Tracking quantum computing has been a bit confusing in that there are multiple approaches to it. Most of the effort goes toward what are called gate-based computers, which allow you to perform logical operations on individual qubits. These are well understood theoretically and can perform a variety of calculations. But it’s possible to make gate-based systems out of a variety of qubits ... ⌘ Read more
Tracking quantum computing has been a bit confusing in that there are multiple approaches to it. Most of the effort goes toward what are called gate-based computers, which allow you to perform logical operations on individual qubits. These are well understood theoretically and can perform a variety of calculations. But it’s possible to make gate-based systems out of a variety of qubits ... ⌘ Read more
A desktop environment I had never heard of until now has seen its first new release in 611 days – always awesome to read about unknown projects like this, so here we go. Anyway onto the point, yes the project is still alive and there’s been some updates. This release encompasses two main things. First is a collection of minor fixes that have gone into master since 1.6.0 came out, along with some translation updates. This includes two small additional binaries for us ... ⌘ Read more
It’s been a busy month! We’ve had a lot of movement in kernel land, as well as some tooling improvements and reverse engineering sessions. At this point, Asahi Linux is usable as a basic Linux desktop (without GPU acceleration)! The ground had been shifting until now, but we’re seeing drivers settle down. Let’s take a look at what’s been going on. Linux on Apple’s M1 Macs is making progress, but I would never buy an ... ⌘ Read more
It’s a symptom of what insiders say are deeper organizational problems that have left the health group without clear direction and struggling to mesh Apple’s hardware-oriented culture with the practices of the medical business. People at Apple Health said that they saw colleagues face retribution for disagreeing with superior ... ⌘ Read more
A day early, Microsoft has decided to release Windows 11. Today marks an exciting milestone in the history of Windows. As the day becomes October 5 in each time zone around the world, availability of Windows 11 begins through a free upgrade on eligible Windows 10 PCs and on new PCs pre-installed with Windows 11 that can be purchased beginning today. This is the first release of Windows I haven’t personally used or even tested, but much like Android 12 that’s also been released today, ... ⌘ Read more
Today we’re pushing the source to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) and officially releasing the latest version of Android. Keep an eye out for Android 12 coming to a device near you starting with Pixel in the next few weeks and Samsung Galaxy, OnePlus, Oppo, Realme, Tecno, Vivo, and Xiaomi devices later this year. The first Android 12 reviews have rolled out too, and the conclusion seems to be that this new release focuses heavily on overhauling the look a ... ⌘ Read more
Apparently, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp experienced a massive outage today – just days after a huge whistleblower report confirmed what we already knew – Facebook is sleazy, destructive, negligent, and as close to actual evil as an inanimate entity can be. Facebook Inc. knows, in acute detail, that its platforms are riddled with flaws that cause harm, often in ways only the company fully understands. That is the central finding of a Wall Street Journal series, based on a review o ... ⌘ Read more
If you think making it harder to change the default browser away from Edge in Windows 11 was the only sleazy tactic Microsoft is employing to shove Edge down Windows users’ throats – think again. The company is using a microsoft-edge: URL scheme everywhere in Windows to bypass the default browser setting altogether, but luckily, competing browsers have caught on. The Brave web browse ... ⌘ Read more
Apple’s iPhone component design seems to be limiting the SoC from achieving even better results, especially the newer Pro models, however even with that being said and done, Apple remains far above the competition in terms of performance and efficiency. Overall, while the A15 isn’t the brute force iteration we’ve become used to from Apple in recent years, it very much comes with substantial generat ... ⌘ Read more
Now we’re seeing some of the fruits of that change—Microsoft has announced that major third-party apps like Zoom, Discord, Adobe Reader, the VLC media player, and even the LibreOffice suite are all now available in the Microsoft Store for people using the Windows 11 Insider Preview builds. Web apps like Wikipedia, Reddit, and Tumblr are also available. These PWAs ... ⌘ Read more
The FyneDesk project is taking a fresh look at what it means to be a desktop environment. Using the same beautiful and user friendly graphics of the Fyne toolkit you will find it a great place to call home on your computer. We also want to make it easy to update, add to or change your desktop just like you can with any other Open Source software. And so the design of our desktop project has put ease of learning and development in ... ⌘ Read more
