Monthly Archive:: January 2007

"For only being a release candidate the Linux 2.6.20 kernel has already generated quite a bit of attention. On top of adding asynchronous SCSI scanning, multi-threaded USB probing, and many driver updates, the Linux 2.6.20 kernel will include a full virtualization (not para-virtualization) solution. Kernel-based Virtual Machine (or KVM for short) is a GPL software project that has been developed and sponsored by Qumranet. In this article we are offering a brief overview of the Kernel-based Virtual Machine for Linux as well as offering up in-house performance numbers as we compare KVM to other virtualization solutions such as QEMU Accelerator and Xen."

The pkgsrc developers are proud to announce the new pkgsrc-2006Q4 branch. At the same time, the pkgsrc-2006Q3 branch has been deprecated, and continuing engineering starts on the pkgsrc-2006Q4 branch. The NetBSD Packages Collection is a framework for building third-party software on NetBSD and other UNIX-like systems, currently containing over 6400 packages. It is used to enable freely available software to be configured and built easily on supported platforms. Please see the detailed pkgsrc-2006Q4 announcement in Alistair Crooks's email to the pkgsrc-users m-l for more information.

Normally Linux systems can only read from Windows NTFS partitions, but not write to them which can be very annoying if you have to work with Linux and Windows systems. This is where ntfs-3g comes into play. ntfs-3g is an open source, freely available NTFS driver for Linux with read and write support. This tutorial shows how to install and use ntfs-3g on a Ubuntu Edgy Eft desktop to read from and write to Windows NTFS drives and partitions. It covers the usage of internal NTFS partitions (e.g. in a dual-boot environment) and of external USB NTFS drives. Additionally, one more FS-related article (How To Resize ext3 Partitions Without Losing Data), and one Ubuntu (Why Ubuntu Is Number One).

Amid the hype surrounding the release of Windows Vista, Mac users are taking solace from the fact that Mac OS X is still a champ on many fronts. Here are some reasons why reviewer John C. Welch opts for Apple.

Right before the end of 2006, Paul Thurrott completed his 8-part review of Windows Vista. His final conclusion: "Vista is a better operating system than the competition, for reasons that are both technical and practical. But for the hundreds of millions of people who will move to Vista in the coming years, all that will really matter is that it's a major improvement over XP. And it most certainly is that as well."

"TUAW talks about the growing swell of upcoming apps which will use Leopard APIs, and therefore, will require Leopard to run. I'm sure some users are wondering why developers are doing this, and some developers are wondering if they should do the same. Many early adopter end-users are planning to upgrade to Leopard regardless, but some might want to wait for various reasons. From the casual observer's perspective, the obvious thing to do is support older versions of Mac OS X in order to have access to a larger market. In a sense, that's true. But there's more to the story."

At OSNews, I try to bring to attention smaller Linux distributions that try to be different, such as SymphonyOS, or more recently, Elive. Today, I want to introduce you to the LG3D-LiveCD, a distribution using Sun's Looking Glass desktop environment. Version 3 was released yesterday: "The new release features lg3d release 1.0, the possibility to install lg3d-livecd to an USB device and an experimental harddisk installer."

"Next to the Web browser, Microsoft Office is probably the most-used computer software product in the world. Its three main components - Word, Excel, and PowerPoint - are the top business applications on computers. And the fourth pillar of Office, Microsoft Outlook, is the leading email, calendar and contacts program. So, when Microsoft makes significant changes to Office, it's a big deal. And the latest version of the software suite, called Office 2007, due out Jan. 30, is a radical revision, the most dramatic overhaul in a decade or more."

MauriceK writes about security in the ZETA operating system. Apparently magnussoft, sole distributor of ZETA, makes security claims that with ZETA "it is not possible to examine a system from the outside without notifying the user due to the architecture of this software." MauriceK seems to think differently, and even gives examples on how code can be executed without the user's knowledge in ZETA. In related news, BeUnited is no more. Instant update: the discussion concerning security just made its appearance on the Haiku m-l.

The Feodra team has posted a set of 28 features for the upcoming Fedora 7 release, of which the biggest is this: "Starting with Fedora 7, there is no more Core, and no more Extras; there is only Fedora. One single repository, built in the community on open source tools, assembled into whatever spins the Fedora community desires."

Apple Computer chief executive Steve Jobs has never been keen on the concept of a tablet-based Mac but an Apple cell phone may be a completely different story, according to personal accounts from one of the company's former higher-ups published by the UK's Guardian on Thursday. In the meantime, some took matters into their own hands.

Open-source database company MySQL has decided to stick to the current General Public License rather than move to an upcoming revision, pending broader industry acceptance. MySQL, one of the most successful commercial ventures to use the GPL, has modified its license terms from 'version 2 or later' to 'version 2' only, according to Kaj Arno, the company's vice president of community.

InformationWeek reviews OpenSUSE 10.2, and concludes: "All told, I consider openSUSE 10.2 to be a real winner for server duties in my labs. Given the number of pre-release packages that are included, this probably isn't a particularly good choice as a server platform for business-grade networks, but Novell doesn't position it as such, either (that's what their 'enterprise' products are for). I don't think it's as good of a desktop release as SUSE 10.1, either, and there are better distributions for that anyway, but other people are likely to disagree with me here."

"In my opinion, the Draw module is one of the most significant and useful components of RISC OS. For the uninitiated, it provides a set of routines for calculating, transforming and rendering lines, polygons, bezier curves, sprites, and text. The Draw application has been bundled with every version of RISC OS and the draw file format is a defacto standard for almost every RISC OS application that incorporates graphics, and then some. In this article I hope to demonstrate some of the flexibility that Draw and the RISC OS desktop can provide."