Nokia to Use Linux-based Operating System to Beat the iPhone

Posted on Wednesday, September 02, 2009
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Nokia, the world's largest mobile phone manufacturer has promised to produce smartphones that will successfully rival the iPhone. This week, it is expected to release a device with Linux operating system inside in favor of its very own Symbian OS.

Following criticism that it had failed to come up with a handset to match the iPhone, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, President & CEO of Nokia, said that it was aiming to be "even more competitive".

"We are competitive in the marketplace right now as we speak, and we will make efforts to be even more competitive going forward."

Apple secured the second largest share of the industry's profits in the second quarter, which goes to show that it has become a force to be reckoned with as a mobile phone maker.

Mr. Kallasvuo was interviewed by Financial Times and based on his statement, I noticed that Nokia will fight back and will even try to invade Apple’s turf by transforming itself from a mobile phone maker into a supplier of handset services, like maps and (you guessed it) music.

I think Nokia's move to a Linux-based OS for its smartphone line is a good one since its Symbian operating system has failed to impress new consumers. Symbian is just mediocre compared to webOS on Palm Pre or Android on HTC Dream.

Will Nokia utilize Android just like the so-called Dell Mini 3i, or is it developing its own Linux-based software? For now, we'll wait and see.

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Ubuntu 9.10 vs. Mac OS X Snow Leopard vs. Windows 7

Filed under Linux, Mac OS, News, System, Windows | Leave a Comment

Over a short period of time, three major operating system releases will take place. From Apple, Mac OS X 10.6 (also known as Snow Leopard) will ship on August 28,2009. From Microsoft, Windows 7 has already been released to manufacturers, with general retail availability set for October of this year. Representing Linux, Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) is also slated for an October 2009 release. So, there are a lot of reasons for us to be excited.

Since I use Mac OS X (dual boot with Xubuntu) on Macbook Pro, Ubuntu on my main workstation, and Windows XP on some of our computers used for our family business, I'm looking forward to these consecutive "big-time" updates. However, I still haven't made up my mind if I'll immediately upgrade to the new versions. But I did a little research and collected some important information so that I could somehow find out early on if the upgrades will be worth it.

For all of you, I'm going to highlight the main features of Ubuntu 9.10, Mac OS X Snow Leopard, and Windows 7. I will also share my quick observation later on.

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Can Ubuntu 9.10 Outperform Mac OS X 10.6?

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"Back on Friday we published Mac OS X 10.6 benchmarks and found it to offer some terrific performance improvements, but at the same time, there were a few notable regressions. Apple engineers have been working hard at pushing technologies like Grand Central Dispatch (GCD), OpenCL, full 64-bit support, and other changes to their OS X stack to bolster its performance capabilities and reduce the overall footprint. Now that we have tested Mac OS X 10.6, we are seeing how its performance compares to that of Ubuntu Linux

. Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" will be out in October and does have some performance improvements as our earlier tests have shown, but Canonical engineers have not been exclusively focusing on performance optimizations with this release. Can the Karmic Koala outperform Snow Leopard? Yes and no."

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Slackware goes 64-bit

Posted on Tuesday, September 01, 2009
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"Touted as focusing on ease of use and stability as top priorities, Slackware is also known as "the oldest surviving Linux distro," predating even the first desktop version of Red Hat Linux. Over the years, it has spawned a number of other distributions, including Minislack and GoblinX. The last major upgrade version 12, arrived in July, 2007.

"The new version jumps on the 64-bit bandwagon with native support for the 64-bit x86_64 architecture. It also adopts the 2.6.29.6 kernel, bringing journaling filesystems, SCSI and ATA RAID volume support, SATA support, Software RAID, LVM (Logical Volume Manager), GRUB, Ext4, and encrypted filesystems support to the distro. The new kernel also supports X DRI (Direct Rendering Interface) for hardware-based 3D graphics acceleration, says the Slackware project."

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Linux in 2013: One Billion Dollars!

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Has the much-anticipated turning point for Linux adoption arrived? Yes, says IDC analyst Al Gillen, who authored a report predicting that global Linux revenues will exceed $1.2 billion by 2013. "The monopoly is failing under its own weight," says blogger Robert Pogson. "If M$ wants to compete on price and features, they cannot continue paying people to use their OS."

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