billybob2 - Slashdot User

Submission + - CoreBoot (LinuxBIOS) can boot Windows 7 Beta

Submitted by billybob2 on Tuesday January 27, 2009 @03:15AM

billybob2 writes: CoreBoot (formerly LinuxBIOS), the free and open source BIOS replacement, can now boot Windows 7 Beta. Videos and screenshots of this demonstration, which was performed on an ASUS M2V-MX SE motherboard equipped with a 2GHz AMD Sempron CPU, can be viewed on the CoreBoot website. AMD engineers have also been submitting code to allow CoreBoot to run on the company's latest chipsets, such as the RS690 and 780G.

Submission + - Lenovo removes Linux option for home buyers

Submitted by billybob2 on Thursday September 11, 2008 @03:08PM

billybob2 writes: Lenovo has stopped selling laptops pre-installed with Linux on its web site, only 8 months after starting the trial program. This means that home customers won't be able to buy a Thinkpad without paying the Microsoft tax. Word has it that the decision to pull the plug on Linux came down from the highest levels of the Chinese company's corporate headquarters. For those looking to buy full-sized laptops and desktops with Linux pre-loaded Dell, System76, ZaReason and Everex all still offer such products.

Submission + - VIA releases 113,800-line FOSS graphics driver

Submitted by billybob2 on Sunday August 31, 2008 @06:46PM

billybob2 writes: VIA has released a 113,800 line-long open source graphics driver with full mode-setting support for CRT, LCD and DVI devices along with 2D, X-Video and cursor acceleration. Harald Welte, VIA's open source representative, states that the next step is to add 3D (see preview), TV-out and hardware codec support while integrating this work with existing open source projects. VIA has pre-installed Linux on a significant portion of the company's latest products, including the EVEREX gPC2, 15.4" gBook, and CloudBook. It has also helped port the open source CoreBoot BIOS (previously LinuxBIOS) to several of its motherboards.

Comment Re:Unichrome Pro support (Score 2, Interesting) 131

by billybob2 on Sunday July 27, 2008 @02:59PM (#24360143) Attached to: VIA Releases 800 Pages of Documentation For Linux

Even with the released documentation, we also need a good leader like Harald Welte to bring together the OpenChrome and UniChrome developers to work on the same codebase. Right now the split effort is really wasteful.

Submission + - VIA releases 800 pages of documentation for Linux

Submitted by billybob2 on Saturday July 26, 2008 @05:51PM

billybob2 writes: VIA has published three programming guides that total 800 pages in length and cover their PadLock, CX700, and VX800/820 technologies. The VIA PadLock provides a random number generator, an advanced cryptography engine, and RSA algorithm computations. The VX800 chipset was VIA's first Integrated Graphics Processor, while the CX700 is a System Media Processor designed for the mobile market. This is another step in VIA's strategy to support the development of Free and Open Source drivers under Linux, which comes pre-installed on VIA products such as the Sylvania NetBook, HP Mini-Note, 15.4" gBook, gPC, CloudBook, Zonbu, and VIA OpenBook. Earlier this week, VIA hired Linux kernel developer and GPL-Violations.org founder Harald Welte to be VIA's liason to the Open Source community.

What To Expect In KDE 4.1 288

Posted by timothy on Friday July 25, 2008 @05:18PM from the plenty-of-goodness dept.

andrewmin writes "Recently, Gnome's been gaining a lot of ground on its KDE counterpart in the desktop environment wars. The KDE developers were hoping to change this with KDE 4, the new radical release of KDE, but it was not to be. KDE 4.0 was buggy and unstable, leaving everyone except the hard-core KDE lovers. Mainly, this was because it just didn't work most of the time. However, the developers were not without hope. They promised that KDE 4.1 would be more stable and fix all the holes and problems with KDE 4.0. That time is coming soon: in just four days, K Desktop Environment 4.1 will be released to the Linux masses." A release candidate for 4.1 came out just over a week ago, with binaries available "for some Linux distributions, and Mac OS X and Windows."

Submission + - VIA releases 16,434-line FOSS framebuffer driver

Submitted by billybob2 on Sunday May 11, 2008 @11:04AM

billybob2 writes: VIA has released 16,434 Lines Of Free & Open Source code that enables Linux to natively use the framebuffer on VIA's graphics chipsets. This comes a month after VIA announced that it will provide Open-Source drivers and documentation on its website so that its hardware will work out of the box with Linux distributions. This gives VIA-powered systems that come pre-installed with Linux, such as the gPC, 15.4" gBook, CloudBook and Zonbu the ability to output graphics through digital connections such as HDMI and possibly making them the best-supported framebuffers Linux has ever had. Look forward to documentation and X.org drivers from VIA as well in the near future.

