Monthly Archive:: August 2006

SLED 10 Is a Linux Distro Windows Users Can Love

"In a fairly short time, Novell has transformed itself from a firm that had next to nothing to do with Linux into one of the Penguin's most visible and aggressive flag-bearers. For evidence of this metamorphosis, we need look no further than Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, which breaks ground in the client operating system territory that Linux leader Red Hat has so far opted scarcely to tread. SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, or SLED, is the most polished Linux client operating system we've yet tested, and well-deserving of our Analyst's Choice designation."

Apple Previews Mac OS X 10.5, Launches Mac Pro, Intel Xserve

At the 2006 WWDC in San Fransisco, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced several new products during his opening keynote speech. Read more for a chronological summary of the keynote-- including the much-debated preview of Mac OS 10.5, Leopard, which, according to Steve Jobs, will ship this spring. Update: Apparantly, a similar feature to Time Machine already exists in Linux. It is called 'Dervish'.

Fedora Core 6 Test 2 Released

The Fedora Project announces the availability of Fedora Core 6 Test 2. One of noticeable features is the ability for Anaconda, the Fedora Core installer, to use other repositories, the support for MacIntel and for the first time, Firefox can now use Java through gcjplugweb. This distribution is aimed for testers due to bugs needed to be sorted. Download are available through torrent and mirror servers. Update by AS: Fixed typo. Update by ELQ: OSDir put up some shots of the FC6-test2.

Andrew Morton Moves to Google

In a surprising move, Andrew Morton, the Linux kernel co-maintainer, announced that he is moving to Google and that he will continue being a Linux maintainer. A detailed article can be found here: "It is beneficial to me (and to Linux) that I be in day-to-day contact with people who use Linux for real things. Hence Google is a good all-round fit."

SkyOS Gets WidgetGecko

Gecko, the powerful rendering engine used in Mozilla products like Firefox, is now available as an embedded widget in SkyOS. Using WidgetGecko you can easily add powerful HTML support to a SkyOS application with just a few lines of code. Embedded Gecko brings the SkyOS Media Station project closer to reality.

First Windows Browser Based on Apple’s Webkit

"Welcome to GetWebKit, the home of the first and only WebKit based Windows web browser. Featuring the excellent rendering engine used in popular Macintosh web browsers Safari and Shiira, GetWebKit offers a free, powerful, and open-source internet experience." Seems like besides Opera, IE, and Gecko, there is now a 4th mature engine coming to the Windows platform.

Dell To Sell AMD-Based Notebooks

Following its recent partnership with AMD to put the latter's chip in its server product line, Dell Computer confirmed this week that it will launch AMD-based laptops as early as October. The move could deal another blow to rival Intel. Dell will release mobile computers running AMD's Sempron and Turion 64x2 processors in early October, representatives from both AMD and Dell, told CNET Taiwan. Initial plans will target consumer models equipped with 15.4-inch displays.

Why We Love Drag-and-Drop on RISC OS

One of the strengths of RISC OS is the ability for people to drag'n'drop objects around the desktop. It's usually hard to describe how well this works, but other operating systems are rapidly catching up. While RISC OS still arguably has the edge, Drobe spoke to a number of professionals who rely on the drag'n'drop in RISC OS.

‘Forget About Open Source at Apple’

"We all cheered when Apple began experimenting with community-driven, open source development for its flagship operating system. But if those experiments are now drawing to a close, should anyone really be surprised? In his columns earlier this year, InfoWorld's resident Mac aficionado Tom Yager noted how Apple seemed to be backpedaling away from open source. Seen through that lens, last week's news that the OpenDarwin Project would be closing its doors looks like just another sign of the times."

Vista’s Virgin Networking Stack

In a recent podcast Steve Gibson of grc.com has drawn attention to a detailed report by engineers at Symantec who demonstrate that Windows Vista contains a completely virgin network stack that has been programmed from the ground up. The Symantec software engineers have monitored the behaviour of the new stack through a series of beta releases and have documented that it contains most of the basic bugs and security holes that have long since been fixed in other stacks - even the Windows 95 stack. Since it has not had a chance to mature and develop in the wild, the likelihood that it contains new, uncharted holes and errors is very high. Some have already been found. Gibson stresses that the ramifications for the security of the new stack are disastrous.

Solaris on a Diet

Engineers at Sun are working on a 'small' version of Solaris 10. "I've got a modified Solaris miniroot with ZFS functionality which takes up about 60 MB (the compressed image, which GRUB uses, is less than 30MB). Solaris boots entirely into RAM. From poweron to full functionality, it takes about 45 seconds to boot on a very modest 1GHz Cyrix Mini ITX motherboard."

.NET 3.0’s Separate RTM and What It Means

NeoSmart Technologies reports on what the upcoming RTM of the Microsoft .NET 3.0 Framework means, both for developers and those seeking a look at what's coming from Microsoft's direction. It includes the positive implications this has on Microsoft's laggy development process and the benefits it'll provide to developers and system programmers too.

Key Porting Differences from LinuxThreads to NPTL

The LinuxThreads project originally brought multithreading to Linux, but didn't conform to POSIX threading standards. The introduction of Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL) however, overcame many of these disadvantages. This article describes some of the differences between these two Linux threading models for developers who may need to port their applications or who simply want to understand where the differences lie.