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I agree. A single sentence explaining why you should care about Visopsys would be much appreciated. Though if jpeg support is a new feature I should probably not care about that OS.
I agree. A single sentence explaining why you should care about Visopsys would be much appreciated. Though if jpeg support is a new feature I should probably not care about that OS.
It's a hobby OS. One that's been well reported on in the past (not just here, but internet wide)
So that might be why there's a lack of detail - it was assumed that people who would read this were already following this OS.
Edited 2011-02-20 11:19 UTC
If you want 4-word sentences explaining in simple staccato English what we report on, go read Engadget.
I wouldn't mod you down because there is some truth in that not everyone on the face of the planet will know what Visopsys is and maybe a (very) brief reminder could help those people. However, on the other hand, this is OSNews, you know, news about operating systems, and Visopsys is certainly not a newcomer in the hobby OS area. I'm sure the vast majority of people coming here know what it is, and if they don't, will take action to find out. And to make matters worse, I could take any search engine or go to Wikipedia and by simply typing "visopsys," immediately get all the information about this OS. So really, I see no reason to complain.
You have the resources in front of you without even having to get off your ass or even wasting more than a minute trying to get it, use them. I would say not doing so is pure laziness, but then, you felt the need to post a comment and complain about it, so it sounds like you just want to complain.
2) Why is it in the news? Major new release.
3) Why is it so important as to earn a place on OSNews? Well, it's one of the few quite successful and long-standing homegrown OSes with also a very small development team. For a homegrown OS Visopsys is actually pretty advanced and since this release brings along several really big features it's very deserving of a spot here.
Off-topic: I personally have no interest in it, but I have to say the author has done an amazing job at it and I really do commend him on that, and his resilience on keeping developing it further. Keep up the good work and ignore the trolls.
1) What it is? Desktop operating system.
2) Why is it in the news? Major new release.
The first line has been added due to his comment, I must give credit where it's due
I found the author's comment that writing a pascal compiler over 8 months was trivial compared to writing an OS. I suppose I can believe it but I wasn't sure, since compilers typically involve more math but OS involve more hardware and signal-related details. I suppose a kernel is more painful to debug as well. What really makes a kernel so painful compared to a compiler? I have only ever written a toy compiler with another person, long ago, and that was definitely the most difficult thing I have coded on. On the other hand, my OS class never had us write an OS ... so perhaps that also hints at the truth.
Well first Pascal is an old language which is not too difficult to compile: Haskell is a much more complex language for example.
Then a compiler has one input (your set of source files) and one output (the generated .o files) whereas an OS has lots of input (all the hardware state changes) and lots of output (all the scheduling and hardware commands), so that make an OS much, much more difficult to write..
Everyone's a critic
Absolutely nothing. Distrowatch is just perfect for covering news related to mostly Linux distributions. The intended auditorium might not be aligned with that of OSNews, where I would expect more stuff like this one rather than distro-related news.
Nothing per se, but OSNews is aimed at reporting happenings in the IT field much more widely whereas Distrowatch is only following happenings in the Linux-related field and even there mostly about distro-specific stuff. Distrowatch really only caters to those who are really, really damn passionate about Linux and atleast I have no interest whatsoever to follow such a site. OSNews is much more interesting especially because it covers so diverse topics.
Did you submit anything?
EDIT: Also:
http://www.osnews.com/story/23353/Slackware_13_1_Released
I was about to say - we reported on that alright.
Edited 2011-02-20 11:33 UTC
Comme on dit chez nous : "Cassé" (broken) !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrqdjTAcCYY
Kochise
Perhaps "Same player, play agin !" should have been more dedicated to the situation, yet the famous Brice's breaking sound echoed in my head while reading Thom's comment :p
Et oui, il n'est pas toujours facile de le caser quelque part, le Brice, même dans une simple conversation il arrive à tout... casser :/
Kochise
Thanks to everyone for checking out the release.
It seems the standards of some people for hobby OSes have changed -- apparently now they're expected to be better than Windows? Or they're bad (old) if they've been in development for a while?
It also seems like the general comment quality on this site has taken a beating in the last couple of years. Getting closer to the Internet average, it seems. 
Heh, this is why in my kernel design article I've been talking about the "cool factor"
Technical achievements are not sufficient nowadays, OSs also have to be impressive in some unique way in order to go beyond a "meh" reaction.
I've tried the image myself, and I think that you have reached a nice technical level (although you really should consider embracing double-buffering, especially in the snake game, and I can't understand the controls of minesweeper : how do I put flags ?). But there's simply not enough "wow" around here, you should maybe work on that side of things.
There's multi-buffering throughout the window system. The minesweeper game was written by a contributor; I've maintained it since then, but to be honest I've got higher priorities than perfecting that game.
Which brings me to the point that I disagree about 'bling'. It's funny how peoples' ideas of what an operating system should be, changed when Microsoft started including the kitchen sink in Windows.
Believe it or not, my Visopsys is probably one of the most heavily used hobby operating systems out there, though the users might not know it. http://partitionlogic.org.uk. After the last release, it was being downloaded ~200,000 times per month.
So, I disagree that technical achievements shouldn't be the primary concern of an OS developer; but to each their own, I guess. I guess it depends whether you're trying to impress people on the Internet, or trying to build something good.
Do you speak to me, man ? No seriously, I've nothing against your os, quite the contrary in fact, I'm very eager to follow its evolution, I have a look on it since mostly 0.4... Like you said above, people awaits to run Doom 4 on it (http://www.osnews.com/thread?461307) otherwise it's considered not worthwhile.
Kochise
Keep up the good work Andymc.
I don't follow your project but still find it important to write positive comments when I see small projects and challenges come up. There are always going to be some posters that keep forgetting the old saying: "If you have nothing good to say, don't say anything at all".
This is great news! I've been following the development of Visopsys for years, literally, and am very excited to try this latest version. Unfortunately I am away from home at the moment and will have to wait a few days longer to see the improvements first hand.
Congratulations to the developer, and a big Thumbs Up to OSNews for covering this release news.