Submission + - KDE 4: Improved stability and performance

Submitted by billybob2 on Monday March 31, 2008 @03:34PM

billybob2 writes: PolishLinux.org has an extensive screenshot review and commentary on the development version of the Free and Open Source KDE desktop. Highlights include the ability to run any desktop applet prepared for Mac OS X inside Plasma, on-the-fly annotation and rating of files from within the Dolphin file manager, improved GUI for the Amarok music player, flexible 3D eye candy configuration in KWin, and improved support for accessing digital cameras via the Solid hardware layer and the DigiKam photo manager.

Submission + - Trolltech adopts GPL 3 for Qt (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Funkmaster F on Friday January 18, 2008 @06:45PM

Funkmaster F writes: At the KDE Developer Conference today, Trolltech CEO Havaard Nord announced that its Qt application development toolkit will be released under GPL 3. 'Here at the KDE release event, Nord's announcement was met with applause. Like Trolltech's initial decision to move from its own QPL license to the GPL, this announcement and the company's more recent decision to adopt the GPL for all platforms rather than just Linux, demonstrate the company's ongoing commitment to openness.'

Bookmark Install KDE in Ubuntu Gutsy (nireblog.com)

by HugoR on Thursday January 17, 2008 @11:36AM

Feed Newsforge: KDE 4 revises the desktop (linux.com)

From feed by nffeed on Monday January 14, 2008 @02:52PM

KDE 4 Uses 40% Less Memory Than 3 Despite Eye-Candy 566

Posted by Zonk on Thursday December 13, 2007 @09:37PM from the optimization-in-action dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Pro-Linux reports that KDE 4, scheduled to be released in January 2008, consumes almost 40% less memory than KDE 3.5, despite the fact that version 4 of the Free and Open Source desktop system includes a composited window manager and a revamped menu and applet interface. KDE developer Will Stephenson showcased KDE 4's 3D eye-candy on a 256Mb laptop with 1Ghz CPU and run-of-the-mill integrated graphics, pointing out that mini-optimizations haven't even yet been started." Update: 12/14 22:40 GMT by Z : Or, not so much. An anonymous reader writes "The author of the original KDE 3.5 vs KDE 4.0 memory comparison has come out with a more accurate benchmark. In reality, KDE 4.0 uses 110 MB more memory than KDE 3.5.8.

Submission + - KDE 4 uses 40% less memory despite 3D eye-candy

Submitted by on Wednesday December 12, 2007 @08:39AM

An anonymous reader writes: Pro-Linux reports that KDE 4, scheduled to be released in January 2008, consumes almost 40% less memory than KDE 3.5, despite the fact that version 4 of the Free and Open Source desktop system includes a composited window manager and a revamped menu and applet interface. KDE developer Will Stephenson showcased KDE 4's 3D eye-candy on a 256Mb laptop with 1Ghz CPU and run-of-the-mill integrated graphics, pointing out that mini-optimizations haven't even yet been started. Will this combination of resource efficiency and consumer appeal make KDE 4 the leader in the booming Linux-based ultra mobile laptop and energy efficient desktop markets?

Submission + - KDE and KOffice rebuke OOXML; GNOME dithers 3

Submitted by Peter on Tuesday December 11, 2007 @04:21AM

Peter writes: Free Software Foundation president Richard Stallman and ITWire have praised KDE and KOffice developers for taking a principled stand against OOXML, while raising serious concerns about the GNOME Foundation's decision to give credibility to Microsoft's broken format. This comes on the heels of GNOME co-founder Miguel de Icaza's depiction of OOXML as a 'superb standard', and GNOME Foundation director Quim Gil's stonewalling of the patent-free Ogg Vorbis / Theora format on behalf of Nokia. Have GNOME's leaders completely sold out their free software credentials to corporate and anti-consumer interests? And will the GNOME Foundation's indifferent response to Richard Stallman's appeal drive him to throw his weight behind KDE?

RIAA Argues That MP3s From CDs Are Unauthorized 668

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 11, 2007 @04:09AM from the no-fair dept.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In an Arizona case against a defendant who has no legal representation, Atlantic v. Howell, the RIAA is now arguing — contrary to its lawyers' statements to the United States Supreme Court in 2005 MGM v. Grokster — that the defendant's ripping of personal MP3 copies onto his computer is a copyright infringement. At page 15 of its brief (PDF) it states the following: 'It is undisputed that Defendant possessed unauthorized copies... Virtually all of the sound recordings... are in the ".mp3" format for his and his wife's use... Once Defendant converted Plaintiffs' recordings into the compressed .mp3 format and they are in his shared folder, they are no longer the authorized copies...'"

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