Fairphone is unique in the world of smartphones. It’s pretty much the only company trying to build a sustainable device that isn’t glued together and hostile to the repair community. Today, Fairphone is announcing a brand-new flagship: the Fairphone 4, which brings an updated design and better specs while still shipping with all the modularity you would expect. A lot of welcome ... ⌘ Read more
Apple’s remote work struggle is emblematic of a deeper shift taking place inside the company. Since 1976, the tech giant has operated in largely the same way: executives make decisions about how the company will function, and employees either fall in line or leave. What choice do they have? Apple is currently worth $2 trillion, making it the most valuable company in the world, as well as one of the most powerful. ... ⌘ Read more
Like the good (and quickly abandoned) Android tablet interfaces of yore, Android 12.1 sees Google return to dual-pane layouts for various bits of the OS interface. The settings screen is back to a dual-pane configuration, which has the top-level settings list on the left and each individual page of settings on the right. The notification panel takes a similar approach, with the quick settings on the l ... ⌘ Read more
In public, Apple claims it supports legislation to combat climate change. Jackson, now Apple’s VP for Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives, released a statement asserting that “the urgent threat of climate change is a key priority” for the company. Jackson called on Congress a ... ⌘ Read more
The Verge: Valve promised it would work with anti-cheat software makers EAC and BattlEye to ensure some of the most popular games will run on its upcoming Steam Deck Linux-based gaming handheld, and one of those companies is now officially on board — Epic Games announced today that its Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) now supports Linux and Mac. Not only that, it’s specifically set up to work with the Proton and Wine compatibility layers that Va ... ⌘ Read more
Btrfs—short for “B-Tree File System” and frequently pronounced “butter” or “butter eff ess”—is the most advanced filesystem present in the mainline Linux kernel. In some ways, btrfs simply seeks to supplant ext4, the default filesystem for most Linux distributions. But btrfs also aims to provide next-gen features that break the simple “filesystem” mold, combining the functionality of a R ... ⌘ Read more
While we now know that Microsoft will only provide support for the new OS to the processors from both Intel and AMD that are in its list of supported CPUs, the company also stated that users on unsupported systems could still go ahead with an install using ISOs if they are interested. But this in return would leave their systems in an unsupported state. It ... ⌘ Read more
Microsoft just wrapped up its latest Surface event, and it was packed with news — including the redesigned Surface Pro 8, a camera-equipped Surface Duo 2, and even a new flagship laptop that puts a hinge behind the screen. There’s a lot of cool new hardware in here. I’ve always liked Microsoft’s Surface line of devices, and even own a few of them. They’re not much use to me anymore – Surface Linux s ... ⌘ Read more
The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, has announced plans to force smartphone and other electronics manufacturers to fit a common USB-C charging port on their devices. The proposal is likely to have the biggest impact on Apple, which continues to use its proprietary Lightning connector rather than the USB-C connector adopted by most of its competitors. The rules are intended to cu ... ⌘ Read more
The Linux Plumbers Conference is this week, and since Android is one of the biggest distributors of the Linux kernel in the world, Google software engineer Todd Kjos stopped by for a progress report from the Android team. Android 12—which will be out any day now—promises to bring Android closer than ever to mainline Linux by shipping Google’s “Generic Kernel Image” (GK ... ⌘ Read more
A WSL alternative for users who prefer an MS-DOS environment. DOS Subsystem for Linux integrates a real Linux environment into MS-DOS systems, allowing users to make use of both DOS and Linux applications from the DOS command prompt. What is this unholy union. ⌘ Read more
The open source Panfrost driver for Mali GPUs has now achieved official conformance on Mali-G52 for OpenGL ES 3.1, as seen on the Khronos adopters list. This important milestone is a step forward for the open source driver, as it now certifies Panfrost for use in commercial products containing Mali G52 and paves the way for further conformance submissions on other Mali GPUs. Excellent news, and great progress. ⌘ Read more
Apple has released new versions of all of its platforms, with only the Mac lagging behind for now. There’s iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, watchOS 8, HomePod 15, and tvOS 15. As usual, Apple’s device support for new updates is excellent and stretches back quite far, so pretty much every one of you who is an iOS users will be able to enjoy these new releases. You know where to find them. ⌘ Read more
