RISC OS Select is the latest version of the RISC OS operating system originally developed by Acorn Computers. Since Acorn's demise in 1998, RISCOS Ltd have taken over development of the desktop version of RISC OS. They released RISC OS 4.0 in August 1999. RISC OS Select has many features including: DHCP support, SVG graphic support, Improved printing, Multiuser logons, over 100 other improvements. RISC OS Select will run on Acorn A7000 and RISCPC computers, as well as machines from RISCStation and Microdigital.

"Lynuxworks, which makes Linux software for embedded devices, has landed a deal with prominent chip designer ARM to bundle the two companies' products into a single embedded Linux development platform. The deal is a boost for Lynuxworks, which will gain visibility as a partner of one of the biggest names in embedded processors." Read the rest of the story at ZDNews.UK.

CoyoteGulch.com has published an interesting article, benchmarking GCC 3.04 and ICC 6 (the article will be updated again after GCC 3.1's release). In the tests, ICC seems to pull ahead in most tests. When it's behind, it's never very far behind. The opposite is not true, and there are benchmarks where ICC is very far ahead, generating code that can be up to 5 times better than gcc's. Especially interesting, the "Stepanov" benchmark, which shows that ICC is capable of understanding the most complex c++ constructs, whereas GCC gets confused by them and ends up generating much slower code. This is bothersome, because it means that developers who want to get the most speed out of their gcc-compiled system need to write their code pretty much in C, whereas those using ICC can use all the productivity-enhancing features of C++ without speed penalty. As for the "WhetStone" benchmark, shows that gcc still has serious issues dealing with x87 floating-point code. It would also be very interesting to run the very same benchmark on a Pentium4, varying the compiler options, in order to see how both compilers can take advantage of the Pentium4's extra features, and especially SSE-2. Update: Another benchmark can be found here.

"After seeing the results of these tests, we can only conclude that Apple's fastest G4 workstations are certainly not faster than dual 1.533MHz Athlon MP-equipped systems, at least as far as After Effects is concerned. Not one of the objective tests we conducted using After Effects showed Apple's flagship machine to be superior. In fact, in most of the tests, the Mac was left lagging far behind. And, this was when we were using a PC whose chips are now three steps below the fastest Athlons available (now the fastest Athlon XP is the 2100+ running at 1.73GHz), and far slower than benchmarks have shown the latest Intel Xeon chips to be, now shipping at 2.4 GHz." The benchmark is held at DigitalVideoEditing. Our Take: We would like to see the benchmarks with dual Athlon MPs or dual PIIIs at 1 Ghz, so it would be more fair, Mhz-wise. On the other hand, Mhz doesn't matter. Right Steve? And at the end of the day, this was the fastest G4 available. The Dual AthlonMP 1.5 is not the fastest available anymore in the PC world (dual SMT Xeon 2.4 Ghz at the same price as the dual G4 1 Ghz anyone?). BTW, it seems that the Mac users feel left behind these days.

Four screenshots of MacOSX 10.2 (codenamed Jaguar) have been leaked on the web, via SpyMac. In the screens, you can see some new additions to the preference panel, like tools for cameras and another one, dubbed "Screen Effects". In the dock closeup shot, you can see that on the right of each open minimized application a 16x16 icon is displayed, making easy to understand which application is which. Please note that the specific GUI addition was requested around a year ago by a GUI expert in an editorial at his web page! Another interesting addition is the indexing capabilities in the file system and the Finder preferences as shown in the larger screenshot. Update: More screenshots added to the above linked page.

Mark Mitchell is one of the people behind CodeSourcery, but he is mostly known for his major contributions on GCC, the Gnu compiler. These days, Mark is the release manager of GCC and he is working hard trying to get GCC 3.1 out of the door. GCC 3.1 is going to be the first truly stable version of the 3.x source branch and many developers are already looking forward for it. Mark talked to OSNews about the new GCC, the future and the competition.