Monthly Archive:: December 2006

Fresh from a positive experience installing Sarge on an old home server, the author of this review attempts to install a Debian Etch desktop on an old Thinkpad. How does it turn out? Surprisingly well.

"Hyperion Entertainment is very pleased to announce the immediate availability (for registered AmigaOne customers) of Amiga OS 4.0, The Final Update. Originally released in May of 2004, Amiga OS 4.0 is the most stable, modern and feature-rich incarnation to date of the multi-media centric operating system launched by Commodore Business Machines (CBM) in 1985 with which it still retains a high degree of compatibility. Amiga OS 4.0, The Final Update is the culmination of 5 years of development and takes the form of a stand-alone ISO image which contains a full installation of all Amiga OS 4.0 components. A list of new features can be found here. Availability of PowerPC hardware suitable for operation with Amiga OS 4.0 will be announced by third parties early 2007." Together with Microsoft selling Linux and Apple switching to Intel, this is the definitive proof that hell is now officially frozen. I sure know I'm taking ice skates with me to the grave.

The Cocotron is an open source project which implements an Objective-C API very similar to that described by Apple Computer's Foundation and AppKit framework documentation. "The Cocotron Development Tools are a gcc based cross-compiler toolchain which plug into Xcode, once installed they enable Xcode projects written in Objective-C to be compiled for platforms other than Mac OS X, such as Windows, Linux, and Solaris. The CDT is used to compile The Cocotron and non-OS X targets."

Opera for the Nintendo Wii has been released. "Opera on Wii adds a new dimension and functionality to a video game console system. It is a unique Web experience that everyone can use, and the Intelligent Zoom feature allows consumers to read Web content on the TV from the comfort of their couch." Ars has a review. Update: 5 2 screenshots of Opera for Wii rendering OSNews.

Apparently, my article a few days ago caused a bigger stir than I had anticipated, not at all unrelated to the fact that my wordings may not have been optimal. So, let me clarify things a bit.

"I can't count how many times people have asked me if Windows XP would be available on new PCs following Vista's release. In the near term, the answer is as much a factor of user demand and OEM and system builder policies. That said, Microsoft will make Windows XP available for from 12 to 24 months after Vista's general availability, depending on the sales channel."

"Windows Vista includes an extensive reworking of core OS elements in order to provide content protection for so-called 'premium content', typically HD data from Blu-Ray and HD-DVD sources. Providing this protection incurs considerable costs in terms of system performance, system stability, technical support overhead, and hardware and software cost. These issues affect not only users of Vista but the entire PC industry, since the effects of the protection measures extend to cover all hardware and software that will ever come into contact with Vista, even if it's not used directly with Vista (for example hardware in a Macintosh computer or on a Linux server). This document analyses the cost involved in Vista's content protection, and the collateral damage that this incurs throughout the computer industry."

This is a response to the article yesterday on the progress of GNOME and KDE. Aaron Seigo, a lead KDE developer, sets out the current state of progress with KDE 4, pointing out that KDE 4 is on track for a release in mid 2007. "Thom points to a quote from me that our goal is to have a 4.0 ready sometime in the first half of next year. That gives us until sometime in June and I'm still thinking we can make it."

More evidence: "Mac OS X Leopard (Build 9a321) features support for ZFS. The rumors were true, you can create disk images with a ZFS filesystem, well at least in theory, because Build 9a321 is far away from being stable. The DiskUtility itself crashes again and again. Trying to create an actual ZFS image produces kernel panics. There is no pool support to create stripes, mirrors or even RaidZ in DiskUtility yet. It seems that all the other rumor sites stopped right there, which is why we had to set up this website to show you how well ZFS is already implemented. We show you what works and what doesn't. After reading you will know what the deal is, with ZFS and the upcoming Mac OS."

VMware today released a beta version of the new VMware desktop product for the Mac, codenamed Fusion. It supports a wide variety of x86/x64 guests, and is cross-compatible with virtual machines created in VMware Workstation, VMware Player, VMware Server and VMware Infrastructure 3. It supports Virtual SMP, drag & drop of files between OS X and virtual machines, and supports all USB 2.0 devices. Even devices that do not have drivers for OS X will work in a virtual machine.

"I have tested, and continue to run in a production setting, two instances of Windows 2003 Server hosted by Parallels Desktop, running on OS X Server 10.4.8 on a 3 GHz Xserve. To skip to the punch line, it works, and it's as fast as all get-out. Parallels does not stretch the truth when it claims near-native performance; Xserve is capable of knocking off any two-socket Netburst (Pentium 4) Xeon server going back at least two years. Compared to Xserve, those Intel boxes eat more electricity and give off more heat than they give back in capacity for work."

Hans Reiser, the prominent Bay Area Linux programmer charged with murdering his wife, says he's seeking to sell off his open-source file system company, Namesys, to help pay mounting legal costs. In the first interview since his arrest, Reiser spoke this week about the future of his company and his legal travails from within the walls of Santa Rita Jail, where he is being held without bail.

HTC's eagerly anticipated entry into the ultra-mobile PC market has made an early, unscheduled appearance on the web, adding weight to the company's own admission that it could release a UMPC-like product as early as 2007. Mobile-Review has more photos of the device. Don't tell me you don't (secretly) want one.

Java can provide a simple way to submit z/OS batch jobs to run -- but that is just the beginning. You can also use Java, from any platform, to check on the status of your z/OS batch jobs. This article showes you how to use Java to access z/OS JES Sysout files. In addition, extending the Commons Net Library allows the specific JES file attributes to be encapsulated in Java objects.