: Sun Shows Its True Colors, Says Groklaw’s “PJ”
"It looks like Sun is indeed going to re-run Caldera, right down to creating a Linux distro (Java Desktop) with lots of proprietary addons in an attempt to enforce per-seat/per-employee licensing," writes Groklaw founder and editor Pamela Jones ("PJ" to the online world). If Sun's hope is that we "will all be foolish enough to not care about the GPL and thus forsake Red Hat and SuSE, etc. Dream on," she continues. "The real question," Jones says, "is - when that fails - then what will Sun do?" Read the full article.
QNX Shows HW-Accelerated Security Stacks; New Licensing Model
At this week's Smart Network Developer Forum, QNX Software Systems Ltd. was to unveil the latest version of its RTOS and a new open-source licensing model. Also, QNX Software Systems announced that its comprehensive suite of pre-integrated protocol stacks now supports IKE, RADIUS, SSH, and SSL, as well as other advanced security features. Running on the QNX Neutrino RTOS v6.3, the new additions leverage the powerful security engine on selected PowerQUICCTM processors from Freescale Semiconductor, a wholly owned subsidiary of Motorola Inc., to deliver highly optimized encryption and authentication for next-generation network elements.
SkyOS 5.0-beta5 Quick Review
There is a new review of SkyOS 5.0, complete with a number of screenshots. The review can be found at the new Sky System website. In other SkyOS news, the ISS (Integrated Sound System) is progressing quickly, and Robert has completed and implemented drivers for both the Ensoniq/Creative ES1371 sound cards and VIA vt82xx / AC'97 chipset.
ReactOS 0.2.2 Released
ReactOS, the open source operating system which is compatible with Windows NT/2000 applications and drivers has been released.