Following drivers are included in this release of SkyOS: 3COM 3c509 Networkcard device, AmdPCNet Networkcard device, Chips & Technologies graphic device, device Filesystem, ELF Binary support,...

Apple Computer has invoked the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to prevent its customers from burning DVDs on external drives. At issue in the legal threat is Apple's well-received iDVD application, which permits users to burn DVDs only on internal drives manufactured by Apple. In unmodified form, it does not permit writing to external drives manufactured by third parties. That means Macintosh owners with older computers or laptop computers, or people who opted not to buy the "Superdrive"-equipped Macs, could not use iDVD to save movies.

It is possible to easily enable Quartz Extreme (QE) on G3s or G4s that do not have a QE compatible AGP 2x graphics card. The hack is described here. From some tests that users did, it seems that only the G3/G4 machines with 66 MHz PCI bus saw some acceleration. Machines with 33 Mhz PCI bus, did not. The hack would work only if you have a Radeon or a GeForce2MX+ card, because they share the same driver with their AGP versions (QE only works on Radeons and GeForce2+ -- ATi Rage cards do not work at all with QE, with or without hacks). Also, please note that users who enabled QE on their unsupported PCI machines, had major artifacts on some applications, most notably iTunes' visual playback (quite possibly because the PCI bus is not fast enough for what is required).

SciTech Software, Inc. today announced the intention to release the bulk of its proprietary device driver development tools under a new dual license structure. SciTech’s commercially available graphics driver pack, SciTech SNAP Graphics, currently supports nearly 180 graphics chip sets on multiple OS’es with full 2D acceleration. Access to all existing SciTech SNAP drivers will remain available under SciTech’s commercial license and will not be Open Sourced due to existing NDA’s with chip vendors.

Netscape browsers have continued to lose market share at a steady clip, falling to a new low of 3.4 percent as of this week, according to new figures. A year ago, Netscape's market share stood at 13 percent, but fell steeply to 7 percent by March, as IE 6 gained popularity. IE has now reached 96 percent market penetration, according to StatMarket, up from 87 percent a year ago. Mozilla gained some market share when it finally reached a 1.0 release earlier this year, but browsers such as Mozilla and Opera still only accounted for less than 1 percent of the market, StatMarket said.

DesktopLinux contributing editor Malcolm Dean examines the reemergence of Caldera under new leadership and brand name -- The SCO Group. Unveiled at the GeoForum in Las Vegas, the company's new focus positions it to make an impact on the business desktop in a big way.

An Illinois company that has shipped Linux preloaded on PCs since 1998 now offers a choice of four Linux distributions on Apple machines, the company has announced. QliTech Linux Computers will ship Apple notebook and desktop systems with SuSE PPC, Mandrake PPC, Debian PPC, or Gentoo PPC configured to dual boot with OSX, says QliTech's Ray Sanders. Recently, Terra Soft Solutions, Inc. announced the availability of Apple computers with Yellow Dog Linux pre-installed as well.

Microsoft on Tuesday disclosed technical information vital to allowing third-party developers to create software that works well with Windows. Completion of the disclosure clears the way for the release of Windows XP Service Pack 1, the first major update to the operating system Microsoft launched in October. Among other things, Service Pack 1 contains a new control for setting default middleware programs, such as Web browsers and instant messaging software.

"Using Mac OS X is like touring a land of fabulous ancient treasures - with a tourist authority that's still busy renovating them, and that hasn't quite completed the infrastructure. The sights can be breathtaking, but the roads are potholed and incomplete, and sometimes you have to get out and push." Read the review at TheRegister. More than 100,000 copies of OS X 10.2 are sold worldwide during its first weekend, and 50,000 people visited company stores Friday night, ZDNews reports.

Since being developed as a pet project by Linus Torvalds in the early nineties, the Linux operating system has been gaining enormous popularity among IT professionals and others alike everywhere. But the one place that Linux has failed to develop is that of being the average users desktop operating system. Read the rest of the review.

The new version of Mozilla, 1.1, is released for many operating systems. Release notes here. Opinion: Check the screenshot, showing Mozilla's slow UI (XUL) performance on a dual Celeron @ 533. Before you comment on it, please read the already published comments, because we explain more over there. Update: I added a comment with the image attachment on Mozilla's BugZilla. There was already a bug entry for this, which suggests more people having problems with this behavior. See? I am not mad... Update2: And here is another bug submitted by someone else, with the same problem, and his shot. His bug is marked as "Verified". But it is still not fixed.

Concern is growing in the Linux community that the forthcoming UnitedLinux distribution will not be able to meet the enterprise server challenge of Red Hat Inc. in the United States. Red Hat's dominance is worrisome to some industry players, who say the Raleigh, N.C., company needs effective competition to prevent it from becoming a Microsoft among Linux vendors and to ensure the operating system continues to develop in an open way. The article is at eWeek. Update: NewsForge has an editorial too.

"Let's take an in depth look at the basic usability of these 2 OSes. Is it no longer true Macs are easier than PCs? Has Windows XP finally caught up with (and maybe even surpassed) Mac OS X? To get a little more clarity on this topic, I decided to look at the 2 OSes—Mac OS X 10.2 and Windows XP— in depth, and cover usability issues such as networking, windows and keyboard controls, voice feedback and voice recognition, the Dock vs. the Taskbar, Find/Search, Help, and much more." OSX scores 23 points against XP which scores only... 10. Read the article at WebMaster Mac.

The new release of Syllable includes many updates on the code, drivers, API and widgets. The OS is now more "desktop-oriented". A copy of the announcement can be found here.