Sir Clive Sinclair, the inventor and entrepreneur who was instrumental in bringing home computers to the masses, has died at the age of 81. His daughter, Belinda, said he died at home in London on Thursday morning after a long illness. Sinclair invented the pocket calculator but was best known for popularising the home computer, bringing it to British high-street stores at relatively affordable prices. One of the great ... ⌘ Read more
Alphabet’s Google and Apple have removed jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s tactical voting app from their stores, his team said on Friday, after Russia accused the U.S. tech firms of meddling in its internal affairs. Russia goes to the polls on Friday to elect a new parliament in a three-day vote that the ruling United Russia party is expected to win despite a ratings slump after the biggest crac ... ⌘ Read more
AMD’s CFO Devinder Kumar recently commented that AMD stands ready to manufacture Arm chips if needed, noting that the company’s customers want to work with AMD on Arm-based solutions. Kumar’s remarks came during last week’s Deutsche Bank Technology Conference, building on comments from AMD CEO Lisa Su earlier in the year that underscored the company’s willingness to create custom silicon solutions for its customers, be they based on x86 or Arm a ... ⌘ Read more
If you’ve been paying attention to recent chatter in the GNOME and surrounding communities, you may have noticed there’s a lot of disgruntled developers within certain communities that rely on parts of the GNOME stack, such as Pop!\\_OS and Budgie. I’ve been trying to follow most of these discussions and have been itching to write about it, but with the discussions still ongoing and my own lack of knowledge on the intricac ... ⌘ Read more_
Sailfish OS 4.2.0 has been released, and it packs a completely reworked sharing systems, improvements to the browser and camera application, further work on application sandboxing, and more. Read the full release notes for more details. ⌘ Read more
“Intel Seamless Update” is a forthcoming feature for Intel platforms seemingly first being exposed by their new Linux kernel patches working on the functionality… Intel is working on being able to carry out system firmware updates such as UEFI updates but doing so at run-time and being able to avoid the reboot in the process. Pretty cool, but sadly, it’ ... ⌘ Read more
In version 91 of Firefox, released on August 10th, Mozilla has reverse engineered the way Microsoft sets Edge as default in Windows 10, and enabled Firefox to quickly make itself the default. Before this change, Firefox users would be sent to the Settings part of Windows 10 to then have to select Firefox as a default browser and ignore Microsoft’s plea to keep Edge. Mozilla’s revers ... ⌘ Read more
The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) said on Tuesday Google’s contract terms with device makers amounted to an abuse of its dominant market position that restricted competition in the mobile OS market. Under the AFA, manufacturers could not equip their handsets with modified versions of Android, known as “Android forks”. That has helped Google cement its market dominance in the mobile OS market, the KFTC said. Under the ruling, G ... ⌘ Read more
A number of years ago, the Computer History Museum together with Microsoft released the source code for MS-DOS 1.25 (very close to PC DOS 1.1) and MS-DOS 2.11. I never did anything with it beyond glancing at the code, in no small part because the release was rather poorly organized. The obvious gaping hole is the lack of any source code for IBMBIO.COM. I do not know exactly what arrangement IBM and Microsoft had at the time, but in the days of DOS 1.x and 2.x OEMs did not get the s ... ⌘ Read more
On Friday, the Northern California judge handling the closely watched Epic Games v. Apple court case turned in a ruling that, in many ways, works out in Apple’s favor—but with one massive, App Store-changing exception. The ruling from US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers includes a single-page permanent injunction demanding that Apple open up payment options for any software ... ⌘ Read more
WSLg is short for Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI and the purpose of the project is to enable support for running Linux GUI applications (X11 and Wayland) on Windows in a fully integrated desktop experience. WSLg provides an integrated experience for developers, scientists or enthusiasts that prefer or need to run Windows on their PC but also need the ability to run tools or applications which works best, or exclusively, in a Linux environment. While users can accom ... ⌘ Read more
Google has been illegally underpaying thousands of temporary workers in dozens of countries and delayed correcting the pay rates for more than two years as it attempted to cover up the problem, the Guardian can reveal. Google executives have been aware since at least May 2019 that the company was failing to comply with local laws in the UK, Europe and Asia that m ... ⌘ Read more
