GNewSense, the Present and the Future (IT Management)

[Posted June 16, 2008 by ris]

Bruce Byfield takes a look at GNewSense. "At first GNewSense seems virtually identical to Hardy Heron, the latest Ubuntu version. Both use GNOME 2.22, and include such packages as OpenOffice.org 2.4 and GIMP 2.4.5. The branded wallpaper is different, but the muddy brown of Ubuntu's default theme is even visible on the title bar of GNewSense windows. Dig deeper, though, and you'll start to see differences. If you are on a laptop, your wireless card has a strong chance of not working. Your video card probably does only 2-D acceleration, and the desktop has no Restricted Drivers Manager to help you add proprietary 3-D ones. Instead of Firefox, you have Epiphany, another Mozilla-based browser, not because Firefox is proprietary, but because the Mozilla Corporation is strict about enforcing the trademark on its products. At the kernel level, you'll find some 119 firmware files gone, too."