OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Hitachi Global Unveils 4GB microdrive

Guest post by Kevin Adams 2003-01-06 Hardware 15 Comments

"Newly formed hard disk drive company Hitachi Global Storage Technologies on Monday unveiled plans for a tiny drive that will be used in consumer electronic devices and said it will turn a profit in 2004. Hitachi Global Storage said it plans to sell next fall a 1-inch microdrive that has 4 gigabytes, or 4 billion bytes, of storage space. That compares to the current top of the line microdrive with 1 gigabyte of storage that IBM had made." Read the article at ZDNews.

GeForce FX Benchmarks

Guest post by Kevin Adams 2003-01-06 Benchmarks 8 Comments

"We preview nVidia’s latest 3D wunderkind and handicap the inevitable battle with ATI. World exclusive benchmarks! Brought to you by Maximum PC." Read the article at Maximum PC.

35 Technologies that Shaped the Industry

Submitted by Prognathous 2003-01-06 OS News 17 Comments

"When Computerworld published its first issue in 1967, the private sector was still using vacuum tubes to exchange information. Technology and the world it has shaped have come a long way since then. Here is our list of the 35 products and technologies that have had the greatest impact on enterprise IT since 1967." Read the article.

MSDN Magazine Detailed Overview of Windows CE.NET

Guest post by submitted by Gil Bates 2003-01-06 Windows 6 Comments

"Windows CE .NET, the newest member of the .NET family, includes a number of improvements over previous versions of Windows CE. For example, there are quite a few new APIs and enhancements to security and connectivity, the user interface, the kernel, and the emulator. In addition, DirectX support has been added and C++ in Windows CE .NET now supports C++ exceptions, STL, and runtime type information. In this article the author takes a tour of Windows CE .NET, starting with the New Platform Wizard that allows you to code for your choice of devices. A sample application is included that locates features on portable devices so the reader knows what's available before writing code." This article is from July but it should still be relevant to OS-interested readers.

Software Contracts: Antitrust Tying and Computer Hardware

Eugenia Loli 2003-01-06 Editorial 25 Comments

Have you bought a PC to run Linux and received a copy of a proprietary desktop operating system you do not intend on using? Did the manufacturer collect a fee for the operating system you don't use? Walt Pennington, member of the San Diego Linux Users Group, concerned citizen, and esteemed tort attorney outlines the legal challenge of OEM agreements. Seeking a refund of his own unwanted copy of Microsoft Windows, Pennington relates his day in court and calls on other consumers to demand a refund on January 23, 2003.

T2002 – A Freeware Turrican Clone Now Completed

Guest post by Mike Bouma 2003-01-05 Games 17 Comments

The Turrican game series were among the best selling game titles released for the C64 and Amiga 500 little over a decade ago. Now Pekaro Software finished their Turrican recreation using Direct X (version 7 or newer) for Windows. More info about other Turrican games and inspired projects can be found at the Turrican SETA Project homepage.

Gentoo Linux 1.4_rc2 Released

Submitted by Basil Crow 2003-01-05 Gentoo 22 Comments

Gentoo Linux 1.4_rc2 has been released. There have been a huge number of improvements since the 1.4_rc1 release. A new release of Gentoo Linux is expected in 2 weeks time (est. 14 Jan 2003,) which will become 1.4_final or 1.4_rc3.

Context Switching, Part 2

Guest post by OSNews Writer 2003-01-05 General Development 14 Comments

This article looks at two behaviors of the scheduler. The first behavior is the reaction to adding more choices to the scheduler's switching decision. The second demonstrates fairness by performing a uniform workload in multiple threads. Source code is provided so you can experiment. Last month's column looked at bare context switch times by using the best primitives on both Windows and Linux. According to those results, context switch time under Windows takes only half as long as under Linux.

OpenBeOS Translation Kit Reaches Beta 1

Guest post by Kevin Adams 2003-01-05 Haiku 29 Comments

"The OpenBeOS Translation Kit BETA 1 is now available. It contains the Translation Kit library, BMP translator, StyledEdit files translator, TGA translator and the source and project files for all of the above. Also, the BMP and TGA translators should have more capabilities than the BMP and TGA translators that came with BeOS R5." You can download the beta at the OpenBeOS website.

