OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Steal Your Interface: A History

Submitted by Yama 2002-10-02 Graphics 88 Comments

"A history of computer interfaces follows a nice, tidy timeline. In the 1970s researchers at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center invented the basics of the point-and-click interface familiar today: mouse, windows, menus. Apple peeked at the research and brought it to the masses with the Macintosh in 1984. Ten years later, Microsoft copied Apple with Windows 95." Read the article at Wired.

Linux vs. Windows: The Rematch

Eugenia Loli 2002-10-01 Rumors 90 Comments

"You might be pretty happy with Windows XP. But Windows continues to suffer from more than its share of drawbacks: From the newer operating system's incompatibility with older software to Microsoft's well-known security problems, Windows still engenders a fair amount of user aggravation. Windows XP also subjects its users to the indignity of the Microsoft Product Activation service: You might have to ask Microsoft for a new key if you upgrade more than one or two major components." Watch the match at PCWorld.

Bandwidth Problems for OSNews

Eugenia Loli 2002-10-01 OS News 94 Comments

Anyone knows of really cheap but good (==stable) server hosting with about 100 MB of web space and at least 25 GB of bandwidth allowance per month? Please let us know, as we are completely out of bandwidth for the month (this is why screenshots for older articles do not work anymore, our mirrors for images are disabled). Because of the way our mirroring system works, the server should support direct linking to files (not to require to load images together with ads or via web page instead of direct linking), while SSH support is surely preferrable but not required. If you are a hosting provider and you would like to sponsor us for an exchange of a linked logo/button on our site, we are open for discussing the possiblity. We do not need fancy features (eg. mysql, php), just LOTS of bandwith for cheap!

Windows .NET Server: Completing the .NET Jigsaw?

Eugenia Loli 2002-10-01 Windows 11 Comments

"If you are an IT manager, you are either dreading the month of March next year, or are licking your chops in anticipation. This is because next March will see the launch of Microsoft’s highly-anticipated Windows .NET Server, and with it the whole gamut of upgrading issues for MIS—many of whom have only finished hardening their Windows 2000 or NT servers." Read the article at NCasia.com.

Microsoft Cuts Office Price on New Macs

Eugenia Loli 2002-10-01 Apple 37 Comments

Beginning Tuesday, buyers of new Macs can pick up the full version of Office v. X for $199, or about $200 less than the full purchase price. Read the story at C|Net News.com.

PaulOS 1.0 Released

Eugenia Loli 2002-10-01 OS News 20 Comments

PaulOS is a low-latency, single-threaded embedded operating system for 16, 32, and 64-bit microprocessors. It is written to allow applications to be developed under GNU/Linux or FreeBSD and then recompiled for the target platform. It features POSIX file descriptors, a TCP stack (LwIP) with BSD socket API, an ANSI C library, and a DNS resolver library. A number of GNU/Linux network applications have already been ported.

Mandrake Linux 9.0 First Impressions

Submitted by John Gowin 2002-09-30 Mandriva, Mandrake, Lycoris 64 Comments

"As a long time Red Hat user I have of course been awaiting 8.0, but since Mandrake 9.0 was released a little sooner, I decided to give it a try, while I was waiting on Red Hat 8. I had high hopes, but my hopes were quickly dashed." Read the article at LinuxOrbit. LinuxHelp have a review of Dolphin too.

Linux Servers With a Smile

Submitted by Linux_Baby 2002-09-30 Linux 9 Comments

"It will never beat Windows on the desktop, but the Linux operating system has an undeniable charm in the world of corporate computing: It's free. Microsoft's Bill Gates may be richer, but when it comes to unvarnished business aggression, no one in the high-tech world can top Larry Ellison, the 58-year-old founder and CEO of Oracle. This is a man cocky enough to fly his own fighter jet, competitive enough to have his minions pilfer Gates' trash, and mean enough to verbally flog his executives in public. He's worth $14 billion, making him the fourth-wealthiest American at last count, and unlike his peers who demur on the subject of money, Ellison isn't afraid to admit that he loves being rich." At Fortune.com.

Time to Ditch Java for .Net? Not Yet

Eugenia Loli 2002-09-30 .NET 36 Comments

"Much has been written about the virtues of .Net. But as Builder.com's Lamont Adams pointed out in a recent article, "I'm confused...What is '.Net' anyway?," the developer world is a long way from adopting .Net as the de facto standard for development tools." Read the editorial at ZDNews. Another related .Net article is to be found at ZDNews: "Why .NET will benefit other platforms".

Hurd: RMGPT; POSIX Threads

Eugenia Loli 2002-09-30 OS News 7 Comments

Neal Walfield announced the first release of RMGPT, which "is (or rather, aspires to one day be) a complete, portable implementation of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 threads known as POSIX threads." With this new pthreads library, it will soon be possible to run complex software packages on the Hurd, including the GNOME and KDE desktops, the OpenOffice suite, and the Mozilla web browser.

