Developages - Development and Technology Blog

SlackFan writes “Slackware 12.1 has been released with kernel 2.6.24-5. ‘Among the many program updates and distribution enhancements, you’ll find better support for RAID, LVM, and cryptsetup; a network capable (FTP and HTTP, not only NFS) installer; and two of the most advanced desktop environments available today: Xfce 4.4.2, a fast, lightweight, and visually appealing desktop environment, and KDE 3.5.9, the latest 3.x version of the full-featured K Desktop Environment.’”

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Original post by ScuttleMonkey

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Attention XP’ers — your wildest fantasies are coming to fruition. Word on the street is that Service Pack 3 is now available for download all over the World Wide Web. When we say “all over” what we really mean is via Windows Update and the Microsoft Download Center, though we doubt it will stay in one place for too long. Apparently, the new pack offers 1,100 hotfixes and patches, so maybe your obscure, cheapo soundcard will now function in stereo.

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Original post by Joshua Topolsky

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Attention XP’ers — your wildest fantasies are coming to fruition. Word on the street is that Service Pack 3 is now available for download all over the World Wide Web. When we say “all over” what we really mean is via Windows Update and the Microsoft Download Center, though we doubt it will stay in one place for too long. Apparently, the new pack offers 1,100 hotfixes and patches, so maybe your obscure, cheapo soundcard will now function in stereo.

Update: Apparently due to a “glitch” in the latest SP, Microsoft has delayed the release of the update, now aiming for a May 2nd street date. Thanks commenters and tipsters, and no thanks to you, Microsoft.

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Original post by Joshua Topolsky

fyoder writes “Within the world of One Laptop per Child, both the Negropontistas and the Benderites envision a future for Sugar where it runs on multiple platforms, but the latter don’t want Windows (or closed source anything) as part of that future. OLPC’s emphasis has always seemed to me to be on Sugar, with Linux simply being a smart technical choice for the underlying os. Yet what is becoming more explicit with the resignation of Walter Bender is that for many involved in the project there was a strong element of Linux advocacy, such that Negroponte’s flirtation with Microsoft is felt to be pure sacrilege.”

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Original post by fyoder (posted by CmdrTaco)

Filed under: Laptops

What do you know? The former OLPC head of software and content did indeed resign at least partially over NickNeg’s growing fondness of Windows XP. In a recent soul-spilling interview with xconomy, Walter Bender made clear that he resigned his post at the non-profit due to the general de-emphasis of “radical projects like Sugar,” the innovative XO user interface which Mr. Bender was unsurprisingly neck-deep in during his stay. Essentially, he felt as if the outfit had stopped trying to “be disruptive” and started “trying to make things comfortable for decision-makers,” hence Walter darting out “to do his own thing.” Needless to say, the lead developer of Sugar isn’t satisfied with seeing his work forgotten, and while details have yet to be worked out, he is looking to “find a new central home for the community of educators and software developers who have been creating Sugar-compatible applications.”

[Image courtesy of The New York Times]

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Original post by Darren Murph

xtaski writes “Ted Ts′o, one of the earliest Linux developers, points out some serious flaws in OpenSolaris. There is a severe lack of developers, for one. Apparently, after 3 years, the OpenSolaris ‘developer community’ is still struggling to get the proper tools for developers to develop! Ted also points out some other flaws which make it clear just how disconnected the executives at Sun are from what’s really going on in their ‘open source communities.’ He notes, ‘It was never … Sun′s intention to try to promote a kernel engineering community, or at least, it was certainly not a high priority for them to do so.’”

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Original post by Soulskill

evanbro writes “ZDNet is reporting on ksplice, a system for applying patches to the Linux kernel without rebooting. ksplice requires no kernel modifications, just the source, the config files, and a patch. Author Jeff Arnold discusses the system in a technical overview paper (PDF). Ted Ts’o comments, ‘Users in the carrier grade linux space have been clamoring for this for a while. If you are a carrier in telephony and don′t want downtime, this stuff is pure gold.’”

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Original post by kdawson

Nate2 writes “The Hardy Heron has taken flight: it’s the second LTS (Long Term Support) release of the world′s most popular distro. New features include the Wubi Windows installer and Firefox 3 beta 5. Grab a copy here, and check out Linux Format’s overview of the release.”

