Once upon a time, there was this nice operating system, called GeOS. It first ran on a C64, but it was later ported to Macs and PCs. Today, the OS lives a new life under the name New Deal Office (additional screenshot). Another OS from the same era, RiscOS, is still developed today by its parent company and it is currently in version 4. The OS also runs quite fast under PC emulation as well as in a native RISC PC. These articles can prove a good and interesting read for the weekend, especially for younger readers who did not experience the computer offerings of the '80s.

"Most senior engineers understand the technical details about what it will take to move Linux or FreeBSD or NetBSD or OpenBSD to support enterprise computing environments. What we don't often understand is what the actual competitive advantages of open source systems are, and what the open source communities need to do to help maintain these advantages." The author explains how the two major open source development models work in different ways: the Linux and the *BSD. Read the editorial at BSDToday.

"Surely one of the biggest success stories in technology has been the hard disk drive. Invented in the 1950s, and an absolute requirement for PCs since the mid-1980s, hard disk drives have an impressive record of increasing capacity and speed, shrinking physical size and cost, and finding new ways to shatter barriers to continued progress. If you think storage capacity is amazing now, take a trip with us--three to five years down the road." ExtremeTech features a special series of four articles regarding hard drives and their future.

From CNET|News: "Fewer than 300,000 boxed copies of the new operating system were sold in the first several days of its availability, according to preliminary figures from NPD Intelect, which has polled roughly 80 percent of its retailers and mail-order clients about XP. Although some poll respondents indicated that demand was "healthy," NPD asserts that the final tally of first-week sales will likely be 20 percent to 25 percent lower than what Microsoft saw with Windows 98."

The December's issue of the popular printed magazine 'Doctor Dobbs Journal' features a special series of articles regarding alternative operating systems. Among the OSes mentioned or have extended presentations is NewOS and MenuetOS.

"Officials at the U.S. Justice Department met state attorneys general in the case to discuss a settlement that would allow computer manufacturers wider latitude to load non-Microsoft software on the machines they sell and give other software companies greater access to the code behind Microsoft's Windows dominant personal computer operating system, Reuters reported." Get the rest of the story at ZDNews. Update: Microsoft, Feds reached a deal. The software maker and the Justice Department settle their longstanding antitrust battle, in an agreement with far-reaching implications.

Rocklyte Systems is a New Zealand-based software engineering company and creators of the Athene operating system and Pandora Engine. Athene is an object based operating system that is being developed for use in PC's and embedded systems. The user interface is completely rewriteable and is capable of emulating other interfaces such as the Windows and Amiga desktop environments (developing your own, custom desktop GUI is a matter of writting a script!). The Pandora Engine is an all-purpose object oriented SDK, aimed at assisting developers in all areas of the technology industry and it also the base of Athene. The engine is based on Modular Object Oriented technology, which allows you to create true object oriented programs using almost any language. Athene and Pandora are available for both Windows and Linux. Read more for an interview with Rocklyte's Paul Manias and two new screenshots, showing AtheneOS running under its newly released Windows version.

"SuSE is billed as a complete easy-to use Linux package providing users with a large set of programs. SuSE 7.3 is available in two editions: a Personal Edition and a Professional Edition. The Personal edition is primarily for Linux beginners and has a 'relatively' small set of applications included in the package. This review will focus solely on the Professional Edition." Read the rest of the review over at the FirstLinux web site. Update: Another review of SuSE 7.3 can be found at LinuxPlanet. This particular author found the SuSE upgrade problematic.

xMach is an open source 4.4BSD-like BSD operating system based on the Mach microkernel. Primary focuses are on security, portability, and staying unbloated. xMach work began in November of 1999 by Joseph Mallett, project founder and Core Team Member. In one of my recent stormings to the IRC, I stoped by the #xmach channel and met Joseph. Read more about our brief conversation regarding the xMach operating system.

Caldera announced the availability of OpenLinux-64 R3.1, a Linux system-based server and workstation product designed for 64-bit Intel Itanium processors. Utilizing 64-bit technology, OpenLinux-64 brings a new level of stability, scalability and robustness to the Linux platform the company says. OpenLinux-64 is licensed on a per system basis. No restriction exists on the number of users who use or attach to the system. Licenses for regular OpenLinux 64 kits are available for $599; not-for-resale versions are $49.

AOL Time Warner's Netscape division placed its Netscape 6.2 (NS 6.2) browser-suite upgrade for the Linux, Macintosh, and Microsoft Windows platforms on its FTP servers today. In related news, K-Meleon 0.6 for Windows released today while Galeon for Unix is marching for version 1.0. Both applications are trimmed down Mozilla-based browsers, specifically coded for speed and efficiency. Update: MozillaNews.org wrote a review of the latest browser suite from Netscape.

Back when I used to live in Greece, there was a popular saying: "Greece is not just Athens". Similarly, Linux is much more than (the highly marketed) Red Hat or Mandrake. Assuming you got the skills required, a Linux distribution can be created, distributed or sold by virtually anyone. This is what Free Software is all about anyway. Two Sweedish Linux coders are offering their own Linux distros for some months now (with newer versions on the way). Per Lidén has put together CRUX from scratch, while John Eriksson has evolved a lightweight Slackware version to his own ROOTLinux. OSNews interviews both the developers regarding their (part-time, hobby) projects and their future prospects.

Following up on last week's interesting interview with REBOL's own Carl Sassenrath, Rebol Technologies announced today that StreamCast, makers of Morpheus and next generation peer-to-peer content distribution networks, will base Morpheus 2.0 on REBOL's X Internet operating system (IOS) technology to provide interactive programmable content to more than 30 million users by the end of the year.

The German Linux web site Tuximus is interviewing the KDE 3 co-ordinator, Dirk Mueller. Dirk talks about how KDE compares to the Windows desktop and Gnome, about KDE 3 and more.