http://www.osnews.com/ Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2012, David Adams OSNews version 4 donotreply@osnews.com (Adam Scheinberg) donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Thu, 24 May 2012 16:23:07 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com/ 120 http://www.osnews.com/story/25923/London_to_test_smart_city_operating_system/ http://www.osnews.com/story/25923/London_to_test_smart_city_operating_system/ "An operating system designed to power the smart cities of the future will be put through its paces in London. Living Plan IT has developed its Urban OS to provide a platform to connect services and citizens. With partners including Hitachi, Phillips and Greenwich council, it aims to use the Greenwich peninsula as a testbed for new technologies running on the system. The OS aims to connect key services such as water, transport, and energy." UrbanOS goes way over my head - it'd be great if someone could summarise how it works and what its key aspects are. Tue, 08 May 2012 23:42:24 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) OSNews, Generic OSes 14 http://www.osnews.com/topics/1 News M.Onty http://www.osnews.com/story/25856/The_Lua_Operating_System_Project/ http://www.osnews.com/story/25856/The_Lua_Operating_System_Project/ "Lua OS is - or aspires to become - two things: 1) a first-class modern Linux distribution for the desktop that you can use every day for everything you want to do with your computer - and something that is always offering enjoyment. 2) a next-generation, orthogonally persistent operating system for portable, manageable and secure scripting code. The Lua OS project is spearheaded by Stefan Reich who deserted from Google Inc. in 2008 in order to pursue much greater visions." Sat, 21 Apr 2012 18:22:05 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) OSNews, Generic OSes 16 http://www.osnews.com/topics/1 News http://www.osnews.com/story/25777/Punix_Unix-like_operating_system_for_the_TI-92_graphing_calculator/ http://www.osnews.com/story/25777/Punix_Unix-like_operating_system_for_the_TI-92_graphing_calculator/ "Punix is a Unix-like operating system for the Motorola M68000-based TI graphing calculators, starting with the TI-92+. It is currently under development and is not ready for widespread use yet. So far the kernel is being written, and user-space utilities and applications will follow." ...amazing. Sat, 07 Apr 2012 23:37:04 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) OSNews, Generic OSes 11 http://www.osnews.com/topics/1 News http://www.osnews.com/story/25760/Is_your_new_HDTV_watching_you_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/25760/Is_your_new_HDTV_watching_you_/ HD Guru writes that new HDTVs now have all the hardware (webcams, audio mics, Internet connectivity) and software (facial and speech recognition, etc) to make them ideal for data collection on those watching. Samsung, the article's focus, does not disclose what OS its new HDTVs use, making it hard to judge whether they are secure from hacking. A follow-up article prints Samsung's privacy statement along with evaluation by Gary Merson of HD Guru. Fri, 30 Mar 2012 22:21:53 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Howard Fosdick) OSNews, Generic OSes 27 http://www.osnews.com/topics/1 News http://www.osnews.com/story/25668/MINIX_3_2_0_Released_--_Now_With_More_NetBSD_Than_Ever/ http://www.osnews.com/story/25668/MINIX_3_2_0_Released_--_Now_With_More_NetBSD_Than_Ever/ MINIX 3.2.0 stable is released. Major features include: Asynchronous, multithreaded virtual file system (VFS) server, Better reliability, Better virtualization support, and much more. Thu, 01 Mar 2012 22:39:55 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (David Adams) OSNews, Generic OSes 49 http://www.osnews.com/topics/1 News Andy Kosela http://www.osnews.com/story/25664/Android-x86_4_0_RC1_Released_Based_On_Ice_Cream_Sandwich_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/25664/Android-x86_4_0_RC1_Released_Based_On_Ice_Cream_Sandwich_/ The Android x86 team has released Android x86 4.0 RC1, based on Android 4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and features support for multi-touch, Wifi, audio, bluetooth, G-sensor and camera, OpenGL hardware acceleration for AMD Radeon and Intel chipsets, Kernel 3.0.8 with KMS enabled and more. Android-x86 is a project that provides Android support for x86, making it easy to install it on netbooks or laptops. You can use it like any other Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich device: install applications from the Android Market, add widgets and so on. Thu, 01 Mar 2012 22:29:36 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (David Adams) OSNews, Generic OSes 13 http://www.osnews.com/topics/1 News Anonymous http://www.osnews.com/story/25656/Genode_12_02_released_now_with_open_development_process/ http://www.osnews.com/story/25656/Genode_12_02_released_now_with_open_development_process/ The just released version 12.02 of the Genode OS Framework takes the first steps to carry out the plan to turn the framework into a general-purpose OS for the daily use by its developers until the end of the year. It features a new ACPI driver, the first bits of a device-driver manager, support for using the fork syscall in GNU programs, and a PDF rendering engine. The most significant point of this release, however, is the way it was conducted. It represents the first version carried out using a completely open development process. Tue, 28 Feb 2012 11:51:50 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (OSNews Staff) OSNews, Generic