Monthly Archive:: May 2007

What’s New in SELinux for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5?

  Submitted by diegocg Red Hat 23 Comments
"In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, 15 services in system space had confined SELinux domains defined. In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, over 200 processes are confined by SELinux. The improved SELinux policy is much more precise in how it governs the operation of these services. It's far less likely that a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 system space process will be compromised or encounter an error caused by an SELinux policy not handling the specific requirements (e.g., file or directory access) of a service."
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Pidgin IM 2.0 Released, Review

  Submitted by shykid Internet 46 Comments
"Pidgin 2.0, the latest version of the popular open-source instant messaging client formerly known as Gaim, is now available for download. After months of development and numerous beta releases, Pidgin 2.0 is finally ready. A significant improvement over the current 1.5.x series, Pidgin 2.0 includes several compelling features and usability enhancements. Last year, we looked at the second beta release and concluded that much work still needed to be done. Many of the problems we discovered in the early Gaim 2.0 betas have since been resolved. The official Pidgin 2.0 release, available for download from the Pidgin web site, provides an impressive level of quality and reliability."
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Microsoft To Buy Yahoo?

  Submitted by Almafeta Microsoft 89 Comments
Software maker Microsoft asked search engine operator Yahoo to re-enter formal negotiations for an acquisition that could be worth USD 50 billion, the New York Post reported on Friday. Microsoft is feeling increasing pressure to compete with Google, which plans to beef up its portfolio with a USD 3.1 billion buy of online advertising company DoubleClick. Earlier this week, Yahoo said it would buy 80 percent of advertising exchange Right Media for USD 680 million, increasing its stake in that company to full control. Microsoft currently trails both Yahoo and Google in the lucrative and growing business of Web search. Update:. The deal's off.
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PC World Editor Quits Over Apple Story

  Submitted by ozonehole Apple 26 Comments
"Colleagues at my former outlet, PC World magazine, have told me that Editor-in-Chief Harry McCracken quit abruptly today because the company’s new CEO, Colin Crawford, tried to kill a story about Apple and Steve Jobs. The piece, a whimsical article titled 'Ten Things We Hate About Apple', was still in draft form when Crawford killed it. McCracken said no way and walked after Crawford refused to compromise. Apparently Crawford also told editors that product reviews in the magazine were too critical of vendors, especially ones who advertise in the magazine, and that they had to start being nicer to advertisers."
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Seven Steps to Kubuntu Feisty Fawn Bliss

  Submitted by anonymous Ubuntu 50 Comments
It's been like 3 hours without an Ubuntu article, so here we go. "With the release of Ubuntu 7.04, Feisty Fawn, I naturally couldn't resist taking Kubuntu, my preferred Ubuntu version, for a quick spin on my trusty old Thinkpad testbed. Here is a six-step process through which I speedily arrived at a highly usable, fully capable desktop Linux system."
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Introduction to UML

  Submitted by FreeRhino General Development 17 Comments
"When you're designing and developing new software systems, it is often hard to see how all the pieces are suppose to fit together. Unified Modeling Language is one tool that allow developers and architects to ease the process and create a big picture before committing to a particular technology."
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ACK: New Amiga Hardware To Arrive Despite Legal Battle

Amiga & AROS 45 Comments
ACK Controls, the company behind the newly announced Amiga hardware, has held an IRC session where they answered questions and provided more details concerning the upcoming hardware. According to ACK, the promised hardware will arrive with OS4 despite the legal battle going on between Amiga Inc. and Hyperion. On the high-spec machine (USD 1500), they said: "It's faster than anything Apple ever produced on the PowerPC side of things." Which is interesting, to say the least. The transcript containts many more details, and the Amiga community is discussing the matter as well.
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RISC OS Select 4 Issue 2 Now Available

RISC OS 6 Comments
"Paul Middleton just emailed to let us know that RISC OS SelectInfo 4 Issue 2 is now available to download to any RISC OS Select subscriber who renewed their subscription on or after January 1st 2006. In the PR, Paul Middleton says: "Select 4 and its underlying RISC OS Six technology represents over 10 man years of development which has taken RISC OS 4 from its 26 bit version to its new fully 32 bit neutral source version.""
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From 1981: the World’s First UMPC

