Showing all newswire headlines

Parsix GNU/Linux is a great little distro hailing from the exotic lands of Persia. It features a lovely customized GNOME desktop and lots of handy applications. It reminds folks of Ubuntu in many ways and is often described as a nice alternative to Ubuntu.

While our primary focus at Phoronix is on providing Linux benchmarks, we do enjoy trying out and benchmarking other operating systems like FreeBSD, Solaris, and Mac OS X. When Apple originally launched Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" we were the first to provide detailed Mac OS X 10.6 benchmarks compared to Mac OS X 10.5 and also how Apple's new operating system at the time compared to Linux. We have continued to monitor the performance of Snow Leopard and found that some point releases had introduced some regressions and we have compared the performance of Mac OS X 10.6 to Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. With Apple's release last week of the "Snow Leopard Graphics Update 1.0" that is reported to bring "stability and performance fixes for graphics applications and games in Mac OS X", our interest was piqued and we set out to run a new set of Apple OpenGL benchmarks. In this article we are looking at the OpenGL performance of Mac OS X 10.6, 10.6.2, 10.6.3, 10.6.4, and 10.6.4 with this graphics update installed.

Next month's revamped JavaOne conference, the first under Oracle's jurisdiction, will feature a keynote presentation from Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, as well as the latest on Java technologies ranging from the GlassFish application server to the JavaFX rich media platform....Ellison will take the stage Sept. 20 in San Francisco to discuss Oracle's vision and strategy for Java, Oracle said.

This article covers standard and journaling (also called journaling) filesystems with an emphasis is on ext2 (standard filesystem) and ext3 (journaling filesystem), but tools for other filesystems are mentioned too. Most of this material applies to both 2.4 and 2.6 kernels. Most examples in this article use Fedora 12, with a 2.6.32 kernel. Your results on other systems may differ.

Sometimes there are ideas that won’t go away. The other day, the Linux Magazine publisher asked me about a “cluster of smart phones.” As the processors in cell phones continue to get more powerful, the question is actually worth asking because many smart phones only need to be smart part of the time. Cluster HPC mavens are always looking for latent CPU cycles, why not check your pocket.

Trinity Audio Group announced an upgrade to its Linux-based "audio operating system," with an improved user interface, the real-time kernel 2.6.31, and a player that lets users change the speed of a song without altering pitch. "Transmission 4.0" is available as a download, on a USB stick, or preloaded on a netbook or ultra-mobile PC (UMPC), the company says.

Ubuntu is already the most popular Linux distribution and probably the first ever Linux distro to overshoot popularity of Linux itself. Now, what Ubuntu needs is a lot of promotional activism from the community. Here is a few Ubuntu adverts from YouTube that I hope will inspire designers among you to get up and start working.

Borders is now taking pre-orders for two seven-inch Android tablets, the $200 Cruz Reader and the $300 Cruz Tablet, and says the first of the devices will ship by the end of this month. Both tablets offer conventional backlit color touchscreens, but the Reader is resistive while the Tablet is capacitive, the reseller says.

Intel and Nokia are reviving the spirit of Second Life with plans for 3D interfaces on mobile devices running their MeeGo Linux distro. The companies have announced their first joint innovation center at Finland's Oulu University, and it will specialize in the development of 3D interfaces and environments for MeeGo.

Fedora 14 Alpha was released today and with it comes enhanced cloud support, KDE 4.5, and the MeeGo UX for netbooks. New features included in the F14 Alpha include improved system and session management through systemd, improved JPEG compression/decompression, and enhanced Perl support with Rakudo.

On returning from a vacation with friends, everyone said ‘Well, now you can do a nice DVD with all our photos, right? ” Certainly, work in IT means I need to know anything about computers, let’s say I used this opportunity to learn a bit about this topic in Linux.

If you’d asked us in 2007 or 2008 to summarize Canonical’s grand strategy, our answer would have centered around beating Red Hat and Novell on the Linux server front. But fast forward to the present and a lot has changed. Here's why.

The MeeGo Project extended the call for proposals for the first-ever MeeGo Conference in Dublin, Ireland. Conference coordinators still need proposals for Middleware, In-Vehicle Infotainment, Project Leadership, and Birds of a Feather sessions. The deadline is now Friday, August 26. Get crackin'!

Ubuntu chief names next release, promises snappy desktop. It's just under two months to go to the release of Maverick Meerkat, the October release of Ubuntu, and Mark Shuttleworth has named its successor.

Sometimes a project demands that we code in a thorough, “belt and suspenders” fashion. However many times it just isn’t necessary to go through all of the trouble — particularly when you’re trying out a new API for the first time and you really don’t need to build a production-ready project. I find myself often throwing together a quick app to test something — in most cases I create a single button to initiate the test.

Android and Ubuntu are arguably the two largest Linux success stories to date. What makes these two distributions so successful?

GNOME Shell is a component of GNOME 3.0, the next generation of the GNOME desktop environment scheduled for release in March 2011. We did introduced Sonar, Elementary and Ambiance GNOME Shell themes before and we have one more to showcase, Equinox GNOME Shell theme.

Why settle for different web-based applications when you can have a full-blown cloud-based desktop, offering a complete solution for daily computing? If a personal cloud desktop appeals to you, then eyeOS is exactly what you need…

Canonical's Ubuntu Community Manager Jono Bacon has announced that the next Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS) will be take place from the 25th to the 29th of October, 2010 at The Caribe Royal hotel and convention centre in Orlando, USA. According to Bacon, the Ubuntu Developer Summit is "one of the most important events in the Ubuntu calendar and at it we discuss, debate and design the next version of Ubuntu".

Rumors are swirling that SAP may acquire Red Hat. But does it make sense for SAP to acquire Red Hat's Linux, JBoss Middleware and RHEV virtualization businesses? Absolutely yes. Here's why.