I’ve long been intrigued by Thunderbolt add-in cards. Apparently regular looking PCIe expansion cards, but shipped with a mystery interface cable to the motherboard, of which there is a small list of supported models. It’s not a secret that these cards may work in a motherboard which isn’t supported, but full functionality is not a given. I have spent the past few even ... ⌘ Read more
Pumpkin is the name I have given to my port of PalmOS running on the x64 architecture. Please refer to this article for basic information on this project. Also look for other articles in the PalmOS category for more information and some technical details on the implementation. This article is about the first Technology Preview of this project: a functional version of Pumpkin OS running on the Windows platform. This first release is limited on purpose: just ... ⌘ Read more
While POWER9 was big for open-source fans with the formation of the OpenPOWER Foundation and Raptor Computing Systems designing POWER9-based systems that are fully open-source down to schematics and the motherboard firmware, the same can’t be currently said about POWER10. While IBM has published a lot of the POWER10 firmware as open-source, remaining closed for at least the time ... ⌘ Read more
Android 12 Beta 5 is here. For those that haven’t been following along at home, this is the last expected release before it hits stable and is ready for the masses — a so-called “release candidate” version that should be almost good to go. This latest version also picks up support for the brand new Pixel 5a, and it’s your last chance to get those beta-testing toes wet before ... ⌘ Read more
How do you write a review of a laptop when you’re struggling to find truly negative things to say? This is rarely an issue – every laptop is a compromise – but with the KDE Slimbook, I feel like I’ve hit this particular problem for the first time. A luxury, for sure, but it makes writing this review a lot harder than it’s supposed to be. First, let’s talk about SlimBook itself. Slimbook is a Linux OEM from Spain, founded in 2015, which sells v ... ⌘ Read more
Apple is gearing up to roll out iOS 15 later this year. The company plans to roll it out to several of its devices, going all the way back to the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. This will make Apple the only smartphone OEM to offer seven years of software updates to its devices. That’s a remarkable feat, considering that only a couple of OEMs on the Android side promise three years of OS upgra ... ⌘ Read more
Earlier today, Microsoft pushed a promotional message to early adopters of Windows 11. The promo intended to promote the upcoming operating system’s integration with Microsoft Teams. Instead, it caused Explorer (the Windows desktop shell) to stop responding and left users without a working Start menu and taskbar. Based on the Microsoft-provided workaround, I narrowed the problem down to a registry key that contained a ... ⌘ Read more
Dubbed OMG Cables, these new variants are more capable than their counterparts. According to their creator, payloads can be triggered from over one mile away. Attackers can use them to log keystrokes and change keyboard mappings. There is also a geofencing feature, a kill switch and the ability to forge the identity of specific USB devices, like those that can lev ... ⌘ Read more
A number of years ago, an 8″ disk containing Seattle Computer Products (SCP) 86-DOS 1.0 was successfully imaged. The newest files on the disk are dated April 30, 1981, making the disk the oldest complete release of what was soon to be known as PC DOS and MS-DOS, about a month older than a pre-release of PC DOS from early June 1981. While it is possible to run the 8″ disk image with 86-DOS version 1.00 under an emulator, it of course doesn’t run on a PC or any PC emulator/virtualizer. That’s a shame be ... ⌘ Read more
Apple, in a statement to various news outlets: Last month we announced plans for features intended to help protect children from predators who use communication tools to recruit and exploit them, and limit the spread of Child Sexual Abuse Material. Based on feedback from customers, advocacy groups, researchers and others, we have decided to take additional time over the ... ⌘ Read more
The story of NEC’s FPUs is interesting, but as is usually the case, something led me down this path. While looking through loads of old scrap boards I found a most curious arrangement, a board with a normal unassuming V30 processor, but right next to it was another 40-pin chip, a chip with a HUGE die lid labeled D9008D, dated similar to everything else, in the 1989-1991 range curiously copyrighted 85 86 and ’87. I pulled the chip (soldered in , of course) and it sat on my desk, for ... ⌘ Read more
Today, we are announcing the general availability of Windows Server 2022. It’s a big step forward for the operating system that is trusted by major corporations and small businesses alike to run their business and mission-critical workloads. It comes with tons of security improvements (of course), SMB compression, support for up to 48TB of memory and 2048 threads running on 64 sockets, and more. ⌘ Read more
