OSNewsExploring the Future of ComputingKernel Devs: Closed Source Modules 'Harmful and Undesirable'- June 24, 2008 A constant thorn in the eye of many Linux kernel developers is the existence of closed-source kernel modules, most notably those by Nvidia and Ati, but also some file system drivers and other elements. Most of the Linux developers have been against these modules ever since they were first used, and in fact, bug reports originating from a tainted kernel are often disregarded and ignored. The kernel developers have now rallied together by issuing a statement urging vendors to release open source..http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=19908 Review: 'Opera 9.5 Gives Firefox 3 a Run for Its Money'- June 24, 2008 Linux.com has a review of Opera 9.5, which also includes various benchmarks for Opera, Firefox, Safari, and IE on both Windows and Linux. Linuxcom concludes: "Opera 9.5 is full to the brim with features and improvements and highly customizable. By rolling in apps such as the mail client and IRC chat application, and integrating them into a user's browsing experience, Opera 9.5 is a worthy challenger to Firefox 3. It surely has enough power and features to make it my favorite browser. If...http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=19907 Nokia Now Controls Symbian; Empowers Symbian Foundation- June 24, 2008 The Symbian OS was a team effort between Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson, Panasonic, Samsung and Siemens. Reports said, that in the eve of the 10th year anniversary from the creation of Symbian, Nokia has bought the 8.4% Siemens stake for 70 million Euros ($108.6 million) and will now have over 56% of controlling interest in the group, but the press release says that Nokia takes it all. This could have created quite some uneasiness to the other players, but Nokia will play nice.http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=19906 Five Undisclosed Features of Apple's Mac OS X Snow Leopard- June 24, 2008 Although Apple is marketing Mac OS X Snow Leopard as an operating system update with "no new features," under the hood improvements will actually translate into a slew of new enhancements, five of which are described herein.http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=19905 PsyStar's Open Computer: the Alterna-Mac- June 23, 2008 PsyStar introduced its Mac clone to much media attention back in April, causing many discussions about the company's legal status, the validity of the Mac OS X EULA, and even PsyStar's very existence. It soon turned out PsyStar was a real company, and was actually shipping the OpenComputer Mac Clone to its customers, to generally rather favourable reviews - not stellar of course, but acceptable, with the biggest downside being the inability to use the Software Update tool, forcing users to...http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=19904 Review: Microsoft's Hyper-V Does the Trick- June 23, 2008 InfoWorld's Randall Kennedy reviews Hyper-V RC1, and though he finds the Windows Server hypervisor lacking the sophistication of VI3, the company's try and try-again attitude might help the company in gain an advantage over VMware. "For many shops, Hyper-V will prove to be plenty good enough, allowing Microsoft to begin eating away at VMware's market share while preparing the next-generation product for the final assault that topples the leader."http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=19903 Toshiba Unveils Laptop with Cell-Derived Coprocessor- June 23, 2008 The first laptops to make use of the SpursEngine, a multimedia co-processor derived from the Cell chip that powers the PlayStation 3, will go on sale in Japan in July. Toshiba will launch its Qosmio G50 and F40 machines with the chip, which contains four of the "Synergistic Processing Elements" from the Cell Broadband Engine processor. The Cell chip used in the PlayStation 3 has eight of the SPE cores plus a Power PC main processor. The SPE cores perform the heavy number-crunching...http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=19902 The Berlin Packaging API: the Solution- June 23, 2008 Installing software on Linux. In the world of online minefields, this is the big one. Back in the day, you installed software on Linux by compiling it manually. Time-consuming, but assuming you had a decent knowledge of gcc, make, and maintaining library files, this could actually work. Later one came the package management systems that were supposed to make installing software on Linux a breeze: rpm, dpkg, and so on, and so forth. Since human beings have the innate tendency to assume that...http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=19901 Firing Up Browser Security- June 23, 2008 "Mozilla released its latest browser, Firefox 3.0, last week. SecurityFocus contributor Federico Biancuzzi tracked down two key members of Mozilla's security team, Window Snyder and Johnathan Nightingale, to learn more about the security features included in this major release. They discussed the protection against phishing and the new malware protection, the new update mechanism for add-ons, Mozilla's security policies and processes, and the hardening of their Javascript...http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=19900 HP Open Sources AdvFS Under GPL v2- June 23, 2008 HP has announced that they will open source the AdvFS under the second version of the GPL. AdvFS is a mid-90's file system that is used by the Tru64 UNIX operating system. The Wikipedia page on AdvFS provides the necessary background information and feature set of the AdvFS file system.http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=19899 |