OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Apple, Microsoft Near OS Update Releases

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-24 OS News 34 Comments

"Apple Computer and Microsoft on Tuesday took steps toward releasing important operating system updates. Both companies are expected to release updates to their operating systems next month. Apple plans to release Mac OS X 10.2, and Microsoft is readying Windows XP Service Pack 1, the first collection of bug fixes and updates to the operating system released last October. Testers working with the releases said the companies are close to issuing near-final versions of the operating systems." Read the report at ZDNews.

Opteron: The Rodney Dangerfield of Processors?

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-24 AMD 42 Comments

"AMD's forthcoming Opteron processor--aka Hammer--packs ground-breaking technology: Its hybrid design allows the chip to run 32- or 64-bit operating systems natively. Plus, AMD claims that one Opteron running in its 32-bit mode will outperform two XEONs--the heart of the most advanced 32-bit servers based on Intel technology. But where are the benchmarks? Which system vendors are planning Opteron-based servers? And what about software support? Until some of these pieces fall into place, AMD's gamble looks to be facing some long odds." Read the set of articles at ZDNews.

O’Reilly: Open-source .Net Inches Closer to Fruition

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-24 Mono 31 Comments

"The open-source effort to create a freely available version of Microsoft's .Net development environment is set to take a leap forward Wednesday, when developers from the effort known as the Mono Project detail its latest accomplishments at a conference dedicated to open-source software." Read the report About the O'Reilly open source conference at InfoWorld.

IBM Released DB2 v8.1

Submitted by Frank 2002-07-23 Databases 22 Comments

IBM has released DB2 v8.1 for Linux, HP, AIX, Solaris, os390 and Windows today. New features include multi-dimensional clustering (queries and analytics nearly 100% faster), self-configuring, self-healing, self-optimizing, self-protecting, and the ability to consolidate Web Services queries through a single SQL statement.

On the Subject of CPU Benchmarks

Submitted by JBQ 2002-07-23 Benchmarks 103 Comments

Developer Jean-Baptiste Queru wrote a short editorial regarding the SPEC benchmarks and how modern CPUs are competing these days based on the specific benchmarks. JBQ talks about the Pentium4, AthlonXPs, Itanium and especially about the G4. Update: JBQ just wrote a redux article.

Linux: Twelve Steps to Desktop Dominance

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-23 Linux 48 Comments

"While I normally turn a cold shoulder to all those increasingly arcane ways of dividing people into two groups we keep inventing, there's one that I think holds the key to Linux's prospects for success on the mainstream desktop." Read the article at LinuxAndMain.

Borland Speeds Kylix C++ for Linux Development

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-23 General Development 21 Comments

Borland Software Corp is set to build on an early lead among Linux developers, with today's expected launch of a C++ rapid application development (RAD) environment. Scotts Valley, California-based Borland will announce version 3.0 of its Kylix RAD environment for C++. Previous versions of Kylix targeted Delphi programmers on Windows and Linux. Read the rest of the report at TheRegister.

Cheap PCs With Lindows Are Well Intentioned but Flawed

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-23 Linspire 34 Comments

"Wal-Mart, the most mass-market retailer imaginable, is committing an outrageous form of computing heresy: On its Web site, it's selling Windows-compatible personal computers without Windows. Stranger yet, the PCs (built by Microtel Computer Systems, a Los Angeles area manufacturer) come installed with a version of Linux, the open-source operating system that has been giving Microsoft fits lately." WashingtonPost reviews Wal-Mart PCs with Lindows.

NetBSD 1.5.3 Released

Submitted by Dan 2002-07-22 NetBSD 23 Comments

The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce that Release 1.5.3 of the NetBSD operating system is now available. NetBSD 1.5.3 is a maintenance release for users of NetBSD 1.5.2, 1.5.1, 1.5 and earlier releases, which provides the following updates relative to 1.5.2: A number of security problems have been fixed, some performance fixes have been incorporated, improved device support in some existing drivers, some new device drivers have been added.

Interview with YellowDog’s Dan Burcaw

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-22 Original OSNews Interviews 17 Comments

In light of the recent release of YDL 2.3, we are happy today to host an exclusive interview with Dan Burcaw, co-founder, CTO, and lead developer of YellowDog Linux, the Red Hat-based, PPC-only Linux distribution for the Mac platform.

Microsoft Embeds HailStorm into .Net

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-22 .NET 12 Comments

Contrary to reports that Microsoft has abandoned its HailStorm technology (aka .NET MyServices), company officials have revealed plans to embed components of the XML schema and data-access technology throughout its .Net application, server, and client stack. The software giant is combining HailStorm services, a unified storage system, and collaborative SharePoint services toward the goal of building a universal canvas infrastructure across multiple product groups. Read the report at InfoWorld.

