VIA’s commitment to the open-source community has been everything but stellar. VIA Technologies has taken advantage of the open-source community before, and many are saying VIA is doing another open-source bluff…
Mandriva and Precedent Technologies (”PTech”), announce a new partnership, working together on the release in September in the United States of a new low-cost desktop, with Intel Atom CPUs and Mandriva Linux preinstalled on these machines.
Since signing their agreement, Mandriva, the leading European editor of Linux distributions, and Precedent Technologies, full service I.T solution provider, have been working together on a new low-cost PC called: TechSurfer.
Precedent Technologies (”PTech”) is a full service I.T solution provider, and offers customers a full spectrum of I.T Solutions. PTech manufactures Notebooks, PCs, Workstations and Servers. PTech is based out of Stockbridge, Georgia.
The agreement enables Mandriva and Precedent Technologies to form a strategic partnership to pursue Linux solutions to address new customers.
«Precedent Technologies has anxiously awaited an opportunity to enter the low-cost PC marketplace. We were hesitant to make this move because we wanted to ensure each system we produce provides value and performance, as well as quality. The existing offerings in the system builder channel were not adequate for our standards. We did not want to produce a product that came with less than our standard 3-year warranty. Now, we have finally put the right mix together to deliver a high quality, low-cost PC for web-centric computer users. This doesn’t only mark the launch of our first low-cost Pc. But this is also our leap into the open-source operating system community. The Mandriva product is extremely well constructed and will give our users a great computer experience. The team at Mandriva is excellent and very hands-on. We are so excited to work with them. Our existing relationship with Intel Corporation has always been wonderful. With the release of the Intel Atom processor, we are confident that we can deliver a product that is the best of many worlds: performance, low cost, and quality,» declared Patrick F. Carley, CEO Precedent Technologies (”PTech”).
Since last month’s release of Catalyst 8.6 for Linux we’ve seen the introduction of the Radeon HD 4850 and 4870 graphics cards and we’ve been allowed to share with you that CrossFire is coming to Linux along with other yet to be announced features. Today AMD has released the Catalyst 8.7 Linux driver and it doesn’t deliver any new ground-breaking features, but it does bring a few improvements.
In fact, the new features in this release are just bringing official Ubuntu 8.04 and SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 SP2 support…
Inquisitor team is pleased to announce Inquisitor v3.0 – a first major open-source version of the platform. After initial announcement of Inquisitor branch 3.x in August 2007, it’s a fruit of almost a year of labor.
Inquisitor version 3 is a major redesign of older 1.x and 2.x systems. New features:
* Modularity: it consists of dozens of interconnected and interchangeable modules with well-defined API; one can easily add new modules to add new tests, detections, production steps, etc.
* Three varieties: standalone (runs on top of already installed OS), live CD (can be used to analyse/test just one home computer), enterprise (server-controller network boot).
* Flexibility: every test parameter can be adjusted, all system can be customized.
* Server-controlled testing: server-based version includes a database that stores all the data on all computers that were tested by Inquisitor. If only some parts of hardware will change, clever scheduler won’t redo all the long testing, but only tests relevant to hardware changes.
* Distributed workload: due to modular architecture, Inquisitor can be easily distributed across a cluster to distribute load or make a geographically distributed system.
For those who would like to try Inquisitor, the easiest way is to download a 130MB ISO, available for both x86 and x86_64 from http://www.inquisitor.ru/.
Comments and especially bug reports are welcome.
Cherry Pal: Green Computer
Many people only use their computers to check email, browse the web, do word processing, spreadsheets, etc. For them, many of today’s PCs are overkill, but it’s not clear what a good alternative would be, especially if they want low energy consumption. Enter stage left: The CherryPal, a tiny PC based on a Freescale CPU and the Linux (Debian) operating system. It’s about the size of a paperback book and uses 80% fewer components than a regular PC. To make the trade-off acceptable, the CherryPal will use “cloud computing”, meaning that many applications will run on an online server (same basic concept as web-based email). Read on for more technical specifications.
If you’re using an older NVIDIA graphics card and haven’t yet turned to the reverse-engineered Nouveau driver, you may want to check out the latest NVIDIA legacy drivers. NVIDIA has updated its two oldest legacy drivers — the 71.xx.xx and 96.xx.xx series — for Linux…
Read more at Phoronix
If you’re looking at running some Linux benchmarks over the weekend, you’ll want to check out the latest release of the Phoronix Test Suite. We’ve released version 1.0.4 this morning and it contains mostly new suites and tests.
The new tests in Phoronix Test Suite 1.0.4 are for fio, Triangle Slammer, and a video extensions test…
The OpenMoko Neo FreeRunner lives up to its billing as a completely open source, hackable hardware platform, says an Ars Technica first look. Yet that very openness, including its choice of three mobile stacks, adds to the confusion for Linux developers, says the article.
In “First Look: OpenMoko’s Linux-based open smartphone platform,” Ars Technica writer Ryan Paul takes a close look at the software now available for the Linux-based Neo FreeRunner mobile phone, which shipped on July 4th. Paul was not yet able to acquire one of the phones itself, which incorporate a 400MHz Samsung S3C2442 (ARM9 core), 128MB of RAM, 256MB of flash, and a 2.8-inch 640 x 480 TFT display, but he tried out the first of three software stacks that will be available for the phone.
