Monthly Archive:: December 2003

Opera 7.50 Preview 1 for Linux and FreeBSD available

Submitted by Matthias Toth 2003-12-29 Opera 72 Comments

Opera now has a preview download of their new version, 7.50 available. New main features include RSS Newsfeeds, Opera Chat, Many improvements to the mail client, spell checker (not yet working on systems not using the lastest version of aspell), Menu/toolbar clean-up, new toolbar configuration dialog and more. Additionally, you can buy one Opera desktop license at regular price and send one extra gift certificate for Opera for any OS to a friend for free.

Pegasos II needs Open Firmware update

Eugenia Loli 2003-12-29 Morphos 33 Comments

Amiga.org reports that bplan GmbH announced, the version of the Open Firmware shipped with the Pegasos II is faulty: after changes made by "setenv" the system does not boot anymore. There is also a small fix for a broken MorphOS 1.4 install script.

Review: Lycoris Desktop/LX

Guest post by Rory Griffin 2003-12-29 Mandriva, Mandrake, Lycoris 56 Comments

Seeing the power of Linux, I wanted to continue using it, but I wanted to be able to use it without too much hassle. I was a huge fan of RedHat, and was very upset that I would have to start using a different system. The only home systems out there that were big were Lindows and Xandros (at least the ones most spoken of) and they were not what I wanted. Lindows always logging you in as root, and Xandros being (originally) too expensive. I decided to go with this Lycoris Desktop/LX that I had read up on because it seemed the only system that was worth looking at because it wasn't too dull or too bubbly, as are others. Here is what I have enjoyed about the system, and things I have found wrong with it.

How to Move FreeBSD to a New Hard Disk

Eugenia Loli 2003-12-29 FreeBSD 13 Comments

This useful tutorial-article will explain how you can move your FreeBSD installation from one hard disk drive to another.

Linux 2.6 and mISDN HowTo

Submitted by Simon 2003-12-29 Linux 10 Comments

This is a howto for Linux 2.6 and mISDN. mISDN stands for modular ISDN. mISDN is developed by Karsten Keil from SUSE. mISDN supports some passive ISDN (see supported ISDN cards) cards under Linux 2.6. mISDN uses CAPI.

Commercial Interests and the Future of Linux

Submitted by Usman Latif 2003-12-29 Linux 52 Comments

IBM has been chanting Linux for a long time now but the company has never clearly explained why it prefers Linux to Windows. I have written an opinion piece which gives the motives behind commercial backing Linux is receiving. The article also details the impact commercial interests are likely to have on the future development of Linux. The URL of the article is here.

JNode 0.1.5 Released

Submitted by Chira Valentin 2003-12-28 OS News 18 Comments

JNode has released a new intermediate version of JNode reflecting the current state of development. This release contains USB support, TCP support, various filesystems improvements, initial GUI toolkit, significant performance improvements and lots of bug-fixes.

Review: Why I Use XandrOS 2.0

Submitted by Ashley Davies 2003-12-28 Oracle and SUN 34 Comments

Ashley writes: "I originally wrote the gist of this review as a comment on Xandros User Forums. Rather than discuss every single aspect of Xandros, I've tried to focus on those aspects that distinguishes Xandros from the competition. I will warn you though, I am a long-term Xandros user and this review explains why I use Xandros and as such is not a balanced review as it focuses on the distribution's good points." Read the full review here.

SuSE Linux 9.0 Professional Review

Submitted by Walter Cedric 2003-12-27 SuSE, openSUSE 58 Comments

Walter Cedric wrote a favorable mini-review of the desktop side of SuSE PRO 9.

MySQL 5.0.0-Alpha has been Released

Eugenia Loli 2003-12-27 Databases 36 Comments

MySQL 5.0.0-Alpha, a new version of the popular Open Source/Free Software Database Management System, has been released. The most prominent new feature of MySQL 5.0 is probably Basic support for stored procedures (SQL-99 style). However, there are several additional enhancements, which are planned to be implemented before MySQL 5.0 reaches beta status.

