OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Torvalds Looks Ahead

Eugenia Loli 2002-01-24 Linux 14 Comments

"As the Linux community prepares to congregate next week in New York for the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo, the center of attention, as always, will be Linux creator Linus Torvalds. A little more than a year ago Torvalds released the 2.4 kernel and has spent much of the year working on numerous 2.4.x versions to further stabilize and strengthen Linux. After handing the 2.4 kernel over to Marcelo Tosatti to maintain late last year, he turned his attention to the 2.5 development tree. Torvalds took time out to exchange e-mail with eWEEK Senior Editor Peter Galli about his work on and vision for 2.5." Read the interesting Q&A at eWeek.

Some Historical Unices Now Available

Guest post by Ken Crandall 2002-01-24 Unix 5 Comments

Caldera is releasing the source of some of the historical Unices it inherited through its acquisitions, including 16 bit UNIX Versions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 for the PDP-11 and 32-bit 32V UNIX. However, the more "interesting" UNIX versions, UNIX System III and UNIX System V (and their descendants) are purposely omitted (probably to prevent competition with UNIXWare and OpenServer, or to harvest the relevant technologies from them that Caldera wants to keep in its pocket.) A PDF of the license is available for viewing. The archives of the various historical UNIX ports is here.

Book Review: Linux System Administration – A User’s Guide

Eugenia Loli 2002-01-24 Office 9 Comments

So, you are a Windows user or a not so Unix-oriented person who wants to master the art of administration? Then "Linux System Administration - A User's Guide" book may be just right for you. And if you are already an admin working somewhere, we are sure you will find in this book something you did not know yet. Read more to see what is included in this comprehensive guide to Linux administration.

More Information on the BeOS Dano Version

Submitted by Jake Daniels 2002-01-23 Haiku 115 Comments

The BeOS version 5.1d0 seems to have been extensively leaked on the web the last few days (please respect the OSNews policy and do not post direct download URLs of the illegal beta on our forums). Dianne Hackborn, ex-Be engineer, now at PalmSource, gives more information on what is included in this version of BeOS. There is hardware OpenGL (update: GL is 'broken' on Dano), new networking stack, window decors, XML kit, new USB stack, brand new Printing Kit (and lots of printer drivers for it), new font engine, column list view, tooltip support, updated Media Kit, Interface Kit and app_server, and more. And of course, brand new drivers, like support for the Adaptec U160 SCSI controllers, better SB128 support etc. Reportedly, this BeOS version has some issues with many existing BeOS applications, mostly because of the changes in the app_server. The only peculliar thing is that, as far as we know, Palm's legal department did not take any action against the owners of the servers that carry the leaked beta.

Linux: O(1) Scheduler Benchmarks

Eugenia Loli 2002-01-23 Benchmarks 4 Comments

"Partha Narayanan, from IBM, recently posted some benchmark perfomance results for Ingo's O(1) Scheduler. The tests were run on an 8-way 700Mhz Pentium III, with several comparisons. The end result is around an 18% improvement with a single CPU, around a 45% improvement with 4 CPUs, and around a 187% improvement with 8 CPUs. Pretty impressive!" Read the rest of the article and see the benchmark results at KernelTrap.

Upgrading to .NET – Article at MSDN

Eugenia Loli 2002-01-23 .NET 4 Comments

"Get the core information you need to get the most out of the .NET Framework and Visual Studio .NET, including tips and tricks on the new data access system (ADO.NET) and Web application system (ASP.NET). The articles focus particularly on the Visual Basic developer, but apply across all languages." Read the interesting article at MSDN, among four more .NET-related articles.

Interview with Joseph Cheek of Redmond Linux

Eugenia Loli 2002-01-23 Mandriva, Mandrake, Lycoris 6 Comments

Craig from Gui-Lords.org engaged Joseph Cheek, CTO of Redmond Linux (recently renamed 'Lycoris'), in a 10 question interview. Along with some nice screen shots, Gui-Lords invites you to learn about this new distro.

