"In the January/February 2002 issue of Embedded Linux Journal, we examined the fundamental issues of real time with Linux. In this article we examine efforts to bring real-time capabilities to applications by making improvements to the Linux kernel. To date, the majority of this work has been to make the kernel more responsive--to reduce latency by reducing the preemption latency, which can be quite long in Linux." Kevin Dankwardt continues his real-time series by examining efforts to bring real-time capabilities to applications by improving the Linux kernel. Part I can be found here.

"For those of you who have been wishing for a copy of Apple's Mac OS X to run on your x86 PC, your wish may soon be granted if recent reports regarding graphics accelerator companies ATI and Nvidia are to be believed. It has been rumored that an x86 version of OS X exists somewhere deep within the confines of Apple Computer's software laboratories, although none of us mere mortals living outside the Cupertino campus truly know for sure." Read the rest of the editorial at OSOpinion.

While the information is still unconfirmed, the talk is that the leaked slides from a Microsoft presentation regarding the next Office version, are authentic. WindowsSuperSite features two articles, the first talks about the new Office version, codenamed NGO, but the second set of slides, is the truly interesting part, explaining how the subscription/renting .NET model will work with Microsoft's upcoming Web Services. In fact, it seems that Office will be the leading application in this new sales model, which will help promote the subscription model in general, however a "traditional" licensing method will also be available. Update: Some analysis of the NGO presentation can be found at ExtremeTech.

Today Miray Software officially introduced the version 0.93 of the operating system µnOS. The company also announced a new version of the underlying realtime microkernel, which will be available as a stand-alone product in the future. Read more for the rest of the press release and download locations of this interesting graphical OS.

A developer preview snapshot of FreeBSD 5.0-CURRENT is now available. Please see the release notes for more information. Also be sure to check the release errata for a list of known problems.

"Apple first introduced PowerMac G4 computer systems using AltiVec -- a high performance vector processing expansion to the PowerPC architecture -- in the fall of 1999. Architecturally, AltiVec adds 128-bit-wide vector execution units to the PowerPC architecture. Early versions of the G4 processor had a single AltiVec unit, while more recent versions have up to four units (simple, complex, floating, and permute). These vector units operate independently from the traditional integer and floating-point units". Read the interesting article at O'ReillyNet.

I have watched the progress of the "new Amiga" (OS and hardware) over the past couple of years. Given the past history of Amiga, I am happy to see that the company has been taken over by true fans of the Amiga OS, who have a workable vision. In general, I think you came up with a good overall strategy:

"The latest rivalry to erupt is between the IEEE 1394 and USB 2.0 high-speed serial bus specifications. In addition to 400Mbps-class bandwidths (400Mbps for 1394 and 480Mbps for USB 2.0), hot-plug connectivity, and auto-configuration capabilities, both can support either asynchronous or isochronous operation, theoretically making them suitable for both computer peripherals and digital A/V equipment. Not surprisingly, many users have no idea why they should choose one over the other." Read the interesting benchmarking article at ExtremeTech and witness FireWire beating USB 2.0 on all tests.

Red Hat has released the second beta of their upcoming Linux release. This beta includes Kernel 2.4.18, XFree86 4.2.0, GNOME 1.4, including Evolution, Mozilla 0.9.9 etc.

"Gentoo solved many problems for me. Some distros install everything, whether you really need it or not. Not Gentoo; other than the base packages required for Linux to run, the only software installed on the system is the software you put there. Gentoo resolves dependancies automatically, eliminating RPM prerequisite hell. As an added bonus I got something I wasn't even expecting. Speed. Blinding, blazing, incredible speed." Read the rest of the interesting installation review for Gentoo Linux at Kuro5hin.

Apple posted a Security Update for April 2002 which weighs 4.7 MB. Security Update April 2002 includes the following updated components which provide increased security to prevent unauthorized access to applications, servers, and the operating system: OpenSSH v3.1p1, rsync v2.5.2, groff v1.17.2, PHP v4.1.2, sudo v1.6.5p2, mod_ssl v2.8.7, mail_cmds.

"Smart Device Extensions (SDE) for Visual Studio .NET allow programmers to develop applications for the .NET Compact Framework, a new platform that maintains many of the features of the .NET Framework in a version optimized for handheld devices. This article shows how SDE provides access through Visual Studio .NET to a variety of .NET classes for devices running Windows CE, including classes for creating user interfaces. Data access classes and Web Services for the .NET Compact Framework are also explained. Following that overview, a sample Web Service called XMLList is built. Then the UI—the XMLList client-side application—is created." Read the rest of the article at MSDN.

"There are many ways to define distributed computing, and there are many different levels and types of distributed computing models and distributed application development techniques. Various vendors have created and marketed distributed computing systems for years, and numerous initiatives and architectures have been developed to permit distributed processing of data and objects across a network of connected systems." An excellent, must read, introduction to distributed computing. Especially, have a look at its interesting comparison with clusters and supercomputers.

With the 2.4 release of Linux come many new filesystem possibilities, including Reiserfs, XFS, GFS, and others. These filesystems sound cool, but what exactly can they do, what are they good at, and exactly how do you go about safely using them in a production Linux environment? Daniel Robbins, CEO and president over at Gentoo Linux (and creator of the sophisticated Portage packaging system) answers these questions by showing you how to set up these new advanced filesystems under Linux 2.4. In this final installment (Part 10/10), Daniel shows you how to get XFS up and running on your system and explores some of XFS's more advanced features. Recommended reading is also the previous article, Part 9, exploring XFS's features over the other Linux filesystems. In a similar recent article, Bert Scalzo for Linux Jounral, benchmarks ReiserFS, JFS and ext2/3.