Archive November 2007
What is more than dual core but less than quad core? Triple core CPUs coming from AMD.
According to spys at some motherboard makers AMD has recently notified its partners that it plans to launch two triple-core CPUs (Toliman) in February 2008.
In computing we are so used to things going up in 2s. 256Mb of memory, then 512Mb of memory and so on… 1 core, 2 cores, 4 cores… It is refreshing to see the number 3 again… Of course there is not technical reason for not having 3 cores, or 5 cores or 7, the underlying OS doesn’t need an even number of cores or CPUs to work. Well done AMD!!!
The triple-core 7700 and 7600 will have core frequencies of 2.5GHz and 2.3GHz, respectively, and a TDP of 89W. frequencies for the dual-core 6250 and 6050 have not yet been set, but the CPUs will have a TDP of 65W, the sources revealed.
Ever wondered how iLife looked like circa 1994?
Do you wnt to see what iLife looked like circa 1994? This is an Apple advert from the ninety about Mac, a video camera and a VCR… All very analog! Not a DVD in sight!
See the add here.
DirectX 9.0c on Linux with Wine
There is a great post over at the wine-review blog about getting DirectX 9c working on Linux with Wine.
There are also some great screen shots which at first make it look like the DirectX 9 demos are broken but in fact the author points out that “the cube looks bad because its spinning at about 10,000 fps so fast its just a blur. and thats how the screenshot comes out.”
Linus on the future of Linux
The creator of Linux is excited about solid-state drives, expects progress in graphics and wireless networking, and says the operating system is strong in virtualization despite his personal lack of interest in the area.
All this and more is revealed in an interview with Linus here.
Download free screen capture and screencasting utilities
TechSmith is giving away two of their most popular screen capture and screencasting programs: SnagIt and Camtasia Studio.
Along with snapping screenshots, SnagIt can capture scrolling long web pages, extract text from windows, annotate images and so on: quite a way from a regular Windows Print Screen.
While there is a catch (both apps are not the latest version but a decent version nonetheless), you can download them, and after you request your serial number, you can upgrade to the latest versions at a sensible discount.
Download a demo of Camtasia Studio 3 here and request a registration key from Techsmith here.
Download a demo of SnagIt here and request your registration key here.
With Love from GNU/Linux: sidux 2007-04 “Ερως”
We told you it’s coming, a few days ago, you could smell it. Here it is, still steaming, the fourth release of sidux, named Ερως after Greek mitholgy! Another snapshot of debian’s unstable branch (AKA sid) spiced up with sidux’s own scripts and the ever so up-to-date slh-kernels, all this as sidux is approaching it’s first birthday. You can download the images, for amd64 and i686 systems, shipping in a ≈445 MB KDE lite and a ≈680 MB KDE full flavour. You will love it, just as it loves you, it’s named that way, isn’t it?
Release notes for Ερως
Our fourth release concentrates on X.org 7.3/ xrandr 1.2 and X detection related changes and the new upstream kernel 2.6.23, combined with an updated mac80211 wlan stack and drivers, which brought support for a number of additional wlan cards. While the last two months have been pretty turbulent in Debian sid with X.org 7.3 entering the scene, several library transitions and infrastructural problems, these issues seem to be mostly resolved for sidux and now allow to provide the best possible opensource support for various graphics chipsets and advanced runtime configuration options provided by xrandr 1.2 compatible drivers.
Further efforts have been invested into an advanced USB installation, kernel stabilisation and the live persistency framework. Various updates, fixes and adaptions have been applied to basically the complete package list and a lot of translation and localisation related endeavours were started to improve the situation for our non english/ german speaking users.
Read more about what’s on the menu for now here .
You Got Hacked? Re-Secure Your System
One of my clients’ Linux server got hacked somehow recently and after discovering the hacker’s files on the server I proceeded to re-securing the system and removing all traces, files, programs of that user. While doing this I stumbled upon this nice article on how to remove a user and lock down all files and access for that user on your system. Maybe it’s a former company employee or like in my case, a hacker, you can take these steps to make sure that user cannot log in again… after changing your own and your root passwords to more secure ones. It may not be a complete security solution, here’s a few guidelines of how to restore a hacked system.
