Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 17th Sep 2012 16:56 UTC, submitted by Andy McLaughlin
"Visopsys (VISual OPerating SYStem) is an alternative operating system for PC-compatible computers, developed almost exclusively by one person, Andy McLaughlin, since its inception in 1997. Andy is a 30-something programmer from Canada, who, via Boston and San Jose ended up in London, UK, where he spends much of his spare time developing Visopsys. We had the great fortune to catch up with Andy via email and ask him questions about Visopsys, why he started the project in the first place, and where is it going in the future."
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Linked by David Adams on 05/16/13 4:23 UTC
OSNews is a sponsor of this year's O'Reilly OSCON in Portland, Oregon, USA. A lucky OSNews reader will win a free three-day pass, including two tutorials days. To win the pass, post a comment on this story saying something about Open Source Software or OSCON. We'll pick a winner at random next week. If you don't have an OSNews account, you may email us your entry. Part of the conference is the 9th annual Open Source Awards, and today the 16th is the deadline for nominations. If you'd like to nominate an outstanding open source contributor, do it here. Read on for more information about OSCON. Update: The 20% discount code for OSNews readers is "OSN."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/11/13 21:41 UTC
"Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios, and the gap is worsening." That's one way to start an insider explanation of why Windows' performance isn't up to snuff. Written by someone who actually contributes code to the Windows NT kernel, the comment on Hacker News, later deleted but reposted with permission on Marc Bevand's blog, paints a very dreary picture of the state of Windows development. The root issue? Think of how Linux is developed, and you'll know the answer.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/08/13 14:22 UTC
This is one of those news items that's fun to write, fun to read, fun to comment on, and where no one will be able to say anything unkind. It's all just one big ball of awesome fluffiness. TuneTracker, the BeOS radio automation software, has just released something very special: TuneTracker System 5, the first version designed entirely and specifically for Haiku. In fact, it actually includes Haiku in the software package. Better yet, TuneTracker also unveiled several system-in-a-box products - which have Haiku and TuneTracker pre-installed.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/02/13 15:28 UTC
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/29/13 21:06 UTC
Oh multitasking. That staple of computing that got thrown out the window with many modern smartphones. We got some rudimentary thing in its place - but even as multitasking on phone and tablets improves, its user-visible side remains cumbersome. Windows 8 has a neat implementation, and now it's time Android follows in it footsteps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/24/13 22:24 UTC
They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/18/13 11:21 UTC
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/16/13 9:29 UTC
The day has finally come: Google has started shipping Google Glass to the lucky few early adopters. Now that it's shipping, Google has also unveiled a lot more about the API and the specifications of the device itself. While the company had already given out substantial details at earlier occasions, there are still a few surprises here.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/15/13 22:44 UTC
Almost exactly three years ago, I wrote about why OSNews was no longer OSNews: the alternative operating system scene had died, and OSNews, too, had to go with the times and move towards reporting on a new wave of operating systems - mobile, and all the repercussions that the explosion of smartphones and tablets have caused. Still, I was wondering something today: why aren't we seeing alternative operating systems on mobile?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/14/13 18:22 UTC, submitted by MOS6510
You can say what you will about Windows Phone and Windows 8's Metro interface (I refuse to drop that name) - it's inefficient, unpopular, cumbersome, beautiful, ugly, organised, clean, limiting - but there's one thing we can all agree on: it's unique and distinctive. CNet has published a profile of Microsoft's Albert Shum, the man behind Metro, and he highlights what I think is at the very core of Microsoft's problems in mobile right now.More Features »
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Brendan,
We're talking over one another. I keep hearing that this wouldn't become widespread and manufacturers wouldn't get involved, etc, but we've established this already and I've been saying it explicitly from the start. Without cooperation from the top corporations, this would not succeed. It would most likely have the same fate as UDI.
I'm just talking about how it should be.
"A driver is a kind of abstraction layer between whatever interface the OS wants and whatever interface the hardware provides. What you're talking about is having drivers that provide an unwanted interface, with a 'driver driver' between the unwanted interface and the OS itself."
I think if you talked to most OS developers you'd find that drivers are by far the most difficult problem to address (Andy McLaughlin said the same thing in the interview). This would be something they want very much. It'd be extremely desirable to support all hardware by implementing one interface.
Linux users might view it as a non-issue because linux is actually big enough to have manufacturers and tons of volunteers working on it's drivers. But even then we'd save a lot of work and reduce tons of kernel bloat by using standardised drivers, which in some cases could even be of better quality and performance than today's drivers.
One the one hand, I can understand your point of what if the interface is not the one you want? But on the other hand it's not a new problem being caused by this model. The USB webcam interface may not be the one we want, but it's the one we get. The video hardware interface might not be the one we want, but it's the one we get. The sound card hardware interface might not be the one we want, but it's the one we get. In all these instances an OS has to deal with not one, but hundreds or thousands of subtly different hardware interfaces doing the exact same thing. So adding an interface for standardised drivers really shouldn't be a big deal. Of course I'd want real experts to work together at creating good interfaces from the get go.
"Trying to get different developers to agree on a common device driver standard will be hard. Trying to get different developers to agree on a common programming language is going be even harder."
Yep, standards are always hard.
"Not just asynchronous, but 'asynchronous with IO priorities'"
Good idea. I don't want us to reinvent the wheel here, but basically we'd want to be able to expose everything the drives are capable of. I think most operating systems use a SCSI interface internally even for representing drives that aren't on a SCSI bus.
"Not just different drivers running at the same time, but the same driver being able to complete multiple requests at the same time (e.g. if there's some sort of sector cache or something) and accepting new requests while existing requests are being performed."
That's usually implied by asynchronous designs, but let's say it explicitly.