Monthly Archive:: August 2009

The next version of Fedora, Fedora 12, will integrate a Moblin Desktop Environment. It can be easily "groupinstalled" via the yum package manager. The environment has already been added to the Constantine alpha release of Fedora 12 and to Fedora's "Rawhide" development branch. They're seeking testers to "make it great" for the final release of Fedora 12, which will be released in early November.

It was a sad day when the Eee Keyboard's initial release date of sometime in August was (which, unless it magically appears for sale today, it's not going to happen) was delayed. The drool-worthy piece of work, which we detailed some months ago, just arrived at the FCC. "Interestingly, the test reports indicate the presence of a UWB radio in addition WiFi and Bluetooth, so it looks like we'll see the planned wireless HDMI model even after the spec pretty much hit the skids earlier this summer. We'll see how it goes -- and if we get that interesting Moblin version alongside the Windows edition when this thing eventually ships." Rumors have been floating around about an October release. Hopefully that's the case (or sooner). Pocketbooks at the ready, gentlemen and ladies.

InfoWorld has announced its 2009 Best of Open Source Software winners, spotlighting its top 40 picks among open source enterprise software, application development tools, networking and network management software, and platforms and middleware projects. The package also includes a 'Hall of Fame' for the 10 most indispensable open source projects of all time. InfoWorld's top picks among desktop productivity tools builds on its recent 'Best Free Open Source Software for Windows,' adding GIMP, Blender, and Audacity, among others.

It's time for another week in review. This was decidedly the Snow Leopard week, but we also talked a lot about Linux, Psystar, and even SCO resurrected from the dead to continue its litigation about UNIX.

"With the Ubuntu Software Store, Canonical is hoping to unify all of the different package management needs into a single, unified interface. While this will not be achieved in Ubuntu 9.10, Canonical is hoping that all of the capabilities of the update-manager, Synaptic, the computer janitor application, gdebi, and other package management-related programs will be merged into Ubuntu Software Store. When this has occurred, it will be easier on the new end-user having to just deal with a single program to provide all of this functionality."

"Newmium is currently developing iXRIOS, a high-speed, multi-processor, multi-operative, real-time operating system based on the workstation-server model. Users log on to a specific machine on which their operatives execute by default. They can request remote execution of their operatives via automatic and transparent load balancing of operatives and processors. Coupled with transparent load balancing, the iXRIOS system is loading only required services and drivers. iXRIOS is going to be restricted to commercial USA corporations. All government and non-profits are excluded from the program."

"Since the last update from around the time of 1.1alpha2, Thusnelda has moved to the SVN trunk where work has concentrated on final features, cleanup and testing for the Theora 1.1 (Thusnelda) final. We're very close to the complete 1.1 and have already released two 1.1 release candidates. We'd optimistically scheduled final 1.1 release for last week, however we're taken some additional time to do more testing/tuning of the two-pass rate control."

The week isn't even over yet, and we already have another instalment in the Apple-Psystar soap opera. Psystar has filed a new lawsuit in the Florida Southern District Court in Miami, asking for an injunction and damages because of Apple's "anticompetitive attempts to tie Mac OS X Snow Leopard to its Macintosh line of computers".

Genesi just launched the Efika MX 'smarttop' - an ARM-based Linux device with HD video capability. Based on the Freescale i.MX515 processor (800Mhz ARM), it includes WiFi, Bluetooth, HDMI, and only consumes about 7W of power.

Another instalment of Ask OSNews. A reader sent us in a question about browser security and privacy. "Could you please advise me and your readers on what you consider to be the safest web browser? I am considering the term 'safe' from both a privacy and security stand point."

The recent release of the PS3 Slim brought about joy for those who were waiting for a less expensive/smaller gaming system and indignation for those who were waiting for a Linux experimental machine of the same type as there was no "OtherOS" or Linux option on this model. Why? we cry sadly. Because, the deep, omniscient voices of two Sony representatives boom back.

Earlier today we reported that while Apple doesn't encourage it, the Snow Leopard upgrade disk can be used to upgrade machines that have Mac OS 10.4 Tiger installed as well. However, this is actually forbidden by the accompanying EULA, which raises an interesting question: do you have any moral problems ignoring said EULA? And on a more general note, do you actually care about any EULA at all?

"It's turning out to be a busy week for Nokia. Days in advance of NokiaWorld in Stuttgart, and a couple of days after lifting the curtain on its first netbook, Nokia has announced the Nokia N900, the successor to its almost four-year-old lineup of Internet Tablets. The N900 follows in the footsteps of the N810 with its slide out keyboard, but adds for the first time built-in 3G (Nokia calls it 3.5G) functionality, making the N900 the first Nokia tablet with the ability to go online without a WiFi connection or cellphone pairing. It's also the first Nokia device to run Maemo 5, Nokia's homegrown Linux distro."

The US State Department is quite clearly fed up with not being able to use Firefox. One of its staffers asked (causing applause) Secretary of State Hillary Clinton why they were not allowed to use Firefox. Clinton did not know the answer right away herself, but under secretary Kennedy explained that while Firefox is free, it still comes with a price. However, the goal is indeed to allow the State Department to use Firefox. More here.