As soon as HP abruptly announced it had been discontinuing the TouchPad and ceasing work towards any future equipment running webOS, we took of which to mean the underdog computer had died some sort of premature death. But in the event the company ousted bumbling PRESIDENT Leo Apotheker in addition to replaced him having Meg Whitman, we to wonder if webOS will often have some life from it yet. Well, HP just went back with a remaining verdict: the company will keep develop webOS, seeing that promised, but through the open supplier community. In different words, webOS to be a platform will reside on, and developers both equally inside HP in addition to out will fix up the OS intended for interested OEMs (whoever they usually are), along with people that already own webOS equipment. Says Sam Greenblatt, CTO on the outfit’s advanced technological know-how division: “We looked at all the various options we have revealed. We think this option is best for the support industry and HP ”
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Category Archives: hardware
At $399, its an obvious competitor to the ASUS Eee PC. The Everex Cloudbook is intended to be a UMPC meaning that it is ultra mobile, easy on the battery life, and at least semi rugged. Everex calls this notebook “The Ultimate in Mobility.â€
How about those specs:
- 1.2 GHz Via C7-M Processor ULV
- 512 MB DDR2 533MHz SDRAM Memory (maximum is 1 GB)
- 30 GB Hard Disk Drive
- 7″ WVGA TFT Display for 800×480 resolution
- Via Unichrome Pro IGP Graphics
- Via High Definition Audio
- 802.11 B/G
- One 10/100 Ethernet Port
- DVI-I Port
- 2 USB 2.0 Ports
- 4-in-1 memory card reader
- 0.3 MP Webcam (not a typo, zero point three megapixel)
- Headphone/Line out port
- Microphone/Line in port
- Set of stereo speaker
- Touchpad
- 4 cell lithium ion battery
- 2 pounds
- Up to 5 hours battery life
- gOS Rocket OS based on Ubuntu
- Software includes Google Apps integration
KWin, the standard KDE window manager in KDE4.0, ships with the first version of built-in support for compositing, making it also to compositing manager. This allows KWin to provide advanced graphical effects, similar to Compiz, while also providing all the features from previous KDE releases. Unlike Compiz, KWin still functions even when not system support for compositing is available, with only the compositing features being unavailable. KWin in KDE4.0 is also relatively new tails and has not been extensively optimized yet, therefore its performance may not be in loads areas comparable with performance of other compositing managers. In such cases performance should be improved with newer versions.Smoothness of KWin rendering can be improved by setting the env.variable KWIN_NVIDIA_HACK to 1. This sets ‘ _ _ GL_YIELD=NOTHING’ for KWin, letting KWin use more CPU Time for OpenGL operations, however at the expense of affecting performance of other applications. Therefore, this is disabled by default. This setting may be removed in the future if the negative impact becomes insignificant.
Open ~/.profile file and the following line:
export KWIN_NVIDIA_HACK=1
For more on this check COMPOSITE_HOWTO. Now see the difference.
Tip: In loads cases, overall smoothness may be increased by turning off direct rendering in advanced options in the Desktop Effects configuration module (Alt+F3->Configure Window Behavior).
No optimastion or tweaks for ATI video cards that I have noticed so far. If you know, let us know.
Some industrious programmers have found a way to hack the Archos 605 WiFi portable video player to run the Qtopia Linux platform. By the looks of it, the Qtopia hack doesn’t add much in the way of extra media features (the Archos does pretty well as-is), but it opens the door to developing the Archos 605 WiFi as a more generally useful and configurable tablet PC. The Qtopia hack appears to work on older models of the Archos players as well, although the Archos fifth-generation players seem to be easier to configure.
