Posted on 07/21/2009 6:03:07 AM PDT by ShadowAce
The first half of 2009 is over and after your summer vacation, you might want to start gearing up for the new distro releases. Once again open source proved that developers collaborating all over the world deliver constant platform improvement. Let’s see what they have in store for us this time.
KSplice – Rebootless Kernel Upgrade
One of the arguments I use often when talking about the advantages of using Linux is the fact that you do not have to reboot when installing or upgrading software. Most of the time. Almost every Linux user knows you have to restart your system after updating the kernel. The guys at Ksplice Inc. came up with this fascinating new technology that basically enables you to apply kernel patches and start using the new kernel right away, without rebooting. That is really all there is to it.
Comment: I don’t know about you, but as far as I’m concerned, it is pretty mind-blowing. Kind of like making a headless chicken do your homework. Read about the underlying technology here.
USB 3.0
Via Wikimedia Commons (Tosaka)
This new bus specification promises a speed of 5 Gigabits per second, about 10 times faster than USB 2.0. And the first operating system to get a USB 3.0 driver is GNU/Linux, specifically, kernel 2.6.31 (scheduled for September).
Comment: Although we have yet to see some hardware (guess we will have to wait until good ol’ Windows adopts the tech), think about the possibilities. A pen-drive could be almost as fast as a regular hard drive, which would drive storage prices to the ground. As soon as a 1 GB or more USB 3.0 thumb drive appears, mark my words, I will be installing Fedora as if my life depended on it.
Ubuntu to support Google Android applications
Ubuntu Netbook Remix running Android (via Ars Technica)
With a user base of roughly 2 million and more than 20 Android-powered devices coming this year, Google’s mobile operating system may become a force to be reckoned with. Developers will embrace the platform and given time, Android’s Market will contain hundreds of thousands of applications. Well, at least that is the direction in which the Ubuntu dev team is thinking. They plan to introduce an easy way to port Android apps over to their flagship Linux distribution. While most applications will be useless on a desktop machine, there might be some apps that, with their small size and modest memory consumption, might do a certain task much better than its Ubuntu-native equivalent.
Comment: I have to hand it to the Ubuntu guy who first got this idea: very original thinking. However, I do not think this is a wise way to use developer resources. There are still many things in Ubuntu that need fixing. New features are going to bring new hurdles. The Android support idea is great, though we should wait until the Android Market grows a bit.
As you can see, 2009 may not be the Year of Linux on the Desktop, but it will certainly be an interesting year. Thanks to the openness of the platform, GNU/Linux remains the driver of innovation in modern desktop computing.
Well, I might try it out; “virtualbox” says it supports Win7, so maybe I’ll download and install in a VM.
okay, so I downloaded Win7 x86_64 RC1 and installed in a virtualbox. Installed well, no initial problems, was even able to install directly from the ISO, no burning of a DVD required.
Having a problem with sound, but that might be vbox issue, or a Win7 issue, works fine under Linux.
Off the bat, it’s less aggravating than vista. There’s still some things are missing, or a I can’t find like in vista. I still hate the fact that they felt compelled to go change everything around.
iTunes installed okay, and synced with the iPhone no problem.
I believe you can change that. First, download a freetype package that has hinting enabled. Then download the Microsoft truetype fonts they made freely available a while back.
Font rendering should look just like XP at that point.
XP’s font rendering is not exactly something to write home about either.
That's what people seem to be used to when comparing to Linux. Alternatively installing freetype2 with BCI support will get you Mac-level font rendering.
I haven’t upgraded my VB in a long time, I’ve heard Sun has made a bunch of changes. Hopefully, they’re improvements.
Vbox is up to 3.02. I’ve been using it since about 2.14 IIRC. I’ve only got 2gb ram in the T61 gave win 760mb and only let it use a single processor. Mapped a drive to the physical vista part no problem.
Performance with the above params is pretty good. You ought to upgrade your VBox they have
made a lot of improvents and it handles win 7 beta pretty good.
Are you saying you are running Vista in VB on a “raw” partition? And no problems?
No. I would like to do that because I can’t seem to get the lenovo vista recovery disks to Install in vbox.
I have W2K and now win7 running as guests on a Linux host. I just had to set up a share to the vista part to try and install some software.
It is my understanding though that you can run a guest off of a physical part, but the margin for error is slim. If you don ‘t set it up right you can blow your parts away and lose data. I haven’t had the time or spare machine to experiment with that yet.
LOL. “but the margin for error is slim.”
Indeed. Been there, done that. It totally corrupts your Win install beyond belief if you make a mistake.
Even still, if you manage to get it working, and accidentally try to boot into it, it’s gone...forever! :)
Why don’t you look into this: Install your {Windows xx OS} and then make an ISO out of it, and then mount the ISO in a VB. I did that about 2 years ago with my Tablet PC, and it worked. I have, since, bought an OEM version, which has gotten me past the “check for BIOS ID” problem I was facing.
If you have a copy of Vista, or any Windows OS, that is locked to a certain brand of machine by way of BIOS ID, then you will have problems, always. There are scripts out “in the wild” that will overcome it, but, they are flaky, as well.
BTW, I still have 6 or 7 older machines that I put together out of used parts and sell for $60-$100. :O)
You might look at Linux Mint,...it’s based on Ubuntu and is very user friendly....
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