AOL’s Netscape Sues Microsoft

Submitted by Yves R. Crevecoeur 2002-01-23 Legal 21 Comments

The news break was yesterday, with AOL suing Microsoft over the Netscape-IE issue which resulted in Netscape losing its market share (from ~90% in 1997 down to ~7% today). While this is not surprising news, we wonder why AOL/Netscape is suing today, and not 4 years ago.

Apache Web Development with IBM DB2 for Linux

Submitted by Jeff 2002-01-23 IBM 2 Comments

IBM's strategy for Linux is starting to pay off as "Linux Breathes New Life Into The Mainframe". The focus is not only sales but also in education as IBM released two tutorials this month on "LPI certification 101 exam prep" and "Apache Web Development with IBM DB2 for Linux".

A Linux Guy Looks at NetBSD

Eugenia Loli 2002-01-22 NetBSD 46 Comments

"I have been a Linux user since 1995. It has been my desktop and server of choice since about 1997. But there is more in the Open Source operating system world than just Linux. So, I decided to play with the Wasabi Systems' distribution of NetBSD. The basic distribution comes on two CDs with a small instruction booklet." Read the rest of the NetBSD review at NewsForge.

Twenty Years of TRON

Eugenia Loli 2002-01-22 Multimedia, AV 18 Comments

The surprising truth about Disney's 1982 computer-game sci-fi film, Tron, is that it's still visually impressive (though technologically quaint by later high-definition standards) and a lot of fun. Tron was the first movie to use CGI (computer generated graphics & special effects) incorporated into the normal film. To celebrate 20 years of the breakthrough in both Hollywood's and computer's standards, Disney has released the "Tron - 20th Anniversary Collector's Edition" DVD with 5 hours of extra material on the making of the classic movie.

QNX RtP 6.2 — World Preview

Eugenia Loli 2002-01-21 QNX 54 Comments

QNX is an operating system that all of us have used, but few of us realize it when we do. The OS was created in the early 1980's by QNX Software Systems, a Canadian company, but the version we are previewing today (unreleased yet, version 6.2), based on the Neutrino kernel, was pretty much (re)written from scratch some years ago. QNX is used everywhere, from VCRs, to DVDs, to medical machinery and even satellites and space shuttles. Many of you maybe even have tried the old demodisk, a demo of the QNX4 RTOS, plus the previous version of the Photon GUI, fitting in a single 1.44 floppy. The desktop-enhanced version of QNX RtP (free for non-commercial use) runs on almost all modern x86 CPUs, and if we judge from the following screenshots, it looks pretty good for an embedded system OS.

On Hammer Processors and Their Performance

Eugenia Loli 2002-01-21 AMD 42 Comments

Two slides of an AMD presentation were leaked to a Czech web site and they show the SPECInt 2000 CPU benchmark performance results of the upcoming AMD 64-bit CPU, Hammer. In the two charts you will see the Hammer scoring best performance among Intel, HP, IBM, Alpha and other CPUs. The Hammer CPU is expected to be released at the end of 2002, after slipping the original release date of March 2002.

The Future of Apple – A Special Report at BusinessWeek

Eugenia Loli 2002-01-20 Apple 9 Comments

BusinessWeek features an extensive set of articles, editorials & interviews with key Apple people regarding the future of Apple and MacOSX. A very good read overall. In the meantime, MacUserUK and MacMinute revealed that Tuesday 22nd of January is the most likely day that Apple will announce three new, top of the line, PowerMacs: 800, 933 and dual 1 Ghz, with all models "shipping immediately." Pricing and additional specifications are unclear, although sources suggest that Apple may make the SuperDrive standard on all systems.

