Monthly Archive:: August 2007

The BBC has interviewed Vint Cerf. "Vint Cerf is known as one of the founder fathers of the internet and played a key role in the development of the protocols which underpin the global net. He was a founding member of the Internet Society and is Google's Chief Internet Evangelist."

The second beta of Mandriva Linux 2008, codenamed Galilee, is now available. The release notes are available here. A guide to major new features (some of which are not yet implemented in this beta) is available here, and the detailed technical specifications are available here. This beta is available as a three CD or one DVD Free edition (containing no non-free software or drivers) for the x86-32 and x86-64 architectures, with a traditional installer. Future betas will be available in One live/install CD hybrid editions with proprietary drivers.

"Late last night we started receiving reports from readers experiencing problems with Windows Genuine Advantage authentication. Users of both Windows XP and Windows Vista were writing to say that they could not validate their installations using WGA, and one user even said that his installation was invalidated by the service. We contacted our sources at Microsoft, who told us off the record that the company is aware of a major WGA server outage affecting users across the globe. Microsoft is telling users who are affected that they should 'try again' later, with some support techs telling readers that Microsoft is aiming to have a fix in place by Tuesday, August 28th."

Syllable's resident graphics designer Ruud Kuin has published the first issue of his Syllable Development Newsletter . This new project is a continuation of the SDN magazines by Michael Saunders that were popular around two years ago. The first issue contains five main articles and five smaller ones, for a total of eleven pages, by six contributors. Subjects range from a developer interview to the first part of a programming tutorial series. It is accompanied by an archive that conveniently collects software that was released recently: three pieces this time.

Microsoft will launch several projects around Linux and other open source technologies for allowing Indian customers the option to run its products on different operating systems and technologies. The initiative, to be rolled out in around a month's time, is aimed at grabbing "more market share for the Windows platform by allowing interoperability with open source technologies such as Linux," said Radhesh Balakrishnan, director, platform strategy, Microsoft India.

Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon Tribe 5 has been released. "The Ubuntu developers are hurrying to bring you the absolute latest and greatest software the Open Source Community has to offer. Gutsy Gibbon Tribe 5 is the fifth alpha release of Ubuntu 7.10, and this alpha release brings a host of excellent new features."

"In this article, I'll compare Ubuntu 7.04 with the upcoming release of PC-BSD 1.4. Having used both operating systems extensively, PC-BSD is the one I recommend and the one I install in desktop environments. If you've used Ubuntu before, but haven't tried PC-BSD, give it a try. The increase in responsiveness (i.e., everything seems to just run faster) and ease-of-use will surprise you."

OpenSUSE 10.3 beta 2 has been released. "The openSUSE Team is proud to announce the release of openSUSE 10.3 Beta 2. Though this release should not be used on any production machines, everyone can help shape this release by testing out installations and much more. For more information on the release schedule, take a look at the Roadmap."

DragonflyBSD 1.10.1 has been released. It includes several bugfixes. "DragonFly is an operating system and environment originally based on FreeBSD. DragonFly branched from FreeBSD in 2003 in order to develop a radically different approach to concurrency, SMP, and most other kernel subsystems."

It is not too surprising that Ubuntu came in first in DesktopLinux.com's 2007 Desktop Linux Market Survey, or that Firefox was the topmost browser by far. More interesting is that for the first time ever in the site's annual surveys, GNOME surpassed KDE among desktop environments (45% over 35%), with Xfce a solid third (8%).

The third installment of Ars' series on the history of the Amiga begins with the third prototype and covers the rest of Amiga's history as an independent company. "Modern chips are designed using high-powered workstations that run very expensive chip simulation software. However, the fledgling Amiga company could not afford such luxuries. It would instead build, by hand, giant replicas of the silicon circuitry on honeycomb-like plastic sheets known as breadboards."

"The development of the kernel has changed, and Linux is just getting better and better. However, with a community as large and fractured as the Linux community, it can sometimes be hard to get a big picture overview of where Linux is going: what's happening with kernel version 2.6? Will there be a version 3.0? What has Linus been up to lately? What does he get up to in his spare time? I had the opportunity to chat with the original creator of the Linux kernel, Linus Torvalds, in a number of email exchanges."

"Zonbu is a very simple system. It is geared for users who may not necessarily care what operating system they are using, but someone who just wants a functional system. Zonbu does exactly that. The software is very straightforward to use. Zonbu is very environmentally friendly. Not only does it not require a lot of power to run, it also does not contribute to noise pollution."

Phil Hester, AMD's chief technology officer, stopped by the Hot Chips conference here at Stanford University on Tuesday to talk a little more about Fusion, AMD's plan to integrate a graphics processor and PC processor onto the same chip. By the time the chip is ready around 2009, Hester thinks the growing explosion of video and 3D graphics on PCs these days will require an affordable chip that still delivers great graphics performance.