Monthly Archive:: November 2004

Free and open source software is often criticised for being less usable than its commercial equivalent. Good user interface design isn't some magical thing that FOSS developers can't do for themselves, however. I've written a short article describing five key points of good interface design that any developer can use in their projects. (Note: hosted on a slow connection, please use the Coral Cache if possible).

I think that everyone reading OSNews will have heard at least something about QNX. You can regard this article as an introduction, but also as a review, and as a "Is-QNX-Ready-For-The-Desktop? article". To start off, I put together a short explanation of the merits of using a microkernel. Let me start off by saying that QNX Software Systems (QSS) does not aim towards the desktop with their Neutrino RTOS.

ActiveWin.com recently had the opportunity to interview Wes Miller, Program Manager in the Windows Setup & Deployment team. They discussed various Setup/Deployment issues including WinPE, etc.

VitalFile for Real-Time Workstation Protection provides transparent real-time file-level protection. Any time a "user-created" file is changed; VitalFile makes up to three copies. No administrator is necessary and users can restore files themselves.

Codeweavers has released v4 of its Wine implementation with the addition of support for iTunes.

According to many economists, Gilbert Amelio is the savior of businesses in trouble. With this in mind, the board of directors at Apple decided to appoint Gil Amelio to the board after reporting another huge loss in 1994. At the time, Michael Spindler was the head of Apple, and sales in every division. The board accepted Spindler's resignation and appointed Gil Amelio to the helm of Apple.

The OpenBSD team earlier this month released version 3.6 of the free operating system, with support for more hardware, updated application software, and bug fixes included. This time around OpenBSD has added support for multi-CPU systems, a number of drivers for new peripheral hardware, and about 200 more apps to the Ports tree. NewsForge took the new version for a spin, and liked what they found.

Linux kernel 2.4.28 was released this morning. Click here to download the new kernel (patch), or here to see the changelog.

An extended version of the CRUX PPC 2.0 GNU/Linux distribution for the Apple and Pegasos II systems...more.

In the latest episode of LugRadio, they discuss whether the involvement of large corporations, such as Novell, is a good thing for open source software. It gets quite heated, as two sides emerge - one that hates corporatism, and the other that can't see a future without a more professional approach.

Based on this article it looks like the upcoming Mac OS X 10.3.7 update right now focuses on FireWire Audio, Graphics and Postscript.

Few impressions and tips after a Gentoo 2004.3 installation. A couple of screenshots included.

Have you had your Java Heap looked at lately, well maybe you should. It could be oozing something nasty. Why walk around wondering if your Heap has a leak? Use the free HeapAnalyzer graphical tool and check yourself before your wreck yourself.

Linux laptop support has been in my experience abysmal at best. Things that just work when running Windows XP are either horribly broken, or simply not implemented at all under Linux. Many Linux distributions have little or no real ACPI support. Imagine using your laptop without a battery meter, or any noticeable fan control whatsoever. Due to the lack of mature ACPI support in most modern distributions, I have had to deal with a very large amount of suffering.