Monthly Archive:: September 2009

Release candidate Linux 2.6.32-rc1 is out. Linus Torvalds has posted the announcement for the first release candidate of Linux kernel 2.6.32 on the Linux Kernel Mailing List. "The Linux 2.6.32 kernel brings many driver updates, some new drivers, many file-system updates, and much more. Exciting us in the Linux 2.6.32 kernel is the ATI R600/700 kernel mode-setting and 3D support along with the VGA Arbitration code and the KMS page-flipping ioctl."

If you have Apple's QuickTime media player and/or iTunes installed on your Windows machine, you might want to keep an eye on apple's Software Update tool. Apple is once again using the update tool to push unwanted software onto users' machines without asking for permission.

We didn't have a Week in Review last week, and I'm sorry for that - I was swamped with other things (hence no podcast either last week, we did record one today). This past week saw news items on a wide variety of topics, ranging from Google fixing Internet Explorer to Linus calling Linux bloated.

Most of us are probably aware of Singularity, a research operating system out of Microsoft Research which explored a number of new ideas, which is available as open source software. Singularity isn't the only research OS out of Microsoft; they recently released the first snapshot of a new operating system, called Barrelfish. It introduces the concept of the multikernel, which treats a multicore system as a network of independent cores, using ideas from distributed systems.

A non-OSNews-reader asks: "I've got 5 PCs that I'm trying to use to train disadvantaged young people. The problem is they are riddled with viruses and a firewall blocks me from updating them. The people in charge of maintaining the PCs won't fix them or give me the admin password (Win XP) to let me install a new or updated antivirus. The centre is being shut down in a few months. If they were working, I could still do a lot with them, so I've been looking for a good online virus scan - but they all try to download a little .exe onto your PC first, and the settings on the PCs won't allow that. Suggestions? Solutions? Links?" Read on for our recommendation. Update: It appears that this question is part of an elaborate email scam designed to propagate malware. See here for details.

Yesterday the Moblin Steering Committee announced three developments: Release of Moblin v2.0 for Atom-based netbooks, a preview of the Moblin Garage and Moblin Application Installer, and a community preview release of Moblin v2.1 for Atom-based netbooks and nettops for early development.

TechCrunch conducted a lengthy interview with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and discussed "high level thoughts on major Microsoft products and strategies (including Windows, Windows Mobile, Internet Explorer, Bing, Azure, Mesh, Natal and others), competition, the future of search and search marketing, Microsoft's 'three screens and the cloud' strategy, the recent acquisition of Interactive Supercomputing and, yes, even his thoughts on Twitter."

InformIT has an interview with Dale Rahn, the OpenBSD ARM port maintainer, about the history of OpenBSD on mobile devices, and where some opportunities growing in the mobile space in the future. It covers the DARPA-funded origins of OpenBSD use in mobile (mostly about firms not wanting to use GPL code), and initial enthusiasm for the Zaurus among BSD guys. Rahn touts advantages that OpenBSD has over the more-popular mobile Linux distros, and some shortcomings that still need to be addressed.

In France, the GPL has scored yet another major win in court. What makes this infringements case special is that it was filed not by the developers of the infringed-upon code, but by users, demonstrating that they, too, can successfully enforce the GPL. Since I noted on a few threads here on OSNews that a lot of people still fail to grasp the difference between an open source license and an EULA, I figured I'd take this opportunity to explain the difference one more time - using hand-crafted diagrams!

There's news in the Apple vs. Psystar saga, and even though I know I promised not to report on this for a while, this news is a pretty important development, and we're more than two weeks down the road anyway. As you all know, Psystar filed a second lawsuit concerning specifically Snow Leopard in Florida, and Apple motioned to have the case combined with the Apple vs. Psystar case running in California, claiming there is no difference between the two. Judge Alsup has denied this request.

Gimp critics will have one less thing to complain about when Gimp 2.8 is released later this year. Single window mode is coming with the next major release along with some other interesting UI enhancements.

Remember those magical speakers with invisibility cloaks? They're back, and they reek more of "awesome" than ever. Though not available to the public quite yet, these handy dandy speakers are planned to be implemented into your everyday flat-panel televisions, desktop monitors, laptop screens, and mobile devices. They're a slim technology made from a membrane and little micro motors embedded into the screen. The motors vibrate the membrane on each side of the screen and bring about what we call sound directly from the screen itself, eliminating the need for miniature crummy speakers planted in leftover space on our ever-smaller display technology. Anyone who doesn't integrate them into their products when this technology becomes available is foolish. In my mind's eye, I see people not needing to buy those funny portable iPod speakers anymore as well as me not needing to put my head on my netbook in order to hear the sound played on it. Glorious.

Earlier this week, Google launched Chrome Frame, a plugin for Internet Explorer 6/7/8 which replaces the Trident rendering engine with Chrome's rendering and JavaScript engine for better performance and superior standards compliance. Microsoft has responded to this release, claiming it makes Internet Explorer less secure. Note: What database category do I put this in? Internet Explorer? Google? Choices, choices!

"It seems that UTIs are in the news again. It all started with a change in application binding in Snow Leopard. In a scant few weeks it's degenerated into a sometimes-angry bout of cross-blog debate. I have an opinion about the changes in Snow Leopard, and I'll get to that eventually, but my main goal is to clarify the issue. It's really not that complicated, and seeing all the confusion on the web has been disheartening."