Putting Linux reliability to the test

Eugenia Loli 2003-12-27 Linux 24 Comments

This article documents the test results and analysis of the Linux kernel and other core OS components, including everything from libraries and device drivers to file systems and networking, all under some fairly adverse conditions, and over lengthy durations. The IBM Linux Technology Center has just finished this comprehensive testing over a period of more than three months and shares the results of their LTP (Linux Test Project) testing with developerWorks readers.

BeOSJournal Reviews Zeta RC1

Eugenia Loli 2003-12-26 Zeta 42 Comments

BeOSJournal.org posted a review of YellowTAB's Zeta 1.0-RC-1 with many images (however the review does not state if it was the Service Pack 2 of the RC-1 that was tested, which has many USB and other fixes). Note to Mac readers: If under OSX you can't read the folder after you uncompress the zip file, change the folder's access attributes from the "Get Info" panel.

Inside the Linux 2.6 Scheduler

Eugenia Loli 2003-12-26 Linux 14 Comments

Linux.Ars features a detailed description of one of the most important parts of the newly-released Linux 2.6 kernel: the scheduler. The new scheduler features several improvements over that in 2.4; they will not only explain the improvements, but also describe how the scheduler works and why these improvements are important.

RISC OS Gets Package Management

Eugenia Loli 2003-12-26 RISC OS 18 Comments

Graham Shaw has released RiscPkg, a RISC OS package manager. The idea behind package management is relatively simple, but it can hide suprisingly complex details in its aim to ensure a system has the latest versions of software, along with making sure dependent programs are installed, and downloading these easily with an automated installation system.

AmigaOS 4.0 Developer Pre-release CD Announced

Submitted by Duke 2003-12-25 Amiga & AROS 35 Comments

Hyperion Entertainment and the OS 4.0 development team announced that OS4 development has now sufficiently advanced for a comprehensive Developer Pre-release of Amiga OS 4.0 to be distributed to all current AmigaOne owners shortly after the New Year.

MacOS X: User Friendlier Security for Unix

Eugenia Loli 2003-12-25 macOS 30 Comments

"One of the problems of computer security in practice is providing an easy mechanism for the user of a system to take advantage of the security features present in an operating system. A system may have significant security features, but absent an interface that allows the user to easily make use of those features the effective security of the system may be low." Read the interesting PDF article at Sans.org.

Roadmap for FreeBSD 5.3

Eugenia Loli 2003-12-25 FreeBSD 100 Comments

FreeBSD Release Engineering Team's Scott Long has outlined future plans for FreeBSD 5.3 now that FreeBSD 5.2-RC2 is getting close to release quality.

Steve Jobs, Apple, and the Limits of Innovation

Submitted by Claudio 2003-12-24 Apple 107 Comments

The battle over digital music is just another verse in Apple's sad song: This astonishingly imaginative company keeps getting muscled out of markets it creates. So what does Apple have to tell us about innovation?

Linux: Debating devfs and udev

Eugenia Loli 2003-12-24 Linux 32 Comments

A recent posting to the lkml suggested that the udev project has unfairly hijacked the devfs project, leading into yet another lengthy discussion comparing udev to devfs, and questioning why the latter has been deprecated. Linux devfs was written by Richard Gooch and merged into the 2.3.46 kernel in February of 2000.

Reflecting On Linux Security In 2003

Submitted by LogError 2003-12-24 Privacy, Security 20 Comments

This has been indeed an interesting year for Linux security. The point of this article is to offer a view on what I believe to be some of the most interesting happenings in 2003. The Linux experts that offer their view on 2003 are Bob Toxen (one of the 162 recognized developers of Berkeley UNIX and author of "Real World Linux Security") and Marcel Gagne (President of Salmar Consulting, Inc. and author of "Linux System Administration - A User's Guide" and "Moving to Linux").