In the News Archive

EXCLUSIVE: Axentra Rumba Server to be Launched Soon

OSNews was tipped off that OEone (previous stories: 1, 2, 3), creators of the desktop HomeBase SUITE (based on Linux, X and Mozilla's APIs), now are moving to server space. Next week they are going to announce an exciting new product (under a new brand name: "Axentra Rumba Server") which puts Linux back to the server space, but with the form of a user-friendly and cute-looking appliance. *Updated*

Re-purposing Old PCs to Save Cash

This is a helpful article for anyone wanting to re-purpose an old machine for friends or family members, or want to make a firewall or file server out of obsolete hardware. It contains useful hints for tech packrats, such as "throw away old PCs without PCI slots, and "if a component fails intermittently, save yourself the grief and trash it." The article even has hints for convincing your kids that what they really want it a 300 MHz PII with Linux, not a new 3 GHz PC with XP.

News Soup: Longhorn RTM, Mandrake, Lindows, GTK, Python, Patents

"Club members and contributors should have exclusive access to the download edition ISOs. For others, ISOs will be freely available world-wide by the end of October", MandrakeSoft said for their upcoming version of Mandrake 9.2. Mike Kestner has released an update to Gtk#, version 0.11. The EU Parliament approves Software Patent Legislation, but not for all cases. The Czech site Root.cz has a good round up (in Czech) of that's coming on GTK+ 2.4 and 2.6 (the file selector shown there is just a mockup, not the final). Python 2.3.1 is out: this minor release introduces a number of enhancements. Seagate ships first PC operating system pre-loaded on value-priced hard drives: Lindows. According to sources close to Microsoft the latest date set for Longhorn to go to manufacturing by is Aug. 15, 2005.

Keeping Older Hardware Doesn’t Always Save Money

As many OSNews readers forced to get by with ailing, slow computers at work may know, a stingy hardware upgrade cycle can have negagitve productivity effects. However, in this age of gigahertz processors, how often do businesses really need to upgrade? Every three to four years, a recent Gartner study recommends. Now, I'm sure Dell is happy to hear this news, but is it really necessary to upgrade that often?

Banking on the Technology Cycle

Once the most aggressive users of IT, financial institutions have learned to make do with less. But few can go on cost-cutting indefinitely. Computer- and telecoms-makers could soon be feasting again. In most cases, IT systems have not been touched for more than a decade - "note the antiquated OS/2 operating system that runs many an IBM computer on tellers' desks", the Economist reports.

Analyst Predicts Breakup of Hewlett-Packard

A few weeks after Hewlett-Packard disappointed Wall Street for the first time since its $19 billion mega-merger with Compaq, an influential stock analyst has told clients he sees the eventual breakup of the company. Steve Milunovich, who follows big computer companies for Merrill Lynch, said he thinks HP will have to spin off its printer business or separate its consumer business from its corporate business.

When Technology Fails You

Most of the people in the United States and Canada should know about the crippling power outage that hit eastern North America yesterday, leaving New York, Toronto, Detroit, and other cities dark all afternoon and into the evening. When the outage hit, it was sometimes low-tech (or no-tech) devices that were the most useful, as trains stopped and mobile phone networks didn't work or became overloaded. Pay phones (now rare), pagers, and flashlights were the useful tech tools, and thousands were forced to walk home.

TRON Man Shuns Gates-like Fortune

He could have been as rich as Bill Gates, but Ken Sakamura says he's fine earning enough to lead an "ordinary life." In the world of computers, the obscure Japanese engineer stands in the top rank along with Gates, having developed an operating system that is more widely used than even Microsoft Corp's Windows. Sakamura's system, TRON, is used to run items ranging from digital cameras to car engines, just as Windows operates personal computers.

Packaging Groups Coordinate Efforts to Deliver Free Software for OSX

The Fink, Gentoo, and DarwinPorts projects are pleased to announce the formation of a cooperative development alliance, MetaPKG, forged to facilitate delivery of freely available software to Mac OS X. While each project will continue to deliver software in their own way, the coordination between projects will: accelerate the development efforts of all projects, avoid unwanted duplication of effort, improve the consistency, quality, and responsiveness of ports.

Oracle Makes Bid for PeopleSoft

"Oracle on Friday announced a surprise $5.1 billion takeover bid for enterprise software maker PeopleSoft, only a few days after PeopleSoft said it was acquiring rival J.D. Edwards for $1.7 billion. Oracle is offering $16 cash per share for each share of PeopleSoft, a roughly 6 percent premium over PeopleSoft's closing price Thursday of $15.11." Read more at ZDNet.