So, I stole the bulk of my old 86sim-based Venix implementation, installed a i386 VM using bhyve on my FreeBSD/amd64 box and write a quick little test program. The test program worked, so in a fit of “why not give this a try” I ported the pcvenix.cc from 86sim to being driven from SIGSEGV in vm86 mode. Hello world quickly worked. I didn’t even know what Venix was before coming across this post, but it turns out it was a lightweight UNIX implementati ... ⌘ Read more
South Korea has passed a bill written to prevent major platform owners like Google and Apple from restricting app developers to built-in payment systems, The Wall Street Journal reports. The bill is now expected to be signed into law by President Moon Jae-in, whose party championed the legislation. The law comes as a blow to Google and Apple who b ... ⌘ Read more
Version 5.14 of the most popular operating system kernel in the world has been released. See the Linux 5.14 feature list for a comprehensive list of the changes in this new kernel version. Some of the Linux 5.14 highlights include core scheduling support, secret memory areas support with MEMFD\\_SECRET, continued enablement around Intel Alder Lake, Yellow Carp and Beige Goby AMD g ... ⌘ Read more_
Windows 11 is no longer merely “coming this fall.” Microsoft will begin releasing the new operating system to the public on October 5, starting with newer PCs (and PCs being sold in stores) and then rolling out to other supported systems over the next nine or so months. The company also says that the Amazon-powered Android app support coming to Windows 11 won’t be ready for public consumption at laun ... ⌘ Read more
Elise Blanchard goes on a deep dive of ancient GUI design and early browsers to figure out why hyperlinks are blue. But now, I find myself all consumed by the question, WHY are links blue? WHO decided to make them blue? WHEN was this decision made, and HOW has this decision made such a lasting impact? I turned to my co-workers to help me research, and we started to find the answer. Mosaic, an early browser released by Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina on January 23, 1993, had blue h ... ⌘ Read more
Void is a general purpose operating system, based on the monolithic Linux kernel. Its package system allows you to quickly install, update and remove software; software is provided in binary packages or can be built directly from sources with the help of the XBPS source packages collection. Void Linux is one of my favourite distributions, but since it employs a rolling release model, I never really get the oppor ... ⌘ Read more
Just in case you thought the Windows 11 upgrade and hardware compatibility situation couldn’t get any more confusing and complicated, Microsoft decided to do a Microsoft. This morning, Microsoft revealed a change of plan to The Verge: it won’t technically abandon those millions of PCs, because you’ll be able to manually install the downloadable Windo ... ⌘ Read more
Known to be “functional, free and secure by default”, the OpenBSD operating system has played an important role in open source for more than a quarter century. It has also been fairly central to what I have done for the last two decades and some. What follows is my personal view of what life with OpenBSD has been like, with an emphasis on moments and developments that I feel made life, or at lea ... ⌘ Read more
Arm is widely regarded as the most important semiconductor IP firm. Their IP ships in billions of new chips every year from phones, cars, microcontrollers, Amazon servers, and even Intel’s latest IPU. Originally it was a British owned and headquartered company, but SoftBank acquired the firm in 2016. They proceeded to plow money into Arm Holdings to develop deep pushes into the ... ⌘ Read more
Edward Snowden: Having read thousands upon thousands of remarks on this growing scandal, it has become clear to me that many understand it doesn’t matter, but few if any have been willing to actually say it. Speaking candidly, if that’s still allowed, that’s the way it always goes when someone of institutional significance launches a campaign to defend an indefensible intrusion into our private spaces. They make a mad dash to the supposed high ... ⌘ Read more
Linux distributions like Debian fulfill an important function in the FOSS ecosystem – they are system integrators that take existing free and open source software projects and adapt them where necessary to work well together. They also make it possible for users to install more software in an easy and consistent way and with some degree of quality control and review. One of the conseq ... ⌘ Read more
Currently, you would probably rank Google’s offerings behind every other big-tech competitor. A lack of any kind of top-down messaging leadership at Google has led to a decade and a half of messaging purgatory, with Google both unable to leave the space altogether and unable to commit to a single product. While companies like Facebook and Salesforce invest tens of billions of dollars ... ⌘ Read more
