OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

JourneyOS Hybrid Exokernel Operating System

Submitted by alucard 2003-09-01 OS News 9 Comments

There is a group trying to develop an exokernel operating system for real world use, and it is supposed to be a hybrid with microkernels. There's not a lot at their SourceForge site yet, except for a cute slogan, but there's a comprehensive overview of the project's goals.

Time for Linux Users to Leave the Moral High Ground?

Submitted by Sean 2003-09-01 Linux 115 Comments

The BBC has a great editorial on the current situation with SCO and Linux. In it, the author suggests that Linux isn't immune from copyright violations simply because free software is morally superior; that without IP laws there would be nothing stopping anyone from ripping Linux off and therefore its users should show it more respect, and that there is no evidence that SCO's claims are invalid. He also notes that there is no evidence that their claims are valid either.

IBM Squashes Worms

Submitted by ajam 2003-09-01 Bugs & Viruses 20 Comments

IBM researchers in Zurich, Switzerland, have developed novel worm-squashing software the company says it wants to turn into a product to help guard against computer-network attacks such as those that slowed Internet traffic earlier this month . . . The system uses a unique approach to detecting malicious software by looking at traffic flowing to Internet addresses that aren't assigned to specific computers, trying to isolate computers on a network that attempt to infect others

Japan, China, Korea May Develop Windows Replacement

Submitted by ajam 2003-08-31 OS News 60 Comments

Citing the recent havoc caused by worms and security holes, three Asian powers are considering jointly developing an alternative to the Microsoft platform, probably using an open source OS as the foundation. From the Reuters story: The plan is to be proposed by Japanese Trade Minister Takeo Hiranuma at a meeting of economic ministers from the three nations in Phnom Penh on Wednesday, it said, adding that agreement was seen as likely.

Amiga.org Interviews Ben Hermans: Status of OS4

Submitted by Kees Witteveen 2003-08-31 Amiga & AROS 17 Comments

Amiga.org has interviewed Ben Hermans of Hyperion Entertainment. Hyperion is responsible for the upcoming release of the new Amiga Operating system, AmigaOS4.Update: The 18th Q&A session with Amiga CTO Fleecy Moss is now available at the AmigaWorld.net portal.

TechTV May Be Sold

Submitted by Anonymous 2003-08-30 Multimedia, AV 52 Comments

According to Leo Laporte of TechTV, Paul Allen (co-founder of Microsoft) is considering selling his technology television channel which he bought it from Ziff-Davis in 2000. Two candidates are Viacom or Sony. Some people who think this is a bad idea have set up a petition at Petition Online.com.

MIcrosoft: Linux = Threat Pictographs

Submitted by Aquiles Cohen 2003-08-30 Humor 63 Comments

On Microsoft's Protect Your PC page, there are some graphical representations of firewalls and virus protection, and the icon that they're using to represent external threats is a familiar-looking curly-cue that Debian GNU/Linux fans might recognize. Coincidence?

Get An MIT Education For Free

David Adams 2003-08-30 In the News 23 Comments

Massachusetts Institute of Technology has made the bold step of offering most of its course information available, at no charge, on the internet for free. Anyone who wants to can now have access to an education (if not a degree) from one of the top schools in the world. The project is called OpenCourseWare and there are more details in a Wired article and at the OpenCourseWare web site.

Lindows: A Real Linux Desktop Alternative to Windows

Guest post by Robert Trembath 2003-08-30 Linspire 84 Comments

As a system administrator, I have used Windows on the desktop since 2.0 and used to run Windows XP at home for my family. I use Linux and Windows servers at work and prefer (Red Hat) Linux for its security, stability and usefulness in a company with a diminishing IT budget. More than a year ago I started experimenting with Linux as a desktop solution and after installing and using more than 7 different distros along with many various versions of those distros, I found a distro that is doing everything its suppose to do, right out of the box. I'm talking about the pleasantly suprising Lindows 4.0.

