OSNews reader and OS developer Wim Cools writes: "I'm writing a hobby OS (TriangleOS) and I've just released the second version of it. The OS isn't very big yet, but I've managed to begin with a GUI and have applications running inside the windows. Anyway, here's my site. There are a few screenshots of the GUI in an early stage but I haven't been able to create any up to date screenshots yet, with the shell and applications running but there's a floppy image available for everyone to check it out."
Another interesting new OS is Sartoris. Santiago Bazerque is part of the Sartoris team and he writes: "Me and my friends from the Univeridad de Buenos Aires are working on an experimental microkernel. We are now finishing our second release. We are not OS gurus, just a few students (our Computer Organization professor looked at us in a quite funny way when we told her we wanted to build an operative system, but hey, we did it!). The webpage is here, in case you feel like taking a look."
Note: Before everyone starts again "what does that OS do and why do we need it?" please let me clarify that these hobby/small OSes are built with the purpose of gaining knowledge. They were never meant to create userbases or user communities or markets. They are solely of developer-only interest, users can try them, but they won't directly benefit.

Two SuSE 8.0 reviews blossom on the web. The first can be found at TheRegister, while the second one is courtesy of LinuxBeginner. LinuxBeginner also includes four screenshots of the YaST2 configuration tool, which substancially can help newbies configure their SuSE Linux with ease.

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.