Since earlier this year we have been waiting for AMD to release documentation and/or code on the ATI R600 series concerning 3D acceleration so that the open-source Linux drivers can begin to support the newer ATI graphics processors. It has taken longer than expected for AMD to complete and release this information, but it’s now [...]

In roughly the past month NVIDIA has released five beta display drivers for the Linux operating system. NVIDIA began by releasing the 180.06 driver that brought PureVideo-like features to Linux in the middle of November…
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An open source project has released a new, more “hackable” Debian-based Linux distribution for the Openmoko NeoFreerunner phone. The Hackable:1 group hopes to build a well-maintained, developer-friendly codebase for use by VARs (value-added resellers) building products on top of Openmoko’s open hardware designs.
Hackable:1 joins a growing list of Linux distributions tailored for Openmoko’s open source [...]

It was just eleven days ago that NVIDIA had released the 180.11 Beta Linux Driver, but in the wee hours of Saturday morning NVIDIA has pushed out a new beta driver. This driver contains a few fixes, support for new GPUs, and an updated implementation of the Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix.
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This afternoon AMD has released its final Catalyst Linux driver update for the year. It has been a couple months now since there has been anything exciting in one of these Linux driver updates, but what’s there in store this time around? Is there X-Video Bitstream Acceleration finally available? Sadly, no. But there is improved [...]

Back on November 14, NVIDIA had unveiled their 180.06 Linux driver as a major update that brought forth VDPAU, an advanced video acceleration API, and a horde of other features. Four days after that, NVIDIA then pushed out the 180.08 Linux driver that delivered OpenGL 3.0 support…
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“What is open source hardware? Briefly, these are projects that creators have decided to completely publish all the source, schematics, firmware, software, bill of materials, parts list, drawings and “board” files to recreate the hardware - they also allow any use, including commercial. Similar to open source hardware like Linux, but hardware centric.
“This is one [...]

Openmoko Inc, maker of the world’s first totally open mobile phone, today announced that faberNovel, Inc has joined the worldwide distribution network for the FreeRunner open source mobile phone. Since launching the FreeRunner in July of this year, Openmoko has built out a network of more than 20 distributors covering North America, Europe and Asia. [...]

We all use personal computers and we all take them for granted in our everyday lives. It’s easy to forget that PCs have only been around for a couple of decades, and initially were nowhere near the powerhouses we have on our desks today.
For example, did you know that the first “portable” computer weighed 25 [...]

Last week I was at a conference in San Francisco entitled “Open Mobile Summit”.
For their first attempt the organizers did what I thought was a very good job organizing this conference, getting people from many branches of the mobile telephone industry (handset manufacturers, carriers, service providers and ISPs) to come together to talk about “Open [...]

Earlier this year VIA announced they wanted to join the open-source bandwagon by establishing an open-source driver development initiative, releasing documentation and source-code, and to better engage with the Linux community at large. They have made a few small steps over the past few months, but today they have made their largest open-source contribution yet [...]

This news is coming a few days late, but the ALSA project has quietly released ALSA 1.0.18a as a minor update to its collection of sound drivers for Linux. This isn’t a major update but a collection of updates on top of ALSA 1.0.18 final…
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Among the six top netbooks, what’s the best choice? It all depends.
Regardless of brand name, most netbooks are close cousins. Most come with the Intel Atom chip, have screens that are 9 or 10 inches, and cost about $349-$399. Sure, there are variations, especially on cost (more on that later) but the makers are obviously [...]

On November 12, the OpenMoko project announced that all of its system images had been removed from the download server. When users asked about what was going on, the answer that came back was: “The short story is that we are in a protracted battle with some patent trolls. Google for Sisvel. In order to [...]

This week NVIDIA released their 177.82 Linux driver and AMD pushed out their Catalyst 8.11 Linux driver. Intel has now joined the party and pushed out not one but two new driver releases…
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In addition to announcing the Shanghai Quad-Core Opterons today, AMD has also released an updated Linux graphics driver. The AMD Catalyst 8.11 binary driver though doesn’t have many Linux changes worth speaking about…
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NVIDIA had released their 177.80 display driver more than a month ago, but arriving today is a point release update to this binary Linux driver. The NVIDIA 177.82 driver adds support for several new GPUs, a mobile power management fix, a mobile hot-key switching fix, and a Firefox 3.0 image corruption issue…
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Symbian was the only major operating system (OS) to lose share over the last year in a smartphone market that grew 28 percent, says a Canalys study. Other findings include big gains for Apple and RIM, and a 49 percent increase in sales of Linux smartphones.
Total smartphone shipments hit a new high of 39.9 million [...]

Struggling wireless phone maker Motorola will cut more jobs and focus on designing handheld devices that run Google’s new open source Android operating system. The company will pare down the number of operating systems for which it currently creates mobile phones to just three: Android, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile and Motorola’s proprietary P2K platform.
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The OpenMoko project recently released a much-needed update to the official software stack of the Neo FreeRunner. I’ve had a FreeRunner for a few months and during that time I have used it to run everything from Debian to Qtopia (now known as QT Extended), so when OpenMoko announced the OM2008.9 update I eagerly [...]