For the last few weeks, I’ve been running CalyxOS. It is the latest in Free/Open Source mobile phone operating systems that I’ve used. This post is a summary of my experience using FLOSS mobile OSes and what my experience can tell us not only about phones, but Free/Open Source OSes in general. An excellent rundown of the various options in this space, and I’m tempted to see if I can make this step in the near future too. Cutting Google out of my mobile phone ... ⌘ Read more
More owners of the first-generation Nest Hub are Google Fuchsia update is rolling out widely to 1st-gen Nest Hubs as it expands beyond the Preview program. Back in May, Google formally released Fuchsia, its effort to develop a “not Linux” operating system from scratch, which has been years in the making. The first device to receive the new OS was Google’s 2018 smart display, the Nest Hub — not ... ⌘ Read more
Samsung has confirmed that it will stop showing ads in default apps including Samsung Weather, Samsung Pay, and Samsung Theme. It follows comments made by its mobile chief TM Roh in an internal town hall meeting reported by Yonhap. “Samsung has made a decision to cease the advertisement on proprietary apps including Samsung Weather, Samsung Pay, and Samsung Theme,” the company said in ... ⌘ Read more
Dedication asks each of its adherents to have faith even as time and energy pass through from one year to the next. Dedication brings with it a variety of challenges, but also rewards. Dedication is something most people claim to have, but few readily exhibit it in the face of adversity. As of today, Aug. 18, 2021, the Haiku Project is celebrating two decades of dedication, marking the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Haiku operating system and the start of this ride to save, maintain, ... ⌘ Read more
The Intel 386 SX CPU quickly replaced the 286 CPU in the early 1990s. For a time, it was a very popular CPU, especially for people who were wanting to run Microsoft Windows. Yet the two CPUs run at nearly identical speed. So what was the big deal? The 286 vs 386SX argument could be confusing in 1991, and it’s not much clearer today. Here at OSNews we pride ourselves in pointing you to the most relevant, up-to-date buying advice available on the internet. ⌘ Read more
Earlier this month, Apple unveiled a system that would scan iPhone and iPad photos for child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The announcement sparked a civil liberties firestorm, and Apple’s own employees have been expressing alarm. The company insists reservations about the system are rooted in “misunderstandings.” ... ⌘ Read more
I at least peruse if not review in depth the vast majority of all those PRs, and every time I see a PR that is likely to impact performance, I make a note of it in a running log, giving me a long list of improvements I can revisit when it’s blog time. That made this August a little daunting, as I sat down to write this post and was faced with the list I’d curated of almost 550 PRs. Don’t worry, I don’t cover all of them here, but grab a large mug of you ... ⌘ Read more
The theme for this release has been adding new functionality to the MATE Desktop while maintaining the look and feel that we all know and love. While all the added features are surely quite exciting we also did not forget to do tons of bugfixing, modernising the code base and optimizing the performance. MATE is one of the two great alternatives for people who find GNOME 3 and later unpleasant (the other being Cinnamon, my DE of choice). ⌘ Read more
In Windows 11, Microsoft has changed the way you set default apps. Like Windows 10, there’s a prompt that appears when you install a new browser and open a web link for the first time. It’s the only opportunity to easily switch browsers, though. Unless you tick “always use this app,” the default will never be changed. It’s incredibly easy to forget to toggle the “always use thi ... ⌘ Read more
Researchers have produced a collision in iOS’s built-in hash function, raising new concerns about the integrity of Apple’s CSAM-scanning system. The flaw affects the hashing system, called NeuralHash, which allows Apple to check for exact matches of known child-abuse imagery without possessing any of the images or gleaning any information about non-matching pictures. On Tuesday, a GitHub us ... ⌘ Read more
Speaking of Debian, there’s even bigger news than a new Debian GNU/Hurd release – Debian 11.0 is out and about! This release contains over 11,294 new packages for a total count of 59,551 packages, along with a significant reduction of over 9,519 packages which were marked as obsolete and removed. 42,821 packages were updated and 5,434 packages remained unchanged. As always, Debian release are big, and they are hugely important as they serve as the base for some of the most popular Li ... ⌘ Read more
It is with huge pleasure that the Debian GNU/Hurd team announces the release of Debian GNU/Hurd 2021. This is a snapshot of Debian “sid” at the time of the stable Debian “bullseye” release (August 2021), so it is mostly based on the same sources. It is not an official Debian release, but it is an official Debian GNU/Hurd port release. In this release, the port of go has been completed, experimental support for APIC, SMP, and 64bit has been added, and more. ⌘ Read more