Interviews With AmigaDE Software Developers

Guest post by Mike Bouma 2002-01-20 Amiga & AROS 14 Comments

Amiga Information Online has interviewed one of the early AmigaDE developer pioneers, Zeoneo. Two of Zeoneo`s PDA targetting titles, namely "Convex" and "Planet Zed" are already selling at Amiga`s online shop. Also GetBoinged recently interviewed Pagan Games. Their first PDA targetted gravity game "Blobula" is already selling and it is the first among the currently available AmigaDE PDA titles to include a music soundtrack. John Harris (orginal Frogger designer) of Pulsar Interactive will hold a class and seminar on AmigaDE Programming at the AmigaExpo which will be held on the 29th till 31st of March in the US. For an earlier look at the hardware-agnostic Amiga Digital Environment and the new PPC based AmigaOS 4.0, be sure to attend the upcoming Alt-WoA 2002 show which will be held on the 23rd of February in the UK.

The Road to Windows Longhorn

Eugenia Loli 2002-01-20 Windows 20 Comments

"If you're a Net junkie like me, you've probably seen screenshots that reportedly expose upcoming user interfaces for the next two versions of Windows (code-named "Longhorn" and "Blackcomb"). You might have heard of internal alpha builds of either OS, and maybe, just maybe, you've seen the infamous Blackcomb movie that's making the rounds as well. I've spent the past few months investigating all of these things, and after speaking with several Microsofties and uncovering the truth behind the wild stuff that's available on the Internet, I thought I'd provide a little heads-up on what's really going on with the next version of Windows." Read the rest of the story at Windows SuperSite.

Embedded Processors, Part Three

Eugenia Loli 2002-01-20 Hardware 4 Comments

"In Part One and Part Two of this series we delivered an overview of the embedded processor market and key product families. We also looked at Java chips and other custom embedded processors. Then we reviewed some of the microarchitectural and programming features that differentiate embedded processors from mainstream CPUs. And we described some performance measurement techniques and issues. In this final segment, we'll dig into DSPs, media processors, and power saving techniques." Read the third installment of the interesting article at ExtremeTech.

XFree86 4.2 Released

Eugenia Loli 2002-01-20 Wayland 39 Comments

There is a brand new version of the Unix windowing system, XFree86 4.2, available for download. This is mostly a bug fixed release, no major new features were introduced. Our Take: XFree does the job just right when it comes to serve just what it was designed to do back in the '80s: provide a windowing system to a Unix workstation or server. But these days, everyone seems so busy trying to shapeshift X11 with themes or funky window managers and squeeze its architecture and code hard to push it to perform adequate with 3D games. But X was not designed for all that. Proof of that is the fact that X is not as smooth as MacOSX's Aqua or BeOS is, is not multithreading, it does not have good response times or latencies, it does not support font antialias correctly, no double buffering, and even 3D gaming support is a hack. Should X be pushed to do things it was not designed to do, or should it be re-implemented in such a way that it features all the latest tech gizmos, but in a more "natural" way that it also stays compatible with most of today's X applications? Discuss.

AOL-Time Warner in Negotiations to Buy Red Hat

Submitted by Ryan Pavlick 2002-01-19 Red Hat 53 Comments

"Media and Internet titan AOL-Time Warner is in negotiations to acquire Linux distributor Red Hat, the Washington Post reported Saturday, citing unidentified sources familiar with the matter. The talks were fluid and it was unclear how much AOL, which runs the biggest U.S. Internet service provider and the second-largest U.S. cable television system, would pay for Red Hat, the newspaper said. Red Hat is the leading distributor of Linux, which unlike software such as rival Microsoft's Windows operating system, is an "open source" platform that anyone can change to suit their needs." Read the rest of the story at C|Net News.

FreeBSD 4.5 RC2 Released

Eugenia Loli 2002-01-18 FreeBSD 8 Comments

FreeBSD 4.5 Release Candidate 2 was released today. The fvwm2, unzip, and Gnome-Sawfish packages are not included on the ISO image due to build failures. This will be solved for the third (and hopefully final) release candidate. The final version is expected in 1-2 weeks from now. Testing guide is available.