Unofficial fix list for Windows XP SP2

David Adams 2003-01-04 Windows 34 Comments

I ran across an "unofficial" list of proposed fixes for Windows XP SP2, so if there's a bug or hole that's been bothering you, see if it's on the list. Ethan, who is apparently maintaining the list, says that he's going to keep it up to date as SP2 comes closer to beta.

Microsoft Products Reach End of Lifespan

Guest post by Kevin Adams 2003-01-04 Microsoft 34 Comments

According to this table on the Microsoft website MS-DOS, Windows 3.x, Windows 95 and NT 3.5x reached their end of life on December 31,2002 and will no longer be supported by Microsoft.

BeOS Newsbits

Guest post by Kevin Adams 2003-01-04 Haiku 19 Comments

Here's some recent news from the BeOS world. The OpenBeOS MIDI Kit team has reached Milestone 1! They now have their own now have their own midi_server and libmidi2.so.Work on the BeOS-native video editor, PostMagic, is moving along well. A new screenshot was posted on the 1st. PostMagic version 1.0 is expected to be released around mid July. LeBuzz reports that Marcus Overhagen is writing a new Audio Card Driver API. The new API will get rid of some of the multi-source, multi-channel limitations inherent in older BeOS APIs.

Apple Preparing New Upgrade Fees

Guest post by Kevin Adams 2003-01-04 Apple 54 Comments

"Apple Computer next week will announce a plan to charge for upgrades to some of the company’s highly acclaimed "digital hub" software, a move that could anger customers accustomed to receiving free updates." Read on at CNet News.com.

Desktop Options

Guest post by Kevin Adams 2003-01-04 Rumors 42 Comments

"Michael C. Barnes takes an in-depth look at desktop operating system options available on the market today in this exclusive article at DesktopLinux.com. Evaluating over 30 desktop options for this article, Barnes dissects Microsoft Windows XP, offers a perspective on the evolution of the desktop, and reviews popular Desktop Linux options including Red Hat, ELX, Debian, Slackware, Lycoris and more." Read the article over at DesktopLinux.com.

Linux Continues Desktop March

Guest post by Kevin Adams 2003-01-04 Linux 31 Comments

"The good news for Linux as an operating system for the desktop--as opposed to the server--is that it is set to become No. 2 after Windows in the next year or so. The bad news is that its growth does not look to be as explosive as some advocates might have hoped." Read more at ZDNews.

India Makes Steps Toward Officially Approving Linux

David Adams 2003-01-03 Linux 31 Comments

Personal Computer World is reporting that the Indian government is making efforts to allow and even encourage the use of Linux in govenrment projects.

Lindows CEO Funds Xbox Hacking Contest

Guest post by Kevin Adams 2003-01-03 Linspire 70 Comments

"Michael Robertson, CEO of software company Lindows, has revealed himself as the formerly anonymous donor of $200,000 in prize money in a contest to translate the Linux operating system to Microsoft's Xbox video game console. The revelation was made in a posting earlier this week on the Xbox Linux Project site at SourceForge, a site for collaborative development of open-source software projects. Robertson disclosed his identity as the person funding the contest and extended the deadline." Read the article at ZDNews.

A Critical Look at Mandrake 9.0 (OfB.biz Distro Shootout)

Guest post by Kevin Adams 2003-01-03 Mandriva, Mandrake, Lycoris 19 Comments

Timothy R. Butler writes: "In this second part of the OfB Distribution Shootout, Eduardo Sánchez considers the distribution who nabbed our first annual Open Choice award last July -- Mandrake Linux. After finding Mandrake Linux 8.2 quite possibly the best GNU/Linux distribution ever released, Sánchez probes deep into its successor to see if it is a worthy replacement." Read the full review.

Linux, Mac and Windows in 2003

Submitted by dabooty 2003-01-01 OS News 114 Comments

As others looked into the past, ExtremeTech is looking forward to 2003, asking: What's in store for desktop operating systems? Will Linux and Mac OS X go the way of OS/2, or is Windows doomed?

2002 Year in Security

Submitted by Prognathous 2003-01-01 Privacy, Security 3 Comments

TechTV published a look at security issues in the past year, and they found that worms, viruses, spam, and other security scourges are on the rise, and are affecting common computer users as well as big data centers: If 2001 was the year of corporate headaches, 2002 saw average PC users under attack.