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New Oracle Solaris CBE release released
Oracle's Solaris 11 basically comes in two different flavours: the SRU (Support Repository Update) releases for commercial Oracle customers, and the CBE (Common Build Environment) releases, available to everyone. We've covered the last few SRU releases, and now it's time for a new CBE release.
We first introduced the Oracle Solaris CBE in March 2022 and
https://www.osnews.com/story/144549/new-oracle-solaris-cbe-release-released/
The great license-washing has begun
In the world of open source, relicensing is notoriously difficult. It usually requires the unanimous consent of every person who has ever contributed a line of code, a feat nearly impossible for legacy projects. chardet, a Python character encoding detector used by requests and many others, has sat in that tension for years: as a port of Mozilla’s C++ code it was bou
https://www.osnews.com/story/144547/the-great-license-washing-has-begun/
Microsoft really doesn’t want you to use the name “Microslop”
Microsoft is pushing "AI" hard in Windows, Office, and in their other products, and it's earned them a cute new nickname: Microslop. It turns out the company really doesn't like it when you use this nickname, however, and its official Copilot Discord server - yes, there is an official one - has gone into a co
https://www.osnews.com/story/144518/microsoft-really-doesnt-want-you-to-use-the-name-microslop/
US lawmakers push for age verification at the operating system level
Encryption backdoors, social media bans for children, creepy age verification for applications - what will they think of next? The latest brilliant idea by US lawmakers sure is a hell of a doozy: legally mandated age verification in every single operating system.
Colorado's SB26-051, introduced
Jails for NetBSD
FreeBSD has its jails technology, and it seems NetBSD might be getting something similar soon.
Jails for NetBSD aims to bring lightweight, kernel-enforced isolation to NetBSD.
[...]
The system is intended to remain fully NetBSD-native. Isolation and policy enforcement are integrated into the kernel’s security framework rather than implemented in a separate runtime layer.
It does not aim to
80386 barrel shifter
I’m currently building an 80386-compatible core in SystemVerilog, driven by the original Intel microcode extracted from real 386 silicon. Real mode is now operational in simulation, with more than 10,000 single-instruction test cases passing successfully, and work on protected-mode features is in progress. In the course of this work, corners of the 386 microcode and silicon have been examined in
The official unplanned emergency OSNews fundraiser!
It's time for an OSNews fundrasier! This time, it's unplanned due to a financial emergency after our car unexpectedly had to be scrapped (you can find more details below). If you want to support one of the few independent technology news websites left, this is your chance. OSNews is entirely supported by you, our readers, so go to our
https://www.osnews.com/story/144352/the-official-unplanned-emergency-osnews-fundraiser/
Rust in the NetBSD kernel seems unlikely
Rust is everywhere, and it's no surprise it's also made its way into the lowest levels of certain operating systems and kernels, so it shouldn't be surprising that various operating system developers have to field questions and inquiries about Rust. NetBSD developer Benny Siegert wrote a blog post about this very subject, and in it, details why it's unlike
https://www.osnews.com/story/144326/rust-in-the-netbsd-kernel-seems-unlikely/
You can apparently use Windows 7’s compositor in GNOME, and vice versa – or something
There's cursed computing, and then there's cursed computing. It turns out that you can render GNOME's windows with the compositor from Windows 7, dwm.exe. Yes.
tl;dr of how this clusterfuck works: this is effectively just x11 forwarding an x server from windows to
ChaosBSD: a FreeBSD fork to serve as a driver testing ground
ChaosBSD is a fork of FreeBSD. It exists because upstream cannot, and should not, accept broken drivers, half-working hardware, vendor trash, or speculative hacks.
We can.
↫ ChaosBSD GitHub page
This is an excellent approach to testing drivers that simply aren't even remotely ready to be included in FreeBSD-pro
https://www.osnews.com/story/144210/chaosbsd-a-freebsd-fork-to-serve-as-a-driver-testing-ground/
Google takes next big leap in killing AOSP, significantly scales back AOSP contributions
About half a year ago, I wrote an article about persistent rumours I'd heard from Android ROM projects that Google was intending to discontinue the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). AOSP has been gutted by Google over the years, with the company moving more an
Apple’s terrible UI design is not the fault of just one fall guy
There's been endless talk online about just how bad Apple's graphical user interface design has become over the years, culminating in the introduction of Liquid Glass across all of the company's operating systems this year. Despite all the gnawing of teeth and scathing think pieces before the final rollout, i
https://www.osnews.com/story/144083/apples-terrible-ui-design-is-not-the-fault-of-just-one-fall-guy/
Wayback 0.3 released
Wayback, the tool that will allow you to run a legacy X11 desktop environment on top of Wayland, released a new version just before the Christmas. Wayback 0.3 overhauls its custom command line option parser to allow for more X.org options to be supported, and its manual pages have been cleaned up. Other fixes merely include fixing some small typos and similar small changes. Wayback is now also
QuillOS: Alpine-based Linux distribution optimised for Kobo e-readers
Any computing device will inevitably get a custom operating system - whether based on an existing operating system or something entirely custom - and of course, Kobo e-readers are no exception. QuillOS is an Alpine Linux-based distribution specifically developed for the unique challenges of e-readers
Using “AI” to manage your Fedora system seems like a really bad idea
IBM owns Red Hat which in turn runs Fedora, the popular desktop Linux distribution. Sadly, shit rolls downhill, so we're starting to see some worrying signs that Fedora is going to be used a means to push "AI". Case in point, this article in the Fedora Magazine:
Generative AI systems are cha
OSNews needs your donations to survive
OSNews is funded entirely by you, our readers. There are no ads on OSNews, we are not part of a massive corporate publishing conglomerate like virtually every other technology news website, there are no wealthy (corporate) benefactors - it's just whatever funds you, our readers, send our way. As such, I sometimes need to remind everyone about this, and Decembe
https://www.osnews.com/story/143977/osnews-needs-your-donations-to-survive/
FreeBSD 15.0 released with pkgbase
The FreeBSD team has released FreeBSD 15.0, and with it come several major changes, one of which you will surely want to know more about if you're a FreeBSD user. Since this change will eventually drastically change the way you use FreeBSD, we should get right into it.
Up until now, a full, system-wide update for FreeBSD - as in, updating both the base operating s
https://www.osnews.com/story/143942/freebsd-15-0-released-with-pkgbase/
The why of LisaGUI
LisaGUI is an amazing project that recreates the entire user interface of the Apple Lisa in the browser, using nothing but CSS, a bit of HTML, and SVG files, and it's an absolute joy to use and experience. Its creator, Andrew Yaros, has published a blog post diving into the why and how of LisaGUI.
I had been trying to think of a good project to add to my programming portfolio, which was
WINE gaming in FreeBSD Jails with Bastille
FreeBSD offers a whole bunch of technologies and tools to make gaming on the platform a lot more capable than you'd think, and this article by Pertho dives into the details. Running all your games inside a FreeBSD Jail with Wine installed into it is pretty neat.
Initially, I thought this was going to be a pretty difficult and require a lot of tria
https://www.osnews.com/story/143726/wine-gaming-in-freebsd-jails-with-bastille/
Running FreeBSD using Windows Subsystem for Linux
What if you are forced to use Windows, but want to use a real operating system instead? You could use WSL2 to use Linux inside Windows, but what if FreeBSD is more your thing? It turns out someone is working on making FreeBSD usable using WSL2.
This repository hosts work-in-progress efforts to run FreeBSD inside Windows Subsystem for
https://www.osnews.com/story/143517/running-freebsd-using-windows-subsystem-for-linux/