OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Introduction to NachOS

Guest post by Werner "murphee" Schuster 2004-03-01 OS News 16 Comments

You want to build a thread system? Experiment with an OS with memory protection and virtual memory? You want to do that without a lot of rebooting, Bochs/VMWaremagic and writing drivers? Well, then Nachos (Not Another Completely Heuristic Operating System) is for you. Nachos is an Operating System simulator. Hmm... . If you're a bit like me, you'll be wondering what in the world that is.

Gentoo Linux 2004.0 Released

Submitted by Sven Vermeulen 2004-03-01 Gentoo 75 Comments

Gentoo Linux is proud to announce the release of Gentoo Linux 2004.0 for the x86, AMD64, PowerPC, Sun SPARC, and SGI MIPS architectures.

Microsoft Enlists Developers in Security Push

Eugenia Loli 2004-03-01 Windows 11 Comments

Microsoft is readying updates to its programming tools that will be released in tandem with Windows XP Service Pack 2, a security-oriented release of Windows due later this year. Elsewhere, ActiveWin published a preview of the SP2 for XP.

Mandrake 10 RC Review

Eugenia Loli 2004-03-01 Mandriva, Mandrake, Lycoris 33 Comments

Luis Alves put together a review of Mandrake Linux's 10-RC with a handful of screenshots.

Apple’s Elusive Corporate Configuration

Eugenia Loli 2004-02-29 Apple 59 Comments

"Gunningham's departure dredges up lingering questions. Can Apple ever escape its desktop perch and march into the data centers of America Inc.? And what does Apple have to show for the past two years of efforts to sell powerful servers to businesses?" Alex Salkever is wondering for eCommerceTimes.

XFree86 4.4 Released

Eugenia Loli 2004-02-29 Wayland 99 Comments

The XFree86 Project released XFree86 4.4.0 for seventeen platforms. Release notes here.

NetBSD in 2003 – Annual NetBSD Status Report

Submitted by Jan Schaumann 2004-02-29 NetBSD 19 Comments

On February 7th, The NetBSD Foundation held it's annual meeting, during which the developers discussed, among other things, how NetBSD progressed over the last year and what things are planned for the coming year.

The People Behind KDE; Aaron Seigo

Submitted by Tink Bastian 2004-02-29 KDE 2 Comments

At The People Behind KDE this week and interview with the man who represents what working and contributing to a project like KDE stands for. He's from Cowtown, in The Great White North, Canada's own Aaron Seigo.

MiniMo 0.1 Released

Submitted by Ludovic 2004-02-29 Mozilla, Gecko 27 Comments

Yet another interesting project comes from Mozilla: MiniMo is a mini-Mozilla browser for PDAs and embedded systems. It requires anything between 32MB and 64MB of RAM and it currently runs on ARM CPUs using GTK+ (screenshots). Having just uploaded our latest OSNews web site for mobile devices, we hope that the MiniMo developer team have added a special/unique word in its user agent, so we can add it in the list of browsers that render our mobile version of our site instead of the desktop version.

Editorial: Why Good Ideas Fail

Submitted by Usman Latif 2004-02-29 Editorial 40 Comments

When a good idea fails the loss is not just that idea, the failure scares away potential investors from anything resembling that idea; consequently, innovation suffers and everyone pays the price. The software industry is especially good at killing good ideas, and Usman Latif's article "Why Good Ideas Fail" discusses the reasons behind this terrible record.

JNode 0.1.6 Released

Submitted by Valentin Chira 2004-02-29 Java 7 Comments

JNode just released a new version, 1.6. Some of the new features are listed below:

Preliminary Work on a new KControl for KDE

Submitted by Eike 2004-02-28 KDE 116 Comments

The KDE project started an effort to redesign its Kcontrol panel and here is the outcome so far (in CVS). Update: A developer's article, how to build a KDE plugin structure.

Indigo, Avalon GUI, .NET Coding Articles

Eugenia Loli 2004-02-28 .NET 21 Comments

Some interesting Longhorn and .NET articles for developers appeared on MSDN:

A Brief Look at Solaris 10 build 51 Zones

Submitted by Bruno Saverio Delbono 2004-02-28 Solaris 20 Comments

Here is an article that describes a user's experience with Solaris' new feature called "Zones".

OSNews Mobile Version 2 Now Online

Eugenia Loli 2004-02-28 Internet 25 Comments

The second generation of OSNews' mobile web site is now up and running. The new version has an even simpler design than before which makes it much easier to render on under-featured HTML browsers, usually found on phones, PDAs or other embedded devices. The new design does not display any ads or a sidebar, but goes directly to the "meat" of the information. Read more for info & screenshots.

XBox 2 SDK for Apple G5’s with cutom NT kernel

Submitted by Harj 2004-02-28 Games 41 Comments

The Inquirer reports that Microsoft released the Xbox 2 SDK for the Apple Power Mac G5s, but no one knows as of yet if it runs natively or via VirtualPC or if it is 64bit or not.

Nmap Refuses Usage by SCO

Submitted by h0ba 2004-02-28 SCO 125 Comments

The recent released new version of Nmap (a security scanner) refuses, despite the usage of GPL, any usage by SCO. This is valid for all nmap versions: "we hereby terminate SCO's rights to redistribute any versions of Nmap in any of their products".

Editorial: Desktop Functionality I’d Like to See

Eugenia Loli 2004-02-28 Graphics 21 Comments

"Windowing environments are in their third decade, and they still do little more than open and close. There's no reason windows can't be more sophisticated", Daryl Blakeslee writes on NewsForge.

Creating a CVS Repository using FreeBSD

Submitted by Mindwarp 2004-02-28 General Development 4 Comments

Mindwarp wrote a quick guide which shows step-by-step how to setup a CVS pserver in FreeBSD over at mindwarp.net: "CVS stands for Concurrent Versions System. You can check out the official homepage at cvshome.org. Basically what it comes down to is tons of projects, open source, free software, and commercial use CVS to manage their code. It lets you go back to previous versions."

Microsoft Exec Says Marketing Effort Faltered with Windows XP

Eugenia Loli 2004-02-27 Windows 108 Comments

People who use Microsoft's Windows XP operating system aren't taking advantage of many of the systems best features, a top executive said - and the world's largest software maker has only itself to blame. Jim Allchin, Microsoft's group vice president for software platforms, including Windows, said he thinks customers aren't using gadgets like Windows Messenger and Movie Maker because Microsoft hasn't done a good enough job telling people about them.