Writing your own Toy OS – Part III

  Submitted by Wezza OS News 13 Comments
In Parts I and II of this series, LinuxGazette examined the process of using tools available with Linux to build a simple boot sector and access the system BIOS. The toy OS will be closely modelled after the Linux kernel - and it will be switching to protected mode soon! This part III shows how it can be done.
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Microsoft Lags on Itanium II Software

Microsoft 4 Comments
Despite the introduction of a heap of HP Unix servers tomorrow using the PA-RISC processor, the firm's long term push is for the Itanium platform. HP, you'll remember, seemed to get better results with the McKinley platform than its competitors at launch, and a document we've seen spells out its position both on compilers and on the binary compatibility of HP/UX, Linux and the Windows operating system.
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Apple Keeps Options Open with MacOSX Marklar

  Submitted by Ben, Todd, Nick Apple 137 Comments
eWeek and ThinkSecret claim that Apple (since the begining of OSX) is developing in parallel to the PPC version of MacOSX, an x86 version called 'Marklar' as a fallback option, in case the Motorola CPUs could not deliver. The article also claims that this version is assigned only to a few dozen engineers so far, for maintanance purposes-only, and Apple most probably would switch to the desktop Power4 CPU that IBM is preparing instead. We recently wrote an editorial about the probable switch of Apple to x86.
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ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 Review

3D 23 Comments
AnandTech has reviewed ATI's latest mobile graphics solution. According to the reviewer this small and energy efficient chip is the new king when it comes to mobile graphic chips for notebooks. Also John Carmack is apparently very positive about the chip and also stated that Doom 3 will be able to run smoothly with this new Radeon chip.
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Announcing Initial Slackware 9.0 Beta

  Submitted by mRgOBLIN Slackware, Slax 15 Comments
Also from DistroWatch:If you thought that Slackware developers were going to take a long break after the 8.1 release, you were wrong: "We're happy to announce the initial Slackware-9.0-beta based on gcc-3.2. :-) Please test it and report any bugs that you find. The above message is from the current ChangeLog. See the pre-release notes and the complete package list for further information. Apart from GCC, many other packages have also been upgraded, including Linux Kernel (2.4.19), KDE (3.0.3), Perl (5.8.0) and Netscape (7.0), but GNOME packages were left at versions found in Slackware 8.1 (1.4.1).
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Mandrake 9.0 First Release Candidate Available

  Submitted by Larry Nguyen Mandriva, Mandrake, Lycoris 30 Comments
From our friends at DistroWatch: Your last chance to test things out and report bugs -- if you miss it, you have no right to complain that some things don't work in Mandrake 9.0! Links to the three ISO images: CD 1 (695MB), CD 2 (700MB), CD 3 (549MB) or try a more convenient mirror. Report bugs on the cooker mailing list. Also don't forget this excellent offer to all beta testers: Mandrake 9.0 DVD (as soon as it's available) + Mandrake cap for US$55! Great value compared to regular pricing -- click here if you'd like to take advantage of the offer coupled with free shipping within EU, USA and Canada and 50% off shipping cost for the rest of the world. Things just don't get much better that this, do they? Mandrake Linux 9.0 final should be out in about two-week's time.
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Cosmoe 0.5.6 Released

  Submitted by Kevin Linux 24 Comments
The new version of Cosmoe includes the following changes: doing a "make doc" in the libcosmoe directory will make html API documentation in the docs directory (you must have doxygen installed). Partially fixed a bug in LayoutView reported by James Dean Palmer, so that Guiprefs runs better. Here is a screenshot of Cosmoe running both locally and remotely, on single, dual, and quad CPU machines.
In related news, Syllable's web site has been updated to include screenshots of Syllable 0.4.1.
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Microsoft Does Not Allow Installation of Windows on “Naked” PCs

Microsoft 132 Comments
Firms with valid Microsoft site licences cannot legally install Windows on PCs bought without the operating system, Microsoft has warned. Many companies with volume licences routinely apply a disk image over pre-installed software to achieve a standard configuration. But firms that try to cut costs by purchasing "naked" PCs, sold without an operating system, cannot legally install a Windows image because site licences only permit upgrading from a pre-installed version of Windows. Rob Enderle of analyst firm Giga Information Group warned companies not to ignore the small print. "By contract, have to report any customer that requests naked PCs and it often triggers a software audit by Microsoft. We've seen seven-figure bills go to those that were caught." Read the story at VNUnet.
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Apple Updates 10.2 Development Tools

Apple 9 Comments
The August 2002 Mac OS X Developer Tools Update addresses issues with the July 2002 Mac OS X Developer Tools originally released with Mac OS X version 10.2 (Jaguar build 6C115 or later)." The download can be found at Apple Developer Connection (ADC login required). On other news, Apple says it's not just opening up the source code for its Rendezvous networking tool--it's actively courting open-source developers to work with the technology. Also, Apple now sells PowerMacs with MacOSX 10.2-Server pre-installed. Prices start at $3,000 USD for a dual 1 GHz G4 machine.
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.Net Server’s New Name Suggests Delay

Windows 47 Comments
Microsoft has once again tweaked the name of the successor to Windows 2000 Server, in a move that suggests its official release won't come until next year. During the Redmond, Wash.-based company's annual employee meeting this week, executives revealed that the follow-up to Windows 2000 Server will be called Windows .Net Server 2003. Read more at ZDNews.
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Netscape 7.0 Shrivels Under Mozilla’s Shadow

Mozilla, Gecko 43 Comments
The fact that Netscape 7.0 arrives hot on the heels of the similar but superior Mozilla 1.1 only serves to illuminate the small but significant differences between the two: Mozilla is highly customizable and offers a number of user options (eg. pop-up ad blocking), while Netscape forces users to accept many features and functions (eg. spyware) they probably don't want while removing some they probably do. Read the article at eWeek. In other browser news, Galeon 2.0 readies and OmniWeb 4.1.1sp2 is released.
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Ideas for Improving the MandrakeClub

Mandriva, Mandrake, Lycoris 10 Comments
"I like MandrakeSoft very much, but I have some concerns. Here is some constructive criticism. I do not oppose your core business model - in fact I like it a lot. My proposals here should be compatible with it. MandrakeClub has become a bit of a 'secret society'. Non-members have no idea of what's going on inside, so they see no point in joining. I think you should merge Mandrakeclub.com and Mandrakeforum.com." PCLinuxOnline's Yama writes an editorial for MandrakeForum.
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Problems With Unix Utilities & HFS Forks in Jaguar

macOS 44 Comments
I arrive home to find a spiffy package from ADC... Look it's Jaguar! The excitement was racing to install this upgrade but then I thought what about my data? I wanted to partition my drive differently for Jaguar so I did what I would do on any of my systems. I tared my home directory double checking the file contents to make sure I got all my hidden files. I then uploaded the tar to my server via scp and checked the md5sum of the file. Everything looked good I was ready to go!
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