World’s First Review of Red Hat 8.0-Psyche

Eugenia Loli 2002-09-30 Red Hat 242 Comments

Gentoo, Lindows and Lycoris arguably were the big surprises of the year in the Linux land, but everyone is waiting the release of Red Hat 8.0 with, possibly, the biggest anticipation ever for a Linux distribution. Since Red Hat posted the Limbo and Null betas, fans of the most popular distribution on earth were making waves and even called this new version a Windows killer. Does this really hold up though? Will Red Hat be successful on their quest to infiltrate the business workstation/destkop market? Read more to find out and view some of the high resolution screenshots we have for you! UPDATE: Red Hat 8 is out! ZDNews has an article about the new release of Red Hat 8.0.

Usability and Efficiency

Submitted by Matt Grab 2002-09-29 Graphics 35 Comments

"First, usability is often thought of as how easily a process can be completed on the first try. A process does not have to be 100% brain free in order for it to be highly usable. The best interface is also efficient. A GUI should be accessible both with the keyboard and with the mouse." Read Matt Grab's article on usability, found on his home page.

(SCO) UnitedLinux Beta Review

Guest post by Gianmario Scotti 2002-09-29 Linux 31 Comments

First of all, why is SCO in braces, you'll ask. The reason is, I have not seen anything in this linux distribution that sounds or smells like Caldera/SCO, even though I downloaded it through SCO's UnitedLinux beta tester website. I will mostly focus on the installation (as I am a UNIX installation developer in "real life"), but I will also discuss more parts of the UnitedLinux distribution. For more screenshots of UnitedLinux and its installation procedure, go here.

A Solution to the Problem of Configuration in Linux

Eugenia Loli 2002-09-29 Linux 16 Comments

"What is configuration in Linux? What do experienced system administrators do when they need to, for example, modify the access rights to a Web site or change the network settings for their server? Invariably, they're going to login into the machine and edit a text file using a Unix editor such as vi or Emacs. That by itself isn't that bad, but depending on which application you want to configure and which Linux distribution you happen to be using, the location of the file you need to edit (and maybe even the format of the file) could be completely unknown." Read the article at FreshMeat.

Xandros Announces October 21 Release Date for Xandros Desktop

Eugenia Loli 2002-09-29 Oracle and SUN 6 Comments

The wait for Xandros Desktop is almost over. The product will first be available in box with a manual from the Xandros web site. The company says that the manufacturer indicates the product should be available for shipping in the week of October 21. OSNews recently hosted a preview of their distro. Update: PCLinuxOnline reviews Xandros Desktop beta 3.

Linux Suffers Growing Pains

Eugenia Loli 2002-09-29 Linux 16 Comments

"The growing maturity of Linux is demonstrated by the way in which major vendors are beginning to deploy enterprise-class IT services on the operating system. Conversely, however, the open source environment's lack of maturity is clearly demonstrated by the fact that there is no single unified vision of its role in the corporate world. Instead respective vendors of the platform are busy tailoring very different products and services based on the operating system which integrate with their existing core business offerings. For the corporate IT manager these wildly divergent Linux strategies create little more than the familiar recipe of fear, uncertainly and doubt." Read the article at PCW.

XPde 0.1 Released

Submitted by José León Serna 2002-09-28 Desktop environments 50 Comments

A few months back we reported on XPwm, a window manager and a desktop that emulates the behaviour of Windows XP. Today, the project is renamed to XPde, it has a new release, and it now looks more polished. Read more for the message the developer sent us.

Second Thoughts about Intel in Macs

Submitted by Prognathous 2002-09-28 Apple 56 Comments

"A deluge of reader mail has opened my eyes to some very sound reasons why the Motorola PowerPC chip's days may be numbered I love nothing better than stirring up a hornet's nest. And that's just what I did with my recent column about whether Apple should abandon its current PowerPC microprocessor for a Pentium-family chip, like those that power most Windows PCs (see BW Online, 9/11/02, "Mac and PC: Ne'er the Twain Will Meet")." Read the new editorial at BusinessWeek. Update: iSync beta!

FreeBSD 4.7-RC2/i386 Now Available

Eugenia Loli 2002-09-28 FreeBSD 8 Comments

FreeBSD Release Engineering Team's Bruce Mah announces that FreeBSD 4.7-RC2 (the second release candidate for FreeBSD 4.7) is now available for the i386 architecture from the usual FTP sites. Both an FTP site and a "disc 1" ISO image are available. FreeBSD 4.7-RC2 for the alpha architecture is being built and should be available shortly.

Sun Challenges Microsoft on the Desktop

Eugenia Loli 2002-09-28 Oracle and SUN 10 Comments

As executive vice VICE president of Sun's software group, Jonathan Schwartz heads the company's new unified software business and is leading the charge to promote the Linux open-source technology. Schwartz met with InfoWorld Test Center Director Steve Gillmor and Technical Director Tom Yager to discuss Sun's recently announced Linux desktop strategy and to explain how it's in the industry's best interests to develop an alternative to arch-rival Microsoft.