Asahi Linux, the effort to port Linux to Apple’s new M1 SoC, has posted its second progress report. It’s been a long time since the last update! In all honesty, the first Progress Report set the bar a little bit too high, and I found it difficult to sit down and put together monthly reports that would do it justice. So, going forward, we’re going to be providing shorter-form updates while striving to keep a monthly schedule. That said, a lot has happened ... ⌘ Read more
A great intro to a classic platform by way of emulation and optionally even adapting a real physical keyboard: Back in the late 80s and through the 90s, Unix workstations were super powerful, super cool, and super expensive. If you were making 3D graphics or developing applications, you wanted a high-performance workstation and Sun made some of the best ones. But unless you worked for a huge company, university, or gover ... ⌘ Read more
This is the Commodore 64 KERNAL, modified to run on the Atari 8-bit line of computers. They’re practically the same machine; why didn’t someone try this 30 years ago? No time like the present. ⌘ Read more
Apple employees have flooded an Apple internal Slack channel with more than 800 messages on the plan announced a week ago, workers who asked not to be identified told Reuters. Many expressed worries that the feature could be exploited by repressive governments looking to find other material for censorship or arrests, according to workers who saw the days-long thread. Past security changes at ... ⌘ Read more
Hello Windows Insiders! Today we are rolling out the first set of updates for several apps that come included as part of Windows 11. The following app updates are rolling out to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel at first. Microsoft has updated some of the default Windows applications – Snipping Tool, Calculator, and Mail & Calendar. ⌘ Read more
Their legislation would bar the companies from certain conduct that would tend to force developers to use their app stores or payment systems. It also would obligate the companies to protect app developers’ rights to tell consumers about lower prices and offer competitive pricing. It would effectively allow apps to be loaded onto Apple users’ devices outside of the company’s official app store. There’s so muc ... ⌘ Read more
So imagine my surprise when I dug around in a quarter-century-old archive to find a .zip file containing something that purported to be the original executable of Labyrinth. Surely such an ancient piece of code – written for Windows 3.1 – wouldn’t launch? Well, after a bit of fiddling with the Windows compatibility settings, I was shocked – and extremely pleased – to see that, yes, it most certainly did. It shouldn�� ... ⌘ Read more
An operating system I’ve been writing since ~June 2017. Although it’s a long shot (and very optimistic), I ultimately intend it to replace Linux and Windows as a desktop operating system. Very optimistic, but there’s quite a few things here already. The code is on gitlab, where you can find more information, too. ⌘ Read more~
MorphOS 3.15 ram-handler contains a bug that when unlucky may results in the RAM: root directory to appear to contain many duplicate entries. Multiple users had reported this over the years, but until recently the root cause of this issue had eluded us. Due to recent developments, the bug has finally been located and fixed (thanks to AngryTom for help!). Fixed ram-handler will be released as the part of the future MorphOS 3.16 release. Meanwhile you can in ... ⌘ Read more
In 1985 Steve Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT Inc. in order to build the NeXT Computer. It was ahead of its time and had amazing features thanks to the NeXTSTEP operating system, most famously used at CERN by Sir Tim Berners-Lee to create the World Wide Web. NeXTSTEP later became OPENSTEP and when Apple acquired NeXT in 1997, they used it as the basis for Mac OS X and iOS. If you’ve done any Mac or iOS programming, you’ve seen the ... ⌘ Read more
Valve’s “Steam Deck” handheld PC has caused quite a stir among PC gaming geeks, but the biggest shakeup might not be its Nintendo Switch-like form factor. The software running inside of it is the real surprise. Why does the Steam Deck run Linux? Blame Windows. The Steam Deck and the software inside of it are the culmination of a nearly decade-long “hedging strategy” embarked upon by Valve chief Gabe Newell and company many ... ⌘ Read more
Dr. Neal Krawetz, one of the leading experts in the area of computer forensics research, digital photo analysis, and related topics, has penned a blog post in which he takes apart Apple’s recent announcement and the technology behind it. He actually has a lot of experience with the very problem Apple is trying to deal with, since he is the creator of FotoForensics, and files CSAM reports to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) every day. In fact, he files more reports than ... ⌘ Read more