Thushan Fernando Uncut

Almost missed this one, Paul Thurrott of WinSuperSite fame has previewed Windows 7 Beta 1 a day before Christmas - he must have been an ultra good  boy in that case.

Well, the waiting is finally over. What you’re looking at here is the eagerly awaited Windows 7 Beta, the pre-release version of Microsoft’s next operating system that will ship publicly by mid-January. As promised, there are no new features exposed in the Beta: Instead, Microsoft has tweaked all of the existed features that were announced at PDC 2008 and provided a build that is capable of day-to-day use. I’ll be reviewing the Windows 7 Beta soon.

Whilst most will have to wait a tinsy bit more before they get their hands on the ‘official’ Beta 1 release - tagged v6.1.7000.0 (winmain.win7beta.081212-1400).

Paul gives us a run down of the installation (part1, part2), first boot (part1 - with Windows Media Player, IE amongst the shots, part2 - Control panel applets, wireless, desktop UI changes).

If that wasnt enough, NeoWin also has a thread from a forum member of the leaked pre-release. Wow, is this not the best Christmas EVAR for l33tle geeks around the globe?

Developer, Operating Systems, Windows, Windows 7, software fivestar, fivestarvip, microsoft, neowin, operating system, paul, vista, win7, winbeta, Windows, windows 7, winmain.win7beta.081212-1400

OpenSolaris 2008.11 has just been released, it encompasses some super cool new features and I’ve been waiting patiently to try this OS - need something new to learn!

The OpenSolaris 2008.11 operating system is a point of integration for the installation, desktop, and package management system projects on OpenSolaris.org. Today, the OpenSolaris 2008.11 live CD is available with the following feature updates:

ZFS Time Slider and Songbird;suspend/resume and CPU power management; Distribution Constructor and Prototype Automated Installer; WebStack with 64-bit MySQL, CherryPy, and DTrace for Ruby; GNOME 2.24, OpenOffice.org 3.0, and Firefox 3; Many F/OSS applications added, including top, sudo and Emacs; 700 additional man pages and Package Manager online help

Just a bit of background, OpenSolaris is based on Solaris, which was originally released by Sun Micro-Systems in 1991. Sun decided to release Open-Solaris to build a developer community around their Solaris product. Eventually it seems they will be basing technology for Solaris from OpenSolaris. So you know OpenSolaris will rock your world if its backed by Sun.

Download page for OpenSolaris 2008.11 or Direct Download of ISO and the 2008.11 Release notes.

Checkout the newly revamped OpenSolaris website, in particular the Learn area. Personally I’m looking forward to seeing the ZFS, Virtualisation Enhancements and DTrace loving.

Developer, Its My Life, Kernel / Internals, OpenSolaris, Operating Systems, hardware, software OpenSolaris, operating system, solaris, storage, sun, zfs

Completely forgot about a birthday, Windows turned 25 on the 10th of November.

On November 10th, 1983, Bill Gates first unveilled Microsoft Windows (v1.0) to the world at an unprecedented elaborate event at the Helmsley Palace Hotel (Wikipedia) in New York City. Windows 1.0 boasted a graphical user-interface to the MS-DOs world with menus, icons and multi-tasking. Not that I was around back then (I was born just under a year later) but here’s some screenies for your pleasure.

Windows 1.0 Boxshot

All for a cheap $99 and it even comes with Reversi. Steve Balmer, crazy back then, still a crazy guy today.

Belated Happy Birthday.

Developer, Operating Systems, Windows, software 1.0, bill gates, history, operating system, software, steve balmer, win, Windows, windoze

With the amount of coverage surely to be taken by Windows 7 we can’t forget the other side of the force, Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex was released a few hours ago.

Believe it or not I actually stayed up waiting for it to hit the servers, then hopped over to the iinet FTP server (mirror’d by the Internode servers also) as the 3FL Mirror (Westnet) wasn’t up to date (it is now!) and started leeching the sucker.

8.10 brings:

• Linux Kernel v2.6.27 - which has the new Atheros driver, improved webcam support and support for the UBFIS file system, among other things documented on KernelNewbies.
• Support for the UBIFS file system - especially for SSD/Flash drives in the hope it will improve performance and longetitivity of such devices.
• GNOME v2.24 - which brings a slew of improvements including a tabbed nautilus.
• X.Org v7.4 - includes Xorg-Server 1.5 which brings faster startup/shutdown times, hot-plugging for input devices.
• Network Manager 0.7 - which adds 3G and PPPoE connectivity
• Dynamic Kernel Module support - recompiles kernel modules automajically when kernel is updated.
• LOTS more, documented in the 8.10 Release notes.

Mono 2.0, Python 2.6 and OpenOffice 3.0 didnt make the cut but will be present in 9.04 already dubbed the Jaunty Jackalope.

Download Ubuntu 8.10 and give it ago. For a complete look at Ubuntu 8.10, checkout these reviews:

• Simple Thoughts - Ubuntu 8.10 Comphrensive Review
• Polish Linux - Ubuntu 8.10 A Positive Evolution
• The Linux Format - The LXF Test

Whilst I’ve had to hurry off to work with barely a few hours of sleep I did catch a few minutes of usage after a speedy install thanks to the USB installation method.

Developer, Linux/Unix, Operating Systems, software arthos, dynamic kernel module, free, Gnome, KDE, Kernel, linux, network manager, new, open source, operating system, release, ubfis, ubuntu, webcam, x.org

Unless you’ve been living under a rock under the Apple tree you would have heard that a little company in Redmond WA has been working on a new version of Windows dubbed Windows 7 (which is what it will actually be called for once!).

At PDC today, Microsoft finally unveiled the much-anticipated release of Windows 7 and handed out pre-beta bits to atendees (tagged 6801.winmain_win7m3.081020-1655). They demonstrated a newer build which was tagged 6933.winmain.081020-184 during PDC which unfortunately was not given out. Unfortunately I couldn’t go due to work constraints, but in case your in the same boat I’ve collected some of the best sources of info out there for you to browse through.

First and foremost, some pretty pictures of the glassy new desktop UI.

Some interesting articles out of the many out there that are recommended reading:

• PC Magazine’s Inside Windows 7 Pre-Beta - Probably the first thing you should read.
• Extreme Tech’s Why Windows 7 Will Suck Less Than Vista - Offers a comparison between Vista and 7

For the pretty screenshots, see galleries here and here. More information and probably a bit more discussion will follow soon.

EDIT:
ArsTechnica have got an updated build reviewed which goes into bit more depth too and NeoWin has posted a nice gallery walkthrough of the Win7 UI and details about Vista SP2.

.NET / CLR / C#, Developer, Operating Systems, Tools / Products, Windows, hardware, software apple, beta, bill, longhorn, microsoft, operating system, pdc, pre-release, redmond, seven, sp2, steve, vista, vista sp2, win7, Windows, windows 7, winmain