Windows Software Reviews

The 10th annual LinuxWorld Conference & Expo and its partner Next Generation Data Center Conference kick off today at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, where the open-source operating system will be the center of attention for enterprise users, vendors and IT enthusiasts. As Linux markets grow and innovate, so does LinuxWorld. One new area this year is the Mobile Linux Conference, an indication of the growing strength of open source on mobile platforms. It’s good to see LinuxWorld covering “the third screen” of Linux. This year’s conference includes an open source voting demonstration, where attendees will cast mock ballots for the 2008 presidential election and more. At the same time, many IT vendors will be making product and service announcements at the show.

• LinuxWorld Conversations Start Tomorrow
• LinuxWorld: Showcasing the OS in data centers, mobile devices, e-voting
• LinuxWorld Gets Underway in San Francisco
• Dell at LinuxWorld this Week
• Openbravo demonstrates compatibility with Ubuntu at LinuxWorld 2008
• LinuxWorld preview: IBM engineer touts SELinux
• LinuxWorld: Showcasing the OS in data centers, mobile devices, e-votin

Earlier this month Intel had announced the GMA X4500 series, which is their latest and greatest when it comes to integrated graphics processors. These IGPs were greeted by same-day Linux support (it had actually arrived before the chipset was announced), but it’s still next to impossible to find motherboards using the G43 and G45 Chipsets that bear this IGP. Fortunately, however, our friends at Super Micro have come through and we have managed to get our hands on the C2SEA. The Super Micro C2SEA is an ATX motherboard that uses the Intel G45 Chipset in conjunction with an ICH10 Southbridge. This motherboard provides Intel GMA X4500HD graphics with VGA and HDMI interfaces. In this article, we are looking at the performance of this new Intel graphics processor under Linux.

In the GMA X4500 desktop series there are currently two variants, the vanilla X4500 and then the X4500HD. The GMA X4500 is used by Intel’s lower-end chipsets, which is currently the G43 and soon-to-be-released G41, while the GMA X4500HD is found on the G45. Intel’s IGPs are quite popular on the mobile front and for that they have introduced the GMA 4500MHD, which is the mobile variant to the X4500HD. In addition to the X4500, X4500HD, and X4500MHD, Intel will be introducing a fourth X4500 part in the coming months that will be a cut-down version of the X4500 and used by the forthcoming Q43 and Q45 Chipsets. The IGPs with the “HD” postfix are supposed to be able to handle full 1080p high-definition video playback along with Blu-ray Disc movies, at least under Windows.

The GMA (Graphics Media Accelerator) X4500 series is Intel’s second graphics solution that supports Microsoft DirectX 10.0 and Shader Model 2.0 (the first was the Intel GMA X3500). In addition, it presents support for Intel Clear Video Technology, HDMI capabilities, and DisplayPort capabilities. Intel Clear Video Technology presents full hardware HD decoding support for H.264, VC-1, and MPEG-2. It also includes HD and SD video post processing support. Unfortunately when it comes to video playback, the full capabilities of Clear Video aren’t taken advantage of under Linux, at least not yet. Intel’s Linux driver (xf86-video-intel) supports both X-Video and XvMC (X-Video Motion Compensation) for video playback. XvMC though is currently limited to MPEG-2 format (a generic limitation and not something Intel-specific).

Complete Review

With KDE 4.1 final out soon many users again ask themselves if it is the right KDE version for them. While many features missing in KDE 4.0 are now available, the KDE project published a paper to help the users with the decision.

The KDE team has created a special page highlighting the pros and cons of the release, or better said, the changes and the still missing features in comparison to KDE 3.5/KDE 4.0.

KDE 4.1 is scheduled for release at the end of July 2008. This is a significant milestone for the KDE 4 series and for KDE in general, but as an early release in the KDE 4 cycle, it does have some known issues which will not be fixed in KDE 4.1. Huge progress has been made in KDE 4.1 which is listed in the KDE 4.1 Feature Plan.

Some of the more obvious issues are listed below. If these issues are important to you, you should stay with KDE 3.5 (KDE 3.5.10 is scheduled for release in August) or KDE 4.0 until KDE 4.2 when most of these issues are scheduled to be resolved.

It is possible that distributions will work around some of these issues before distributing to users. KDE 4.2 is currently scheduled for release in February 2009.

A factor that will affect whether KDE 4.1 is ready for you to use is whether the KDE programs you use have been updated yet. So far all applications written for KDE 3.5 will continue running on 4.x, but, sooner or later, you will want versions that can take advantage of the new release’s features. As liquidat puts it right:

“Basically, there are two areas users should have a look at: the applications and the desktop. While KDE comes with many good applications, the real power lies within the 3rd party apps. And there many are not in KDE 4 land yet: digikam (currently beta), Konversation (in development), Amarok (currently alpha), KOffice (currently alpha) and k3b (in development). The desktop on the other side is what you would expect it, however the panel does not support auto-hiding, and currently the feature for having different wallpapers on different virtual desktops is missing. Also, FolderView is there, but the icon-handling is not as most users are used to from KDE 3.5. So in case users cannot stand FolderView they should better wait for KDE 4.2. In the end, the page only summarizes what is already known, but it does make sure that every user can easily see if a feature important to him/her is missing.”

For this reason, the release of new versions of KDE PIM, with Kmail, KOrganizer, Akregator, and other personal information management tools may be a major influence on whether you migrate to KDE 4.1.  In addition to the PIM applications being introduced in 4.1, the Akonadi PIM storage framework will provide an efficient way of storing and retrieving e-mail and contact data across applications, according to its developers.

The Kickoff application launcher menu has a new look and is more optimized, and the run command dialog has been given a makeover. Underneath the hood, the core KDE libraries have also been improved with KHTML getting a speed boost and WebKit is added to Plasma to allow Mac OS X Dashboard widgets to be used in KDE. The use of the Widgets on Canvas feature of Qt 4.4 makes Plasma more stable and lightweight, according to the developers. Phonon, the cross-platform media framework, gains subtitle support and can now use GStreamer, DirectShow 9 or QuickTime. Developers can now create KDE applications with Python and Ruby and the new Phonon integration for GStreamer, QuickTime and DirectShow9, improves KDE’s multimedia support on Windows and Mac OS.

Overall, KDE 4.1 has enough gaps in customization and supporting applications that it will probably not stop the controversy that surrounded KDE 4.0, and it does offer enough features and stability that it should reduce the ferocity and number of complaints enough that more serious assessment of the changes in KDE 4.1 can begin.

The KDE community dedicates this release to Uwe Thiem, a long-time contributor to KDE who passed away recently after a sudden kidney failure. The death of Uwe was unexpected and was a shock to his fellow contributors.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

ActiveState’s Open Source White Paper - Find Out How to Manage the Risks Associated with Open Source Software.

In 2005, Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems quipped that open source software was “free like a puppy is free.” Just as you can pick out a puppy from the pound without paying expensive breeder fees, you can download and use open source software without buying a single license. But puppies become dogs, and dogs need food, toys, training and lots and lots of love. Even with all this attention, there’s no guarantee your cuddly puppy won’t develop a vicious streak. Will you need endless obedience classes and a chain and muzzle to control it? The same goes for open source software. As soon as you introduce open source into your organization, the real costs, commitments and risks become clear.

Read on and find out how to manage the risks associated with open source software (you’ll need to register to download the white paper).

Related: 3 open-source challenges: cloud computing, open Web, mobile