The days of the plain filesystems like FAT32 and ext2 seem to have past. Newer operating systems are offering journal, 64-bit filesystems, with features like supporting terrabytes of filesizes or attaching attributed meta-data in them. Today we are interviewing (in a given set of questions) the main people behind IBM's JFS, NameSys' ReiserFS and SGI's XFS. Read on about the status of their filesystems, their abilities and what they are aiming for the future.

The company announced that its Windows Advanced Server, Limited Edition, is now available for computers based on Intel's 64-bit Itanium chip. Microsoft said that Compaq Computer, Dell Computer, HP and IBM will start shipping servers running the new operating system within 30 days. The OS is based on the Win2000 codebase, while its 64-bit WindowsXP version will be available next year. In the meantime, Internet Explorer 6 was made available for download yesterday, and it includes several new features. Our Take: While most of the new IE6 features are pretty reduntant for me, the new version fixes an important crashing bug I had with the browser when browsing specific sites (Sourceforge and even Apple to mention a few) that utilized, through javascript, the PC clock. The bug was only reproducible when some special ASP server software was also installed in the same PC (which I had installed). Glad to see at least that specific bug (DLL-hell, to be more specific) go away!

AtheOS is a modern, free (GPLed) Operating System written from scratch in C++. A big chunk of the OS is POSIX compliant, supports multiprocessing and it is GUI-oriented (fully OOP). Today we are hosting an interesting interview with the AtheOS creator, Kurt Skauen. Kurt is talking about his views on binary compatibility in future versions, multithreading and the future of his OS in general.

Most of the big BeOS news sites are down (mostly server hardware failures), so OSNews is taking the initiative to publish an all-around BeOS news article. First of all, a whole lot of nice software has been released on BeBits recently. Sequitur 2.0 is here, Palm Reflections, i.Scribe and even a new version of OpenTracker. Ubix.org is reporting that Apacabar is selling out its BeOS-related software, offering among others, BeOS 5 Pro and even T-Racks ($299 original price) for 99 French Franks (about $13 USD) each. I sent to Palm's CEO, Mr. Carl Yankowski, 5 questions for a mini-interview (questions that most BeOS users have in their mind these days), but instead, Marlene Somsak, Senior Director at Palm, replied:

This interview gives some more insight regarding Amiga`s imminent PDA adventures. Note that soon you will be able to use this PDA content and other AmigaDE software transparently with AmigaDE players on both Linux and Windows based platforms. How well such players will sell remains to be seen. Here`s a rather positive quote from John Harris (well known games designer of games like Frogger, Jawbreaker and Mouseattack) regarding his work for Amiga: "It literally revitalized my life!"

The editorial, over at ZDNet, explains the impact .NET will have on Linux, analyzes the Ximian's Mono initiative and how all this will also have an impact on the open source and Free software in general.

Intel and Symbian have announced that the two companies will work together to accelerate software development for wireless devices based on the Intel PCA and the Symbian OS. Just check out how sweet these mobile phone devices look like here, here and here.

Get a free CD containing IBM Linux middleware products, tools, e-busines roadmaps, and documentation. The IBM Software Evaluation Kit for Linux CD contains the following: IBM WebSphere Application Server, Advanced Edition V4.0 for Linux, IBM DB2 Universal Database Enterprise Edition V7.2 for Linux, Lotus Domino Server Release 5.0.7a for Linux, IBM MQSeries V5.2 for Linux, VisualAge for Java, Professional Edition Version 4, Web Services tools, Java and XML tools, e-business documentation and roadmaps.

While a lot of Linux companies are closing one after the other and a lot of people are starting to wondering if GPL software can actually bring some money in, Hewlett Packard gave Linux a big boost yesterday as they announced they would use the operating system to power everything from cell phones to stereos. HP said it would develop new security software for Linux, as well as HP Chai-LX, a program to develop Linux applications for small consumer devices like stereos and cell phones. This may very well be the fruit of the work of one of the most important people in Linux history, Bruce Perens, who was recently hired by HP. Our Take: Even if Linux never make it to the desktop market and be able to beat Microsoft's OS offerings (Linux covers about 1% of the desktop market surveys report), it sure can have lots of usages in the embedded market, where some say that "this is where the real money is."

From the Press Release: "Intel Corp today announced version 5.0 of the Intel C++ Compiler for Linux and the Intel Fortran Compiler for Linux. The compilers are specifically designed to help developers fully utilize the architectural innovations in the Intel Itanium and Pentium 4 processors, allowing for easy access to all of the performance features of Intel's latest processors." Our Take: The big news is not just to dryily report this release for Linux. The real news here is that Linux can now have an incredibly good compiler. Sharing a house with 4 ex-Be engineers in the past taught me at least one thing: the Intel compilers are many times faster (in generated executable code quality and compilation speed) than GCC 3.X and even VC++. While GCC is free and Intel's Proton costs $399, still, for professional use or for apps where execution speed matters (games or scientific software for example), Proton and VTune seems like the clear choice.