Monthly Archive:: May 2007

Top Apps in First ROS 5 Source Release

RISC OS 11 Comments
The first batch of the RISC OS 5 source code has been released today for free download, hours before the start of the Wakefield 2007 show. The upload comes after Castle revealed its shared source licence. The first set of components released by RISC OS Open and Castle comprises of major applications and modules that form part of the backbone of the operating system. These include utility CloseUp; desktop applications Paint, Draw and Edit; the RISC OS Filer and Pinboard; CDFS, various CD device drivers and CDFS Filer; the MessageTrans and BASIC modules; and Browse fetchers. The software is written in a mix of BASIC, C and ARM assembler.
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Blizzard Announces StarCraft II

Games 105 Comments
We usually don't report on games, but I would like to make an exception today. Blizzard Entertainment has announced the sequel to what many see as the best realtime strategy game ever made: they announced StarCraft II. The original StarCraft, released in 1998, tops many best-games-of-all-times lists, and has sold over 9 million copies worldwide; it is still one of the most popular online games, despite its age. In fact, in South Korea, StarCraft matches are even broadcast on TV.
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FreeBSD: Xorg 7.2 Commit

  Submitted by dolores FreeBSD 31 Comments
Xorg 7.2 has almost been committed to the FreeBSD ports tree. "Within the next 24 hours, the long-awaited update to the X.org 7.2 windowing system will be committed to the ports tree. This upgrade has been 6 months in the making and would not have been possible without the dedicated work of Florent Thoumie, Dejan Lesjak and many others in our army of developers."
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Windows Server 2008 Features Address Linux Challenge

Windows 120 Comments
Some of the changes in the upcoming release of Windows Server 2008 are a response to features and performance advantages that have made Linux an attractive option to Microsoft customers. One of these is the fact that Linux has less of a surface area, which led customers to believe that Linux is inherently more secure, Bill Laing, the general manager for Microsoft's Windows Server division, told eWEEK. "Having less surface area does reduce the servicing and the amount of code you have running and exposed, so we have done a lot of work in 2008 to make the system more modular. There are more than 30 components not installed by default, which is a huge change," Laing said. "We also have server core, which doesn't have the GUI, so I would say that is a response to the options people had with Linux that they didn't have with Windows."
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‘More Firefox Bloat? Say It Ain’t So, Mozilla’

  Submitted by shykid Mozilla, Gecko 77 Comments
"When Firefox launched in beta release five years ago, it burst on the open-source browser scene like a young Elvis Presley - slim, sexy and dangerous. Since then it has attracted millions of users, generally set the agenda for browser development and unseated Microsoft's IE as the de facto monopoly in the field. But, with Firefox 3.0 poised for release later this year, the 'IE killer' is in danger of morphing into an early Fat Elvis, if increasing numbers of die-hard fans turned reluctant critics are any guide."
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AMD Reveals ‘Griffin’, ‘Puma’ Mobile Platform

  Submitted by shykid AMD 4 Comments
"AMD recently disclosed a few details regarding their upcoming mobile platform technologies, codenamed 'Griffin' and 'Puma'. We've been given some preliminary information regarding these plans and thought we'd share a few of the more salient details with you here. The 'Griffin' codename pertains to an upcoming mobile processor that incorporates a number of features designed specifically for the mobile segment, with the intention of increasing performance and battery life. And 'Puma' is the name given to the new platform as a whole."
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FreeBSD Developer Summit at BSDCan 2007

  Submitted by Anonymous FreeBSD 5 Comments
The 2-day by invitation only FreeBSD developer summit at BSDCan 2007 in Ottawa has just ended. Over 60 FreeBSD developers attended the summit, along with representatives from large BSD-friendly corporations such as Apple, Yahoo, Nokia, Juniper, NetApp and Ironport. A variety of topics were discussed, such as ZFS, the BLUFFS file system, SMP scalability improvements and the new virtualized network stack. Video recordings from the summit are available, as well as pictures.
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Intel Q965 Graphics Performance

  Submitted by Michael Intel 17 Comments
"The last time we had looked at the performance of Intel's integrated graphics under Linux with their open-source driver was back in February when testing the GMA 3000 IGP using an Intel DQ965GFEKR motherboard. However, with display drivers constantly improving, we recently carried out some additional Intel Q965 graphics tests along with comparing these numbers to discrete graphics solutions from AMD/ATI and NVIDIA."
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LogFS: a New Way of Thinking About Flash Filesystems

  Submitted by FreeRhino Hardware 21 Comments
"Storage manufacturers are getting ready to start shipping solid state disks, and Linux-based devices like One Laptop per Child's XO and Intel's Classmate don't contain standard hard disks. To improve performance on the wide array of flash memory storage devices now available, project leader Jern Engel has announced LogFS, a scalable filesystem specifically for flash devices."
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Only Windows Server To Be 64Bit Only

  Submitted by anevilyak Windows 28 Comments
"Bill Laing, a General Manager in the Microsoft Windows Server Division, has been quoted as saying that Windows Server 2008 will be the last 32-bit operating system. Bill is a server guy and indeed Windows Server 2008 is the last 32-bit server operating system - all future operating systems for server hardware from Microsoft beyond Windows Server 2008 will be 64-bit. A few folks took Bill's comments on Windows Server and applied them to Windows Client deriving that Windows Vista would be the last 32-bit operating system. That is an incorrect extension. While Windows Vista includes both 32-bit and 64-bit and there is a growing community of drivers for 64-bit Windows Vista we have not decided when Windows Client will follow Windows Server and become 64-bit only."
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Should GNOME Get a Global Application Menubar?

Gnome 175 Comments
In the GNOME bugzilla, there is an ongoing discussion about whether or not to include a patch into the default GNOME installation which would enable GNOME to (optionally) have a global application menubar, similar to that of the Mac OS and KDE (in the latter it is optional and off by default). Installation instructions and .deb packages, as well as a 60-page (and counting) discussion of the patch, are available on the UbuntuForums. Read on for a poll on this issue.
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AROS Gets a New Name

Amiga & AROS 20 Comments
The facelift the AROS project had planned is now complete. Most importantly, due to the recent legal troubles concerning Amiga, the project has changed its name from "Amiga Research Operating System" into "AROS Research Operating System". They have also redone their website. There is also development news; the USB UHCI and OHCI support has been completed, and write support for the FAT filesystem has been added, among other things.
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Microsoft Announces New Vista SKU Specifically for Virtual Deployment

Windows 12 Comments
In a completely unanticipated announcement made quietly during a virtualization talk here at WinHEC 2008, Microsoft announced a completely new SKU of Windows Vista, to be entitled Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop. Its purpose will be to enable Vista to run within an enterprise exclusively as virtual machines, managed centrally using System Center Virtual Machine Manager.
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