Laptop and notebooks are being stolen at an ever-increasing rate. In 2004, Safeware Insurance which sells computer insurance, estimated 600,000 laptop and notebooks a year were being stolen. In 2006 an estimated 750,000 were being swiped, according to Absolute Software a company that makes computer tracking products — and does not support Linux. LoJack For Laptops, another computer tracing company — which also does not support Linux — says FBI statistics show 2 million laptop and notebook computers were stolen in the US in a recent year. While the figures may not agree in detail, they all show that laptop and notebook theft is a major problem — and if you’re not careful, your Linux laptop might be next.
While you can find dozens of products to secure Windows laptops, security products for Linux laptops are scarcer — but they do exist. We found a range of products and fixes ranging from security patches for the operating system to encryption to the equivalent of computer bicycle locks which can help keep your Linux laptop or notebook safe.
For those that may have missed it, the ATI/AMD fglrx 8.42 display driver that was released last month had introduced AIGLX support. The open-source “Radeon†driver for ATI graphics cards going up to the R400 generation has supported AIGLX for quite some time, but the ATI binary display driver hadn’t until last month. However, one of the complaints about the fglrx implementation of AIGLX is that in the 8.42.3 driver, some are encountering slow performance in Compiz / Compiz Fusion. We have taken an ATI Radeon X800XL 256MB PCI-E graphics card, which is supported by both the Radeon and fglrx drivers, and have compared their Compiz performance in a few different scenarios.
ATI Open vs. Closed-Source AIGLX Performance
The system once again was running Ubuntu 7.10 “Gutsy Gibbon†with the Linux 2.6.22 kernel and X server 1.3, but with these benchmarks, the Compiz effects were disabled during testing. The hardware included a PCI Express ATI Radeon X800XL 256MB graphics card, Intel Pentium D 820 (2.80GHz dual-core), 2GB of DDR3-1333 memory, and an ASUS P5E3 Deluxe (Intel X38) motherboard. We had used Enemy Territory and GtkPerf as our vehicle for benchmarking the two drivers, since both benchmarks are compatible with the current Radeon driver. The ATI driver used was fglrx 8.42.3.
A major desktop Linux upgrade is set to be released on October 18. Michael Dell is expected to personally use it. And the PC giant will pre-load it on selected desktops and notebooks. Buzz about this next Linux release — dubbed Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon — is growing across the web. But what exactly does Gutsy Gibbon (aka Ubuntu 7.10) offer to desktop customers and solutions providers? Here’s a look.
Canonical (the company that develops Ubuntu) has outlined a long-term road map for the operating system. During the UbuntuLive conference back in July, Canonical CTO Matt Zimmerman said Ubuntu 7.10 would feature several core enhancements for desktop and server users. On the desktop, 7.10 will support:
- a 3D interface out of the box
- multi-monitor configuration
- laptop power profiling
- more details still to come
On the server, 7.10 will offer:
- Turn-key web administration
- One-step server recipes
- Proactive security with AppArmor, an increasingly popular open source security option
- “desktop†type simplicity
So, what does that mean to Ubuntu resellers and customers? Quite a lot. Ubuntu moved from niche status into the spotlight when Michael Dell himself began running the operating system.
If Ubuntu 7.1o continues that positive buzz, it could help desktop Linux to gradually become a mainstream operating system. But don’t expect that to happen overnight. In an exclusive TechIQ interview with Dell’s Linux gurus last month, the company indicated that it would take a slow-and-steady approach to Ubuntu. Translation: Don’t expect Dell to throw marketing dollars at Ubuntu PCs just yet.
I do not expect that to happen for at least another year because Dell doesn’t want to over promise and under deliver to frustrated Windows users and small business owners who are seeking alternatives.
In the meantime, the countdown to Ubuntu 7.10 continues. And the buzz surrounding Ubuntu 7.1 will only grow louder as the upgrade’s October 18 launch date approaches.
I came across this little tool, which displays me many interesting information about power consumption on notebooks with an Intel mobile processor.
It will tell you how often the CPU is woken up per second and gives you suggestions on how you can improve it.
You can install it under Gutsy, don’t think it will be possible on a default feisty setup, with
sudo apt-get install powertop
and start with
sudo powertop