OSes 8 http://www.osnews.com/topics/1 News nfeske http://www.osnews.com/story/25646/We_re_back_up_and_running_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/25646/We_re_back_up_and_running_/ As you've undoubtedly noticed, OSNews has been down most of the day. We're back up now, running like we always do. We rarely have this kind of extensive downtime, so in the interest of full disclosure, here's what happened. If you're expecting some sexy story - think again. Fri, 24 Feb 2012 19:03:55 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) OSNews, Generic OSes 34 http://www.osnews.com/topics/1 News http://www.osnews.com/story/25524/OSNews_Blacked_Out_for_24_Hours_in_SOPA_Protest/ http://www.osnews.com/story/25524/OSNews_Blacked_Out_for_24_Hours_in_SOPA_Protest/ ...and we're back. Like so many other sites on the web, OSNews joined the worldwide protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT-IP Act, which threaten to end free speech, economic innovation, privacy, and the free exchange of information on the web. I don't wish to waste too many words on our participation, so consider this item as a sort of comment lightening rod to make sure that when the next story is posted, we can focus fully on its topic. Update: DC seems to be getting the message the internet sent today. Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:09:54 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) OSNews, Generic OSes 80 http://www.osnews.com/topics/1 Feature http://www.osnews.com/story/25497/On_the_Virtues_of_Comments/ http://www.osnews.com/story/25497/On_the_Virtues_of_Comments/ The last few weeks there's been a considerable amount of chatter on the web about whether or not a news website, blog, or some hybrid thereof, needs comments. Since we are working on the next version of OSNews, which means I've been thinking about things like this a lot, I figured I'd pen down my thoughts on comments. Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:53:15 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) OSNews, Generic OSes 118 http://www.osnews.com/topics/1 Editorial http://www.osnews.com/story/25485/OSNews_Browser_OS_Stats_2012/ http://www.osnews.com/story/25485/OSNews_Browser_OS_Stats_2012/ Ah yes, why not? The last time we did this, it was March 2011, so it's been almost a year since we offered a little insight into what kind of operating systems and browsers you, dear readers, are using. Nothing particularly earth-shattering going on here. Fri, 06 Jan 2012 17:47:19 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) OSNews, Generic OSes 92 http://www.osnews.com/topics/1 Feature http://www.osnews.com/story/25470/MenuetOS_FreeDOS_See_New_Releases/ http://www.osnews.com/story/25470/MenuetOS_FreeDOS_See_New_Releases/ We're looking at two alternative operating systems hitting updates. MenuetOS, the operating system written entirely in assembly, hit version 0.98.27. Meanwhile, FreeDOS 1.1 has hit final. Mon, 02 Jan 2012 19:12:35 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) OSNews, Generic OSes 16 http://www.osnews.com/topics/1 News Jett http://www.osnews.com/story/25463/Dreckig_OS_and_the_Megalithic_Kernel/ http://www.osnews.com/story/25463/Dreckig_OS_and_the_Megalithic_Kernel/ There are two main kernel architectures for large operating systems; monolithic and micro. While these architectures are well thought out, well implemented (usually), and well understood, they have their faults. Mainly, the loading of modules and executables, management of memory, and interfacing between the kernel and software cause these architectures to be vastly complex. With this complexity comes a loss of speed and increased difficulty for the developer. There are other kernel architectures, such as the exokernel, that are vastly different from traditional architectures, but they still have performance issues caused by userland processes. Wed, 28 Dec 2011 23:41:33 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (OSNews Staff) OSNews, Generic OSes 29 http://www.osnews.com/topics/1 Feature Sean Haas http://www.osnews.com/story/25427/VDIs_Compared_Citrix_XenDesktop_vs_VMware_View/ http://www.osnews.com/story/25427/VDIs_Compared_Citrix_XenDesktop_vs_VMware_View/ InfoWorld's Keith Schultz provides an in-depth comparison of enterprise-grade virtual desktop infrastructures from Citrix and VMware. 'As in my comparison of entry-level VDI solutions, my goal was to see what it would take to deploy a complete VDI solution based on Citrix XenDesktop 5.5 and VMware View 5 for up to 50 users,' Schultz writes. 'When compared to the Kaviza, NComputing, and Pano Logic solutions, XenDesktop and View take much more effort, knowledge, and time to get up and running. But for companies that need to be able to grow and manage a large number of virtual desktop users, XenDesktop and View are the only way to go.' Wed, 14 Dec 2011 21:36:32 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (OSNews Staff) OSNews, Generic OSes 1 http://www.osnews.com/topics/1 News snydeq http://www.osnews.com/story/25386/ToAruOS_a_Hobby_Operating_System/ http://www.osnews.com/story/25386/ToAruOS_a_Hobby_Operating_System/ ToAruOS is a hobby operating system project under development by UIUC computer science undergraduates. It is based on POSIX and runs on x86. While the ultimate goal is a microkernel, it is currently a very monolithic kernel. The documentation includes links to guides on OS development. Thu, 01 Dec 2011 23:45:20 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (OSNews Staff) OSNews, Generic OSes 2 http://www.osnews.com/topics/1 News subterrific