Apple Update Day and More
Less than a month away from its launch, Apple’s Leopard switches version to 10.5.1 with a fresh update that works out some of the annoying bugs and problems, including password management, nat issues and the annoying (to some developers, including me) file uploads via flash.
Apple has also launched the newest version of Final Cut Express, namely version 4. Final Cut Express 4 lets you edit footage captured in the most popular formats — including AVCHD (but only for Intel-based Macs). FCE4 also supports “Open format Timeline” (why big companies nowadays like to throw the word “open” around so much these days, beats me). But anyway, Open format Timeline allows you to import and edit video files with different resolutions, framerates, etc., without converting them first. Just drop them onto the timeline and edit.
Moving on, Windows users are not left unattended to by Apple, with a new Safari update. Even if it’s still in beta, it’s better to upgrade and benefit from “Windows-like behaviour” (now you can drag and resize the window from all edges), security updates, font smoothing and new key shortcuts. Get it here. But seriously, I’d be curious to find out how many people (developers specially) give Safari on Windows a chance.
Debian/GNU/Linux on the Asus Eee Pc?
Still your eyes on the little beauty called EeePc? There’s some cooking happening, Debian style, aiming to run Linux on the cutie. No much content yet, but hey, Asus’ small portable just recently made it into our homes! Hopefully this project will become real and alive ASAP. We will monitor this, as it seems something that makes a real tech-heart pump.
Few days to new sidux snapshot!
That’s right, snapshot! ‘Cause sidux is a “rolling release”, always fresh from the latest in the debian/sid repos. It has been from it’s early days one of our fun-and-work environment, we only can recommend it. The second preview of sidux 2007-04 “Ερως” is already out and being reviewed, there are no major reasons for delay, except the state of the pool. “…a turbulent week behind the scenes of Debian sid, with an accidental glibc upload, a broken openssl version (#449200) affecting wpasupplicant and ries.debian.org (ftp-master) breaking down due to filesystem problems…” but this will not hinder another fresh release ASAP.
“sidux is a full featured Debian sid based live CD with a special focus on hard disk installations, a clean upgrade path within sid and additional hard- and software support. The ISO is completely based on Debian sid, enriched and stabilized with sidux’ own packages and scripts.”
What you can expect to find? Here you are, some infos, read more here.
- amd64 (AMD64, Intel Core2, newer 64 bit capable AMD Sempron and Intel Pentium 4 CPUs (watch for the “lm” flag in /proc/cpuinfo or use infobash -v3) and i686 (Pentium pro/ Pentium II, AMD K7 Athlon or newer)).
- Debian sid, as of 2007-11-05.
- kernel 2.6.23.1 (smp, hard preemption).
- libata support for parallel ATA systems.
- X.org 7.3.
- KDE 3.5.8 (en + de).
- completely new X.org probing, finally amd64 compatible.
- new USB fromiso Installer.
- new artwork created by cleary and the sidux art team.
- offline manual for en + de directly on the disc, online manuals for more languages online at http://manual.sidux.com/ and available via apt; a big thank you goes to the documentation and translation teams!
Please note that the offline manual is only available on the running live CD or the installed system. - iwlwifi3945/ iwlwifi4965 1.1.19.
- b43/ b43legacy support for Broadcom wlan cards.
- rt2x00 2.0.12+gis-8647-g130dd8f support for RaLink cards.
- experimental support for RealTek RTL8185 wlan cards.
- support for RealTek RTL8187 wlan cards.
- support for ADMtek ADM8211 wlan cards.
- support for Intel 82801I, 82566DM-2, 82562GT-2, 82562G-2 and 82562V-2 Gigabit Ethernet cards (ICH9).
- enhanced hardware support libraries.
- fw-detect to probe for hardware with non-free needs.
- memtest86+.
- overhauled partition and file system detection.
- basic lvm2 detection and support (no installer support).
- several X.org 7.3 and kernel 2.6.23 related bug and compatibility fixes.
- siduxcc overhaul.
- persistency fixes.
- bitsetting/ xrandr compatible driver for ATi cards (6.7.195).
- several X.org detection improvements and bugfixes.
- /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ superseding the monolithic /etc/apt/sources.list.
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