Over the past month we’ve seen three release candidates for ALSA 1.0.17, but arriving today is the final stable build. There are hundreds of changes between ALSA 1.0.16 and 1.0.17…
Motorola (NYSE: MOT) introduced Wednesday a touchscreen handset that’s aimed at young mobile professionals looking for their first smartphone.
The Moto A810 is not as powerful as the updates to the company’s Ming line, but it should still have enough features for the workers on the go.
The Linux-powered handset has a sleek candy-bar form factor, and the 2.2-inch touchscreen with 240 by 320 resolution. The included stylus can be used with the built-in handwriting recognition software. The smartphone will also come preloaded with stock trading and dictionary applications, and it’s capable of receiving corporate e-mail.
It’s been about two weeks since the release of Phoronix Test Suite 1.0.2, and now version 1.0.3 has been released. This minor update to this Linux benchmarking and testing platform licensed under the GNU GPLv3 adds new test profiles, a new suite, and a couple fixes.
The new test profiles in this release include byte, bonnie, and ut2004-demo…
If you haven’t yet made the move to LM_Sensors 3, you may be interested to know that LM_Sensors 2.10.7 has been released. This update to the legacy branch of LM_Sensors has a number of fixes, removes some dead code, fixes some functionality, adds Intel ICH10 support, has minor code cleanups, and solves a Linux 2.6.26 kernel compatibility issue…
Openmoko has announced that its long-awaited phone will go on sale on July 4. “The Openmoko Neo FreeRunner utilizes GNU/Linux and comes with core software for dialing, SMS and recording contacts. Openmoko will supplement these features with periodic downloads beginning with a software suite that takes full advantage of the phone’s hardware platform.
If you want to repair computers in Texas then you need to complete a three year apprenticeship and get your private investigator license first. Either that or face a year in jail, according to an amendment to the Texas Occupations Code…
The Institute for Justice has filed a lawsuit on behalf of computer repair guy Mike Rife against the Texas Private Security Bureau (PSB) arguing that a new law unconstitutionally denies computer repair companies the right to work in their chosen profession. This based around the Texas Constitution which protects the right of Texans to earn an honest living without unreasonable government interference.
It’s been seven weeks since the obfuscated xf86-video-nv driver was last updated, so this afternoon NVIDIA’s Aaron Plattner decided to release version 2.1.10, which will be in time for X.Org 7.4. However, before getting excited that they may actually be doing something good with this open-source driver, it continues to be limited to 2D acceleration and of limited use to someone that just laid down several hundred dollars for a graphics card or two.
What xf86-video-nv 2.1.10 brings to the table is ASIC support for GeForce 9 Mobile GPUs and the recently released GeForce GTX 260/280…
Good news for all hackers.
NETGEAR launches Open Source edition of wireless-G router enabling Linux developers, geeks, hackers and enthusiasts to create Firmware for specialized applications
Open Source Wireless-G Router (WGR614L) delivers higher processing power and more memory for a Wide Variety of customized applications. The product is supported by a dedicated and responsive open source community.
Read more at nixCraft
It’s been just nine days since Phoronix Test Suite 1.0.1 was released, but we have enough changes to now warrant the release of Phoronix Test Suite 1.0.2. There are three new test profiles, two new suites, a man page has been added, and there are also other changes.
The three new test profiles include tremulous, urbanterror, and et for Tremulous, Urban Terror, and Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, respectively…
Read more at Phoronix
“Thousands of Neo FreeRunners have been loaded into planes and fired around the world,” announced Sean Moss-Pultz, the Openmoko CEO, in a frequently philosophical email titled “let us impact the material world”, posted to the Openmoko community mailing list. He continued, “many of our distributors have already begun shipping. In about another week, Steve and Harry will announce the opening of our own webshop.” The CAD files for building the smartphone hardware are available under the Creative Commons, and the software has been released under the GPL, including a patched 2.6.24 Linux kernel.
IronKey Inc. has announced that its line of encrypted USB storage keys is now available for all major Linux operating systems (OSes). IronKey devices come in 1GB, 2GB, 4GB and 8GB models, offer military-grade hardware encryption, and do not require driver installation, says the company.
IronKey sells its USB keys in Basic, Personal, and Enterprise versions, all of which offer claimed performance of up to 30MB/sec read times and up to 20MB/sec write. The Personal version adds secure Internet browsing via an embedded FireFox 3 browser and the addition of Public Key Certificates and Open Authentication technologies. The Enterprise version adds remote management and configurable policies features. Users of Linux and Mac OSX systems, however, are limited to “Basic” encrypted storage features — secure web surfing and enterprise features are not yet supported. The full set of features requires Windows.
Openmoko will distribute a mass-market version of its open Linux phone through five distributors in Germany, France, and India, it announced. The Neo Freerunner features an open hardware design, and a Linux-based operating system that users are free to modify.
Previously, OpenMoko phones have been available only in limited quantities, mostly to open source mobile phone software developers. Today’s announcement appears to signal the forthcoming release of OpenMoko’s first product aimed at the mass market.