The vast majority of operating system reviews are the result of a user spending a few days or weeks using a particular operating system and writing about their observations. This review is the result of my continued use of Solaris 10 (previously Solaris Express) from August 2003 to February 2005.

Take a look at this pie chart and keep in mind that these results (in german) are from 3rd quarter of 2004 only and are global results.

Linux kernel 2.6.11 has been released. Highlights include Infiniband support, four level page tables, in-node extended attributes for better samba performance, new pipe implementation , reduced latency and big kernel semaphore among several other minor changes.

Quality assurance isn’t just testing, or analysis, or wishful thinking. Although it can be boring, difficult, and tedious, QA is nonetheless essential. Ensuring that a system will work when delivered requires much planning and discipline. Convincing others that the system will function properly requires even more careful and thoughtful effort. QA is performed through all stages of the project, not just slapped on at the end. It is a way of life.

W. McDonald Buck, retired CTO of World Bank, finishes his four part essay on the subject of why Corporate Desktop Linux is an unrealistic goal in the short term for Linux advocates. "The hard truth is that the benefits that are most important to individual technical people are simply not important to those lacking technical skills. When you couple this with the relatively meager hard dollar cost savings, the prospect of some extra costs of migration, and the large risks of such a move, is it any wonder few corporate customers are making the transition?"

The WashingtonPost has an interesting article on the matter, but registration required.

IBM published the OS/2 strategy for 2005 and has also relased the Fixpack 5 (XR_C005) for OS/2 Warp Server for e-business 4.52 (a.k.a Convenience Pack 2).

With the beginning of 1996, Apple realized that with the next generation PC's running Windows NT to be released within the decade, they would need a new, modern operating system to run on their machines. Most in the industry were certain that Apple would choose Be, whose operating system, BeOS, already ran on Apple's newest computers. Read the (updated) article here.

Recently Apple added the ability to scroll with your trackpad on the new series of Powerbooks. However, most Mac OS X users were already able to do just that and much more by using the SideTrack utility which works on most iBook and Powerbook models.

A program can't ever really die, but it can get old. Very old. This is a paradox millions of computer users are living with. Almost four years after the release of Windows XP and Mac OS X, they boot their machines into more senior versions of Windows or the Mac OS.

Red Hat engineers announced today that the very popular ClearLooks theme engine will probably be the default theme for the Gnome 2.12. The theme was developed by Richard Stellingwerff helped out by Daniel "Spark" Borgmann, others, and with some help from myself on the usability side. This was a much needed refresh of the Gnome default desktop (old theme, new theme screenshots). Hopefully, a more usable variant of the Winter-Bold window manager theme (get matching colors, on-mouse-overs, don't get so greyed out when unfocused, buttons better vertically centered etc) will make it in as the companion of ClearLooks on Gnome instead of the currently bundled (and not as sexy) Industrial. Update: Elsewhere, GTK+ 2.6.3 was released, with bug fixes mainly for the Win32 platform.

GI3D, the native SkyOS 2D/3D Hardware acceleration interface, has allowed for an much requested feature in SkyOS: screensavers. The entire screensaver framework is plugin-based, and even supports OpenGL screensavers. Additionally, GI3D brings to SkyOS translucent windows and full alpha blending.

"So what should the OS vendors be doing? I can think of five things that operating system developers should look at having part of the OS." Read Brad Wardell's editorial here.

"My work involves administering Unix Web servers and a mix of office desktops, along with developing the applications we run on them. I use Mac OS X to do it because it is something like a superset of those other popular OS choices. While much of the software I deploy is free, both as in speech and as in beer, I'm willing to open my wallet for OS X." Read the article at NewsForge.