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Original post by timothy

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Don’t act like you didn’t have April 24th circled in your day planner — heck, you probably stayed up all night hoping Hardy Heron 8.04 would be launched as the 24th dawned in Australia. Regardless of your level of fanaticism towards the OS, the latest flavor of Ubuntu is finally ready for mass consumption. You know what’s waiting for your torrent manager right down there, so why on Earth are you still reading rather than downloading? Get!

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in, image courtesy of doninside]

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Though we originally expected (read: hoped) that Microsoft would dish out Service Pack 3 for Windows XP late last month, it seems the deed may actually get done before May dawns. According to an “internal schedule” fetched over at Neowin, OEMs, volume license, Connect, MSDN and TechNet subscribers will have access to the update on April 21st, while most average joes / janes won′t notice it until April 29th when it hits the Microsoft / Windows Update download center. For folks too busy carrying on to worry over which SP their XP is running, they could very well overlook the automatic update scheduled to land on June 10th. (Re)mark your calendars, won′t you?

[Via InformationWeek]

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Original post by Darren Murph

Linux.com has an interesting look at Granular Linux, a desktop-oriented distribution that’s primary goal is to be easy to use. “With a single CD’s worth of included programs, Granular Linux manages to cover a significant portion of normal end user needs, and those applications not already installed can be easily added through Synaptic. The slight problem with video and more serious problem with sound of my machine suggest that Granular is not without its issues, especially when most other distributions work properly on this hardware, but as this is a preview release of version 1.0 I think it can be more or less forgiven. I’d definitely recommend Granular to anyone with an interest in trying out a new distribution. “

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Original post by ScuttleMonkey

Filed under: Networking

If you’ll recall, the IEEE gave the all important thumbs up to 100G as the next Ethernet speed, and while we’ve seen such a milestone met on the Internet2, Verizon’s looking to bring it to the masses in just twelve short months. According to Fred Briggs, Verizon Business’ executive vice president of operations and technology, the firm is aiming to “deploy 100G network capabilities over all its major routes within the United States.” Verizon actually tested out its 100Gbps capabilities last year on a video transmission from Tampa to Miami, Florida, and apparently, the results “showed that it could deploy 100G on routes and not disrupt current wavelengths.” Granted, we wouldn’t expect many consumers to actually be able to take advantage of all this speed right away, but even if you’re not down with (or nearby) any of Verizon’s forthcoming offerings, there’s always DOCSIS 3.0.

[Image courtesy of Futurenet]

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Displays

Texas Instruments has been showing off its pico-projector technology for some time now, but it looks like it’s finally making its way into a finished product, with Young Optics announcing that it expects to ship the first such projectors “by the end of second quarter or the beginning of the third quarter.” In addition to the core TI technology, the projector makes use of a DLP chip and an LED light module, which pumps out a whopping 7 lumens of brightness while consuming just one watt of energy. No word as to what they’ll cost or exactly where they’ll show up, but cellphones seem to be the likely prime candidate, given Texas Instrument’s past demonstrations of the technology.

[Via About Projectors]

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Original post by Donald Melanson

Filed under: Cellphones

Aside from the Android test platform we saw earlier this week, Texas Instruments has its Android development platform up and running and expects to be in a position to start shipping to developers — yeah you, the programmers that will make our dreams come true — in the next two months. Head on over to Engadget Mobile to peek at the rest of the details and pics.

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Original post by Sean Cooper

Filed under: Cellphones

Seeing as Mobile World Congress is all about the cellular experience, we weren’t too surprised to bump into some Android goodness while here. Texas Instruments had the handset you see above — from an unknown vendor — to demo the OS running on an OMAP 3430 at 500 MHz. The interface is dead quick and rather glorious, and while we had no internet connectivity on it, we still were able to have a peek at various applications — check the gallery for more photos. NEC / Wind River were also showing off an Android prototype platform running on a Medity2 testbed — also at 500 MHz — though it’s a pretty early implementation and was pretty wonky. Interestingly, neither of them had functional input in the browser, so while the NEC version was online, we couldn’t point it anywhere useful. Radio types in the devices were GSM but we expect they’ll likely have HSDPA once they finally land in our hands. In a few words, we like what we see.

Gallery: Google attacks: Android at Mobile World Congress

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Original post by Sean Cooper