Mandrake 9.0 Beta1 Released

Submitted by dave_sn 2002-07-22 Mandriva, Mandrake, Lycoris 36 Comments

From DistroWatch: "The first beta of the brand new Mandrake 9.0 release has hit the mirrors. Get the three CD images here: MandrakeLinux-9.0beta1-CD1.i586.iso (700MB), MandrakeLinux-9.0beta1-CD2.i586.iso (700MB) and MandrakeLinux-9.0beta1-CD3.i586.iso (498MB) (if these URLs don't work, try here). The version increase from 8 to 9 has been justified by a jump to KDE 3.x, Gnome 2 and GCC 3." Update: It seems that Mandrake Software does well these days. Thanks goes to Michael Matthews for the pointer.

“Star Wars” Effects Studio Shifts to Intel

Submitted by Michael Slater 2002-07-22 Multimedia, AV 40 Comments

The technical effects studio has switched from using RISC-Unix workstations from SGI to using Intel-based Dell systems running Linux for the bulk of its animation and special effects work, said Cliff Plumer, ILM's chief technology officer. As part of the conversion, ILM recently deployed 600 Pentium 4 workstations. "The Intel workstations that were deployed were probably 20 percent of the price of SGI workstations we bought a few years ago," Plumer said. "Performance-wise, they are about three times as fast." Read the report at News.com.

The Game Theory of Open Code

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-21 Open Source 48 Comments

"A company selling proprietary software to third parties will never open its code if the company has a competitor. It will never release its software under the GNU GPL. If you consider open code a benefit to society, you may want to propagate open-code legislation or otherwise try to stimulate new competition in the marketplace." A draft of this article has been stirring up much debate on the Free Software law mailing list, but this is the first time it's been published at a web site.

Benchmark Duel: Mac vs. PC, Round II

Submitted by Prognathous 2002-07-21 Benchmarks 107 Comments

"The dual Athlon is still the fastest PC we've tested, but the single Intel P4 2.53 GHz machine runs a close second, and even beats the dual Athlon on some of the tests. And, as expected, the Mac dual 1GHz G4 could not even come close to keeping up with these two PCs. Even though the P4 machine has only a single processor, it was easy for it to leave the dual-processor Mac far behind." Read the benchmarks at DigitalVideoEditing.

Microsoft Battles Warez – Rewrites WPA Algorithm

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-21 Windows 46 Comments

"Microsoft is planning what could end up being quite a shock for the Windows XP warez world, and what currently looks to be one of the most amazing moves made by Microsoft since Windows Product Activation was introduced. Currently, Microsoft is in the works of completely rewriting the algorithm for the way Windows XP Corporate keys are generated, and is rewriting the code for Windows XP to recognize this new algorithm. This new code will be an added ‘feature’ of Service Pack 1 due out later this year." Read the report at BetaONE.

Introducing Oberon and BlueBottle

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-21 OS News 19 Comments

Some Oberon friends emailed us a few days ago and asked for an introduction of the platform to the OSNews readers, so here it is: Oberon started in the '80s, and it is both a native operating system capable of running on its own partition, and a programming platform (based on Pascal/Modula) on top of existing OSes. It seems to be quite active and in fact, there was a recent fork of the official Oberon kernel, becoming the Bluebottle OS, which also seems very active.

Stardock Releases Object Desktop 2002 on CD

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-21 Graphics 17 Comments

Object Desktop 2002 is a desktop enhancement suite designs to allow Windows users to completely transform Windows into anything they want. It includes WindowBlinds, DesktopX, ObjectBar, IconPackager, WinStyles, and more. It also includes a 1 year subscription to ObjectDesktop.NET where users can download all the components of Object Desktop, updates, and new features. Our Take: I was lucky to have a "live" demo of the product from Stardock's CEO, Brad Wardell , a few months back. This set of applications truly transform the Windows GUI to something completely different, which is certainly not just skining, but a complete change of how the UI behaves and interacts with the user.

Linux in the land of z/OS

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-21 Linux No Comments

"Mainframe Linux's near-term attraction is it relative ease of operation, not price per se. We project mainframe Linux will remain a shrinking niche, whose term will be defined by the dual mainframe/Wintel gaps of cost (widening) and management functionality (closing)." Read the analysis at ZDTechUpdate.

The Rasterman Believes Desktop Battle for Linux is Lost

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-20 Linux 42 Comments

The Rasterman is the founder of the Enlightenment project, an infinitely configurable window manager that is working its way toward becoming a desktop, even though he thinks the desktop battle is lost. In an email interview with LinuxAndMain, he talks about what he's doing, his view of the future of desktop Linux, the nature of development projects (commercial, community-based, and genius-based) and more.