Hardware 18 Comments
It's the original UMPC: Epson's HX-20, announced in 1981 - 25 years before Intel and Microsoft formally launched the ultra-mobile PC category, in April 2006. Epson's machine wasn't the first portable computer - that honour goes to the Osborne 1. But while the Osborne was a beast of a machine, designed more as a desktop you could take from place to place, the HX-20 was a truly a system for computing on the move. So while the HX-20 combined not only a full QWERTY keyboard, a display, storage and even a printer into its 28.4 x 21.3 x 4.4cm casing, but also a rechargeable Ni-Cad battery.
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eComStation Gets New Vesa Driver, ACPI Support

  Submitted by e-co OS/2 24 Comments
eComStation has gotten a new VESA video driver and full ACPI support. The developers are working on user interface improvement as well. "In the beginning of the spring we updated: ACPI subsystem, eComStation kernel, USB Tools homepage, Hardware database, General Network Utilities, PMDownloader, eSchemes gallery, Panorama video drivers, Piano Launchpad and Imagination, Calculator for millionaire, Firewall ports setup, LANGE library." Screenshots can be found here.
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Sun Joins Porting Effort for OpenOffice.org for Mac

  Submitted by Nimrita Oracle and SUN 29 Comments
"I'm excited to let you all know that as of now Sun engineering will add its support to the ongoing Mac/Aqua porting effort. The MacOSX porting history is basically as old as OpenOffice.org itself. Practically from the start there was the plan to have a native version for Mac, however as a first step the community decided to produce an X11 port which - since OOo already had several X11 ports from the start - seemed to be a good way to get a version quickly as temporary solution. As usual the 'temporary solution' tended to be quite long lived."
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OLPC Project: No Plans for Windows Support

  Submitted by Flatline Hardware 16 Comments
"Late last week the One Laptop Per Child project had a media event in Cambridge, and while I couldn't make the event, I did tape a video interview for the BBC on the project. During my preparation I kept coming across these claims that Microsoft and OLPC had partnered to put Windows XP Starter Edition on the OLPC, and according to one report, this was being done to get the XO laptop into US schools. None of this jibed with what I had been hearing from sources, so I decided to look into it further. As it turns out, a number of new outlets, including the AP and Reuters, mischaracterized the situation."
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Fedora Core 5 End of Life

  Submitted by anonymous Fedora Core 18 Comments
"Several months ago, the Fedora Board (in consultation with Red Hat Engineering) decided to increase the length of time that Fedora releases are supported, in terms of updates. This decision was retroactively applied to Fedora Core 5, allowing it to remain a fully maintained release for several months longer than it would have under the old policy. Fedora Core 5 will reach its end of life for updates on Friday June 29th, 2007."
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Fiwix 0.3.1 Released

Unix 33 Comments
GNU/Fiwix is a 32-bit x86 operating system kernel based on the Unix architecture and fully focused on being Linux compatible. It is designed exclusively for educational purposes, so the kernel code is kept as simple as possible for the benefit of students. In the latest version, the virtual memory manager code has been improved to support SVGAlib-based applications and to add the ability to mmap() physical addresses. The way to map physical addresses in the /dev/mem driver has been improved. The mmap() and readpage() methods have been added to the VFS structure. Among other improvements in the VFS layer, the code to build with gcc 4.x has been fixed.
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Steve Jobs on a Greener Apple

  Submitted by DevL Apple 81 Comments
Steve Jobs writes about Apple's efforts to become a more enironmental friendly company. "Apple has been criticized by some environmental organizations for not being a leader in removing toxic chemicals from its new products, and for not aggressively or properly recycling its old products. Upon investigating Apple's current practices and progress towards these goals, I was surprised to learn that in many cases Apple is ahead of, or will soon be ahead of, most of its competitors in these areas. Whatever other improvements we need to make, it is certainly clear that we have failed to communicate the things that we are doing well." Among other things, Apple will introduce LEDs in displays to Macs this year.
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Silverlight on Linux: We’re in, Says Mono Founder

  Submitted by WillM Mono 107 Comments
"The Mono open-source project will create a Linux version of Silverlight by the end of year, said Miguel de Icaza, a Novell vice president and head of Mono. At the Mix '07 conference on Monday, Microsoft touted the ability to write Silverlight Web applications that run on Internet Explorer, Firefox and the Safari browser on Mac OS. Next up for Silverlight is an edition for mobile devices, including Windows Mobile. Asked about plans for Linux, Microsoft executives have been non-committal, saying that it will depend on demand. But de Icaza, who is attending Mix, was able to commit without hesitating."
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