Adam Scheinberg Archive

Lycoris, makers of the popular Desktop/LX Linux package, released their ProductivityPak Friday featuring a highly customized and integrated Openoffice.org and PDA Sync tool. With the ProductivityPak, Lycoris has introduced features not found in typical OpenOffice.org installations, such as a spell checker, and has advertised compatibility with, among other formats, Office XP documents.

Ludovic Hirlimann wrote it to tell us, "The mozilla team did it again! Mozilla 1.3a is available for downloads (check your prefered mirror for download.) New features and bugs are described here." It appears that Mozilla Mail's junk filtering has improved. In other news Netscape 7.01 was also recently released.

William G. Canaday writes for Newsforge, "When my wife asked me to remove Windows and install Linux on her computer, I was happy to oblige. She is familiar with Linux from watching me use it and was quite upset that Windows had lost her desktop photograph -- again. This gave me an excuse to try setting up a terminal / server network." His article discusses his experience with LTSP, the Linux Terminal Server Project. Read the rest at Newsforge.

Ladislav Bodnar writes "Libranet GNU/Linux, a commercial Linux distribution based on Debian, has been given increasingly positive coverage in Linux media. Its recipe for success is simple - it attempts to remedy some of the often cited shortcomings of Debian proper, by providing a simple installer, user-friendly system configuration tools and up-to-date selection of software packages. Combine that with a friendly user community and you have a winner. Let us investigate what Libranet is about and why you should give it a serious thought when choosing your Linux distribution." Read the rest of the review at Distrowatch.

There are certain perennial debates amongst the technical community, constantly revisited with differing outcomes for each person. Linux vs. Windows, KDE vs. Gnome, Mac vs. PC - they are unwinnable arguments, and although the outcome varies overtime with each successive release or new piece of hardware, they consistently gain our attention. When presented with the opportunity to borrow a Macintosh for a little over a month, I jumped at the chance to resolve one of these debates for myself. The question was: Can the Mac replace my PC?

A lot has been said about Lindows. We will talk about some of these issues here and debunk them. Update: Read more and scroll down for the update of the article!

There's so much going through my head right now, my first article since a fairly controversial article I wrote that got emotional for many on this website as well as many others. One thing is for sure: many have gotten a crash course on some things perceived as "wrong with Linux" and what is collectively agreed is right.

Lindows.com, Inc., maker of the low-cost, Linux-based operating system LindowsOS , announced today the release of LindowsOS 2.0 available now to Lindows.com Insiders. Michael Robertson also writes about it in his column. LindowOS 2.0 uses the Keramik KDE theme (and possibly KDE 3.x), and it includes many new tools like wireless configuration, laptop support, printer network scanning and more.

Xandros announced today the release date for its first-generation Linux desktop product, Xandros Desktop 1.0. The product, due to be released on September 30, 2002 and available for purchase within three weeks after that date, is built upon Linux kernel 2.4.19, XFree86 4.2, Debian 3.0, Corel LINUX 3.0, and enhanced KDE. It features the Xandros Install Express, Xandros File Manager, and extensive configuration panels and wizards. Xandros Desktop 1.0 also includes Xandros Networks - an application that enables users to obtain feature enhancements, bug fixes, and the latest Xandros news via a single mouse click. Read the rest of the press release here. Our two previous interviews with Xandros VP Michael Bego, filled with more information, can be found here and here.

Just a few weeks after the beta release of the next version of their Linux based OS, Red Hat has released 7.3.93 of their software, once again, code-named Limbo. Those of you who read my first Limbo review know that I gave it a favorable review. After downloading and installing the second beta, I had to take a few days before writing this article.

It appears that Linux-Mandrake believes it has not angered customers as reported on many IT related web sites. According to this page, the folks at Mandrake explain how the OEM agreement they signed with Sun forced their decision (to make SO6 available only to Club members), justify the change in their membership benefits, and thank the community for their continued support of open-source R&D.

For those of us who still mourn the BeOS, watching gobe software expand is like watching a little brother grow up; we're all rooting for them. That's why it's that much more exciting to see reviews like the one at arstechnica.com that gives gobeProductive 3.03 a solid 8/10 score, with the author commenting "I encourage everyone to pick up a copy." Read the rest of the review at ArsTechnica.com. NewsForge reviews OpenOffice 6.0 while they also report on a new crossover plugin for Linux which allows Microsoft Office to run under Linux.

I'm writing this opinion piece on the eve of perhaps Apple's most hyped MacWorld Expo ever. TIME Canada has already pre-released an article about the next-generation flat-panel iMac machines, complete with pictures of the it, its industrial designer and Apple CEO Steve Jobs. While the complete picture has yet to be painted (and will be in the morning when Jobs reveals the specifications during his keynote speech), I'm starting to believe that Apple feels that "innovation" and "revolution" are a matter of hardware and user interface aesthetics. Where Apple used to pave the way for new technologies, programming methodologies and user interfaces, they remain stuck in a rut of their own creation, bound to re-create a lot of the same mistakes that caused them to lose the majority of their market share and relevance to Microsoft in the 1990's. E-I-C's note: The article was written before the actual MacWorld Keynote took place.

There were an amazing number of people (around 300,000) who visited OSNews recently to read Scot Hacker's article on MacOSX. As part of the camp of BeOS refugees, I have been searching for some time for a suitable replacement. Many come close - FreeBSD is fantastic, but still complicated, the new school of Linuxes are very close to ready for me, even Windows XP has come a long way. My x86 machine is pretty fun - it gets a new OS every two weeks or so. But what does that say - that I like variety or that I can't find what I want? I'd suggest most of us still feel that we're missing something - otherwise, why read osnews.com?