Google has so far been successful in deploying the Chrome web browser to Windows users. Though not exactly multi-platform capable yet as variants of Chrome browser for Linux and Mac OSX are still in development.
Today on 8th July 2009, Google surprised the world with its announcement of developing a CHROME OPERATING SYSTEM.
The reason why netbooks are increasing in its demand is because users are starting to prefer smaller and lighter notebooks to carry around.
There is another range of devices that is rising in popularity, probably not here in Singapore. But its presence can already be felt. The Mobile Internet Devices, aka MID, are handheld computers built around mobile processors such as the Atom or ARM CPU. It will usually have a 5 to 7 inch LCD touchscreen and can function somewhat like a PC.
Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox, the multiplatform opensource web browser, has been updated to version 3.5. As at May 2009, it has a share of 22.51% of web browser’s usage.
Notable enhancements include:
HTML 5 audio and video enhancement
Private browsing mode [ History and cookies will not be saved ]
Location-aware browsing
Faster Javascript performance
Faster page rendering
Complete release notes here
Download for your operating system here.
A great third party guide is here on how to use Firefox productively.
WINE, the application in linux that allows the user to run Windows programs, has been updated with latest “development” version 1.1.25.
Some notable bugfixes are..
World of Warcraft sound fix
Eve Online textures fix
OpenGL related virtual memory exhaustion fix
MS office phone activation fix
Hop over here for full list of fixes.
Click here to download the binaries for your desired linux distro
For those whom prefer the stable version Wine 1.0.1, it’s available here for download.
Moblin, started as an alternative Operating System development project for Mobile Internet Devices (MID) and Netbooks (EEE,Wind,Aspire One) by Intel in 2007,whom wanted to build an open source OS around its Intel Atom low power processor.
In April 2009, Intel handed the project over to the Linux Foundation and since then, much development work has been done to deliver an interactive OS with rich visuals.
Moblin : Interactive OS with Rich Visuals
The v2.0 beta version is now publicly available for download and testing. Instructions for installing and booting on thumbdrive are here.
The current version delivers fast bootup and a somewhat complete user interface. Hardware compatibility is still worked on.
A mix of both positive and negative comments from users whom had tested the v2.0 beta image of Moblin.
If Ubuntu and Fedora is not your cup of GPL tea, you might want to consider trying out Moblin today!
Singapore needs a Linux Lug, well, one more anyway.
We’d been defunct for a long time.
Busy personal life is a lousy excuse when there are so many folks exasperated with paid and dysfunctional operating systems wanting to try open source OS and GPL applications.
3 cheers to free beer, please pass it around.
Our forums still will retain the previous system.
Discussions can still be made here
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