My Wormy Weekend

David Adams 2003-08-30 Bugs & Viruses 41 Comments

I checked my email this morning. The tally: 80 spams, 65 emails asking me to "See the attached file for details," and 6 legitimate emails. This worm thing is getting ridiculous. Has anyone else noticed a big spike today?

Behind the Scenes: Microsoft’s Server Dominance

Eugenia Loli 2003-08-30 Rumors 25 Comments

Once Linux overtakes Unix, as Aberdeen analyst Bill Claybrook predicts, Linux and Windows "will be duking it out for everything." There will be "unbelievable competition between Windows and Linux" in areas like back-end database servers, he says.

OpenBSD: improper kernel bounds check; OS Fingerprinting in Firewall

Eugenia Loli 2003-08-30 OpenBSD 7 Comments

OpenBSD's Todd Miller reports that an improper bounds check in the semget(2) system call can allow a local user to cause a kernel panic. No privilege escalation is possible, the attack simply runs the kernel out of memory. The bug was introduced in OpenBSD 3.3, previous versions of OpenBSD are unaffected. Earlier, Mike Frantzen has committed "Passive operating system fingerprinting" to PF which exposes the source host's OS to the filter language.

PostgreSQL, Inc Releases Replication Product under BSD License

Submitted by Alexandr Kovalenko 2003-08-30 Databases 6 Comments

In keeping with their policy of releasing all commercial products as BSD licensed open source within two years of development, PostgreSQL, Inc. has released a robust, scalable replication solution for PostgreSQL under the BSD license. The article quotes an statement from the company which says:

Gentoo Goes BSD

Eugenia Loli 2003-08-30 Gentoo 18 Comments

"I would really like to be able to play with OpenBSD's PF, or FreeBSD's jail, but I'm rather fond of Gentoo and portage. Right now anybody wanting to play with portage on a BSD has a lot of work to do before getting started, since we don't have stage-1 tarballs. I still don't have a stage-1, but this text and attendent files comprises a small start along the road to generating one." Read the instructions here.

HowTo Upgrade To The 2.6 Kernel

Submitted by Jeremy Andrews 2003-08-30 Linux 8 Comments

KernelTrap has a new story showing how to upgrade your GNU/Linux OS from the 2.4 stable kernel to the latest 2.6.0-test4 development kernel. Included among the the eight detailed steps are a number of screen shots.

SkyOS Goes OpenGL for its Display Driver

Eugenia Loli 2003-08-29 SkyOS 47 Comments

SkyOS, the popular hobby OS, now supports OpenGL for its normal 2D operations and also freeform windows are supported. SkyGI windows can have a per pixel window shape now.

Panther 7B49, 10.2.7, Xcode, Server Seeded

Eugenia Loli 2003-08-29 macOS 10 Comments

Throughout the week, Apple has made number of software seeds to developers and testers. On Monday, Apple seeded build 6R50 of Mac OS X 10.2.7; on Tuesday, build 7B49 of Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther" as well as Xcode; on Wednesday, build 6R50 of Mac OS X Server 10.2.7.

No Plans to Sue Linux Companies, says SCO

Submitted by Alexandr Kovalenko 2003-08-29 SCO 48 Comments

The SCO Group said today it had never planned to sue any Linux companies, had no concrete plans to sue anyone and also no current plans to take a commercial Linux customer to court. The company was responding to questions routed through its PR people in Sydney. Full story at TheAge.

Tussle at the Teller Machine

Submitted by Zaphrod 2003-08-29 OS/2 64 Comments

IBM is pushing Linux as the upgrade path for current users of IBM's venerable OS/2, but most customers of OS/2 computing, especially branch banking, are looking towards a Windows migration.

Java2 SDK, v1.4.2_01 for Windows, Linux, and Solaris, Released

Submitted by Deniz Kaan Çopur 2003-08-29 Java 15 Comments

This is mainly a bugfix release, but contains a very important new piece: Java Update feature is installed when the J2RE is installed, and it can automatically update your computer with the latest J2RE release. It also contains new java logo. Read the release notes and download .