Monthly Archive:: June 2008

The AIX operating system and other UNIX-like operating systems need a way to communicate with the kernel. This is done through the use of a shell. The Korn shell is the default shell used with AIX. Discover how to automate many tasks and save a great deal of time by writing your own Korn shells scripts.

On OSNews, we try to steer away from speaking of specific security incidents, trojans, or viruses, unless they are in one way or the other special, or very influential. Over the course of the past 12 months or so, many incidents concerning Mac security arose, but most, if not all, were lemons: they required the user to actively enter his administrator password, or to manually launch the malicious program. In my book, these cases do not constitute as serious breaches of security, and hence, OSNews ignored them. However, a new security breach has been making rounds around the internet lately, which does pose a serious breach in security.

Earlier this week, we reported on the Berlin Packaging API, an effort to consolidate the various different packaging formats and managers in the Linux world. Many compared this new effort to PackageKit, and today Linux.com is running an article detailing what PackageKit exactly is, with a few quotes from the project's lead developer, Richard Hughes.

In a recent interview with the British Sunday Observer, Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, claimed that "it's the next billion who will change the way we think". Such a big claim deserves some critical house room. Will the internet really change the way we think? Or are we just getting carried away? Gary Richmond explores the implications of the Wikipedia open source/free software knowledge paradigm and what it might mean for the way we think. You can read the full story at Freesoftware Magazine

InfoWorld's Tom Yager speaks in favor of the RTFM approach to learning new skills, arguing that the knowledge gleaned from cracking a manual only in search of a specific answer is eroding software quality. "The reason is that developers don't allow themselves the time to look things up before they use them. Statement completion, context-sensitive help, generated code, unit testing, and automated analysis came about expressly to eliminate research and experimentation from the development cycle. The result, I think, speaks for itself. How many rookie coding blunders that lead to security vulnerabilities grow out of inadequately understood usage of a method or resource?"

The resource usage of browsers is an important aspect in modern-day computing, because the browser is taking on an ever more important role in day-to-day computing tasks. Hence, it may come as no surprise that many complaints regarding browsers are not about rendering speed or rendering quality, but about resource usage. Dot Net Perls ran an interesting benchmark on Windows Vista SP1, comparing 5 browsers to each other.

Yesterday, we reported on the statement several kernel developers had signed that urged hardware manufacturers to open up their Linux modules and drivers. "We, the undersigned Linux kernel developers, consider any closed-source Linux kernel module or driver to be harmful and undesirable," the statement read. Nvidia, which delivers probably the most prominent closed-source Linux driver, has reiterated its position concerning this matter.

We already know some of the directions Windows 7 will be exploring: a system-wide multitouch user interface framework, a focus on performance, all while building on top of the groundwork Windows Vista has laid out. While off-hand remarks have been made concerning the operating system's release date, it appears Microsoft now formalised the release date of Windows 7.

Canonical has released Ubuntu 8.04 Mobile Internet Device Edition, a version of the Ubuntu Linux distribution geared towards netbooks, mobile internet devices, UMPCs, subnotebooks, or whatever they're called this day of the week. It has a whole slew of optimisations geared specifically towards Intel's Atom platform, as well as a set of open source applications designed specifically for MIDs, all courtesy of Intel's Moblin project.

Analysts continue to trump the lack of applications being developed for Vista. Yet, as Randall Kennedy points out, "developers who write for Windows rarely target a specific version. Rather, they select a particular API framework and proceed from there." The supposed Vista 'app gap' is a straw man, Kennedy argues. "The real question should be: Why aren't developers leveraging the various iterations of the .Net framework?"

Linux.com has a review of Opera 9.5, which also includes various benchmarks for Opera, Firefox, Safari, and IE on both Windows and Linux. Linuxcom concludes: "Opera 9.5 is full to the brim with features and improvements and highly customizable. By rolling in apps such as the mail client and IRC chat application, and integrating them into a user's browsing experience, Opera 9.5 is a worthy challenger to Firefox 3. It surely has enough power and features to make it my favorite browser. If only it were free software and open source!"

The Symbian OS was a team effort between Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson, Panasonic, Samsung and Siemens. Reports said, that in the eve of the 10th year anniversary from the creation of Symbian, Nokia has bought the 8.4% Siemens stake for 70 million Euros ($108.6 million) and will now have over 56% of controlling interest in the group, but the press release says that Nokia takes it all. This could have created quite some uneasiness to the other players, but Nokia will play nice.

PsyStar introduced its Mac clone to much media attention back in April, causing many discussions about the company's legal status, the validity of the Mac OS X EULA, and even PsyStar's very existence. It soon turned out PsyStar was a real company, and was actually shipping the OpenComputer Mac Clone to its customers, to generally rather favourable reviews - not stellar of course, but acceptable, with the biggest downside being the inability to use the Software Update tool, forcing users to download OS updates straight from PsyStar's servers - to prevent updates from Apple hosing the OpenComputer. We're a few months later now, and a few things have changed.

InfoWorld's Randall Kennedy reviews Hyper-V RC1, and though he finds the Windows Server hypervisor lacking the sophistication of VI3, the company's try and try-again attitude might help the company in gain an advantage over VMware. "For many shops, Hyper-V will prove to be plenty good enough, allowing Microsoft to begin eating away at VMware's market share while preparing the next-generation product for the final assault that topples the leader."