Monthly Archive:: January 2007

A Mac User Switches to Vista

"This story is for anyone considering or interested in switching from Mac to Microsoft's very beautiful new operating system, Windows Vista. I made the switch several weeks ago, from my trusty 12" PowerBook to (at first) a 17" HP widescreen notebook. Was my switch from Mac to Windows Vista easy? Was I able to 'Think Different', the other way around? And a month later, have I decided to stick with Vista or go back to the Mac? Read on to find out - and please, before you send hate mail, read the whole story."

GNOME 2.16.3 Released

"The latest stable release of GNOME is here: GNOME 2.16.3! This is the final release in a series of point releases for the 2.16 branch. Come and see all the bug fixing, all the new translations and all the updated documentations brought to you by the wonderful team of GNOME contributors! While development continues on the GNOME 2.17/2.18 road, we didn't forget about making a new release that is rock solid. And simply better than the previous one."

Interview: Robert Norris, AROS Developer

The new AROS Developer Robert Norris has been interviewed by the AROS Show. "One of the original goals for AROS was 100% compatibility with AmigaOS 3.1. This is a noble goal, but it's not particularly forward-looking. AmigaOS has moved on since then, and there will be no new m68k hardware, yet many AROS developers are intent on making sure everything they do can be made to work on the older systems. That's their perogative of course, but my concern is that by constantly looking backwards we're missing the opportunities in the future."

E Is for Elegant with Elive Live CD

"Elive is a live CD Linux distribution based on Debian that uses the Enlightenment window manager. Elive aims to provide an aesthetically pleasing environment with a full suite of desktop applications that runs efficiently on older systems. Its developers aren't finished yet, but they've come a long way with Elive since the release of 0.3 more than a year ago. This CD shows how beautiful distributions can become without being bloated."

FreeVMS 0.3.2 Released

FreeVMS is an OpenVMS-like operating system; it consists of a POSIX kernel and a DCL command line interpreter. The only architectures currently supported are i386 and x86-64. Version 0.3.2 has just been released and you can grab it from the ftp server. It is probably wise to read the USE file before diving into FreeVMS. News: support for DCL open/read/close, and all open/read/write/close with VMS-style logicals, some I/O counts, DCL show status, and a better-looking show system.

Getting Your Open Source Application Running in Vista

"Microsoft Windows Vista launched for general purchase on January 29. If you want to get information about modifying and deploying your open source application in Microsoft Windows Vista, you should check out this blog item on Port 25. There is a Q&A style interview about the Microsoft DevReadiness.org community site as well as other resources to help you get your FOSS application Vista-ready."

Fluendo Media Decoders Sound Bad to Open Source Advocates

Thanks to Fluendo, Linux and Solaris users on a variety of processor architectures can now purchase playback support for patent-encumbered audio and video formats. Similar support from free alternatives, whether they rely on copying Windows DLLs or use original code, all violate existing patent law. The mere existence of Fluendo's plugins needles a bevy of critics, but Fluendo is prepared to answer them all. And in an ironic twist, sales of these decoders for non-free formats are funding the development of free alternatives.

Stardock’s Windows Vista Road Map

"Windows Vista has finally arrived! Many people have been asking us what are Stardock's plans? What can we do to take an excellent new OS like Windows Vista and make it better? There have been a lot of articles on how users of Windows XP can get a lot of the visual benefits of Windows Vista using Stardock Object Desktop. And while that may be true, Windows Vista provides us a whole new canvas of cool things we can do."

DragonFly 1.8.0 Released

DragonFly 1.8.0 has been released. The biggest kernel change in this release is the addition of virtual kernel support and a virtual kernel build target. The biggest user-visible changes include updates to third party applications included in the base system, a major rewrite of NULLFS which removes all directory recursion restrictions from mount_null and removes nearly all the kernel resource overhead when using such mounts, and a multi-ip feature for jails.

Microsoft Updates Vista Before Rollout

Microsoft released several updates to Windows Vista Monday, the day before the new operating system debuted for consumers and landed on retail shelves. None of the updates were security fixes. The five updates for the 32-bit version of Vista - one was immediately replaced Tuesday with an update to the update - fix difficulties installing the OS on PCs with more than 3GB of memory, troubles connecting with a VPN server, and performance problems with Internet Explorer 7 and its anti-phishing feature. The largest of the five updates, however, is one that addresses incompatibility issues for a host of applications and games.

Thoughts on PatchGuard

Ken Johnson, a Windows kernel mode and debugging guru, analyzes the Windows x64 Kernel Patch prevention system on his blog. From his perspective, PatchGuard is neither a security scheme nor a DRM measure due to the limited scope of the structures it protects. Instead, it is a tool to prevent vendors from destroying system security and stability. Johnson also forecasts a hypervisor-based PatchGuard mechanism for future revisions to this technology. Check out other posts on Nynaeve for a wealth of technical details on Windows mechanisms of interest to reverse-engineers.

Summary: Windows Vista News, Cont’d

While the BBC features reviews of Vista by ordinary folk, someone dove into Vista's EULA only to find that when you upgrade from a previous version of Windows, the license of that product becomes invalid. What this means, basically, is that after you've upgraded your XP install to Vista, you cannot use the license of your old XP install on another computer. Tom's Hardware, in the meantime, published an in-depth benchmark comparing Windows XP to Vista, concluding that "Vista is the better Windows, because it behaves better, because it looks better and because it feels better. But it cannot perform better than Windows XP." APCMag, lastly, wonders what can be learnt from the Vista launch.

Building RISC OS 5 for the RiscPC

"There still seems to be plenty of interest in building shared-source RISC OS for the Risc PC, but there is much confusion about what would be involved in doing so. First, understand that this is not top priority for ROOL - ROOL's policy is that it's more important to focus on releasing all the components needed to do an Iyonix ROM and disc build first. Only after this will the remaining components be vetted for release, although those components that relate to Risc PC hardware support are probably good candidates to be the next on the list."

Linux Kernel Developer Offers ‘Free Linux Driver Development’

"Yes, that's right, the Linux kernel community is offering all companies free Linux driver development. No longer do you have to suffer through all of the different examples in the Linux Device Driver Kit, or pick through the thousands of example drivers in the Linux kernel source tree trying to determine which one is the closest to what you need to do. All that is needed is some kind of specification that describes how your device works, or the email address of an engineer that is willing to answer questions every once in a while. A few sample devices might be good to have so that debugging doesn't have to be done by email, but if necessary, that can be done."