Matt Dillon, not the famous actor but the kernel/VM FreeBSD hacker also well known for writting the Dice C compiler for the Amiga, is here with us today for an in-depth interview about everything regarding FreeBSD 5.0. This is the OS that all the techie people are waiting for and presenting it as the most advanced, technically-speaking, free OS of today. Additionally, we also include two mini interviews with Theo de Raadt, the OpenBSD founder, and Jun-ichiro "itojun" Hagino from the NetBSD Core Team.

The second version of a new operating system, VinuxOS, is published By SoftMed Inc, a mix between DOS and Unix. Currently the web site's OS is in portoquese only. The OS is written in C and assembler for the x86. It currently only works in Real mode and without multitasking.

John Everitt writes: "This is an opinion page, it is riddled with minor inconsistencies and represents nobody's opinion other than my own. Some of it is not based on hard evidence, but observation and wit. If you don't like that stop reading here. Freenet is a realisation of many concepts that have been floated in the charged ether of the Internet. It is a distributed, survivable, efficient, secure publishing and storage system. In practice this has proven largely true, with minor caveats (documented in the FAQ), and I believe that Freenet should be a discussion point for everyone."

Qube 2p by InteractiveStudio was released on September 19th, and it is the same as Qube but by supporting two platforms this time. There is Qube for Windows and Qube for MS-DOS. Qube for Windows runs under DirectX and all applications or libraries are compatible with DOS version. Michal Stencl, the Qube developer, says that "It took some time for the Windows port, because of some incompatibility of Microsoft Visual C++ with GNUC. But now, Qube for Windows supports Windows2000/NT/98/ME without problems. You need to have already installed DirectX to run Qube for Windows." The SDK for Qube will be released imidiately after the release of the Linux version. Michal has to be sure first of clear out any compatibility problems with all versions so the developers will be free to copy their applications from System to System and run unmodified. Qube 3p will be available for three platforms soon - Linux, Windows and DOS with LAN support, not just modem. You can also refer to our exclusive interivew we held with Michal a month ago regarding this Qube project.

The KDE Project today announced the release of KDE 3.0 Alpha1. This is a developer-only release and it is making full use of Trolltech's QT 3 API. The release brings an impressive array of new features to KDE developers, including new database classes, new data-aware widgets, improved RAD development with a much-enhanced Qt Designer, a new powerful regular expression class (with full Unicode support), improved internationalization support (including the ability to mix different character sets in the same text), bi-directional language support (for languages such as Arabic and Hebrew), multi-monitor (Xinerama and multi-screen) support, better integration of pure Qt applications into KDE, and hardware-accelerated alpha blending. With the QT3 port out of the way, the KDE developers can now focus on the new KDE improvements.

From BSDToday: "Back in March, 2000, BSDI merged with Walnut Creek CDROM, the main distributor for FreeBSD. And BSDI had goals to "form a united front for the BSD operating systems. The company will deliver, support and enhance both BSD/OS and FreeBSD. Then in April, 2001, Wind River bought the BSD properties from BSDi (and BSDi became the hardware company, iXsystems)." The article explains where WindRiver stands today regarding FreeBSD and BSD/OS and clears up that FreeBSD is now without a publisher, solid financial support and 12 FreeBSD full time engineers who were laid off as we have already noted on OSNews in a previous news article. WindRiver even said for FreeBSD that "We see it as a great alternative to Linux". Our Take: If WindRiver was seeing FreeBSD just as a "great alternative to Linux", no wonder they leave it now in its own fate. I sincerely hope that FreeBSD will find a way to boost itself in light of FreeBSD 5.0, find a new publisher and sponsor as it is truely a worthy system.

Danger Research (which employs 9 ex-Be, Inc. engineers out of about 20 engineers total) is a company that does not talk too much about their product, but it is already known that they are developing a PDA that is able to send and receive email and access the Net among other goodies. Danger hoped to be the first company to have a PDA product that will feature the full range of Internet connectivity, but it seems that the market is getting "dangerously" crowded. RIM already is talking about an updated version of BlackBerry that does more, Motorola have already announced a device oh-so-similar to Danger's, and now even Sharp with a Linux-oriented device is doing the same. Handspring, which this week announced a deal with Aether Systems, is partnering with other companies to bring corporate data to its handhelds while Good Technology, which was founded in March 2000, prepares a similar product too. Also Motient, a wireless data network company plans to unveil a device that effectively allows a Palm handheld to act more like a BlackBerry pager. The plan in most of these devices is to have the device always connected to the net, as there is a special contract with some major mobile phone networks when you purchase such a device in order to activate it. Our take: Amazingly, Palm still haven't announced something exciting as this (where most of the software running in a remoted server, and not included and running in the actual machine), and please don't start posting comments that they will use BeIA for it, because they just won't. Palm has even postponed any wireless plans.

Coming with Kernel 2.4.10, KDE 2.2.1, JFS, XFS, ReiserFS and even Ext3 support, SuSE leads the way in the newest Linux distributions with their new version, SuSE Linux 7.3. Many improvements on their Control Center and YAST, especially in the TV Card configurations (Bttv cards) and XFree. The distribution is available in Personal ($40) and Professional ($80) editions currently in Pre-Ordering, the full release is scheduled for October 19th.

The release of WindowsXP does not seem to discourage the coders around the world to code the operating system of their dreams. Lots of new, simple and complex, embedded and desktop OSes grow like mushrooms very often these days. Not all of the OSes we found by searching the web are active, but we will link to the ones with more activity.

Apple has released a binary snapshot of Darwin, the core OS of Mac OS X. Darwin 1.4.1 brings the snapshots to the level of OS X 10.1. For the first time, bootable CD images are available, for both PowerPC and Intel. Details are here.

Applications are being accepted by Microsoft for beta testers for version 9.0 of the widespread multimedia API for the Windows line of OSes. Two separate applications are accessible: one for gamers and another for developers.

ZDNet reports that Sun Microsystems has initiated beta testing for the next version of its Unix operating system, Solaris 9. The new version runs on Sun's UltraSparc or Intel's 32-bit processors, and includes new features to streamline software upgrades and manage system resources. The final version of Solaris 9 should be available to Sun customers some time in 2002 and it will also feature Gnome 2.0 (which released its first alpha version just yesterday) as the default desktop instead of CDE.

A PC World article reports that though OS/2 has enjoyed years of success in key niches such as automated banking and airline systems, those days may be numbered as Microsoft targets those markets with Windows XP. OS/2 has virtually disappeared from the desktops of all but an elite hard-core group of enthusiasts, but its stability made it popular for devices like ATMs. With IBM's support for OS/2 having waned years ago, things are looking pretty grim for its continued existence as a live product.

The new up and coming HancomOffice 2.0 according to LinuxWorld.com could be a serious contender for StarOffice and Microsoft Office. The most interesting point is that the same boxed product can be installed on Windows, GNU/Linux and Solaris. This could be great for people switching operating systems as they could continue to use the same office package on their new OS, without even having to purchase new software. A Preview version is already available for download.