IanOS is an experimental 64-bit operating system written from scratch as a learning experience. The source code is available online and the creator of the OS has made some detailed documentation available to go with the source code. This is an excellent resource for anyone who wants to venture into writing a 64-bit OS. The author makes his intention about this OS clear "I never had any intention of producing a true OS. There are plenty of those about and it would be a very foolish, or vain, person who thought that they could compete with the likes of FreeBSD and Linux. But my interest in computers isn't practical; I just find programming them, particularly at this level, to be a supremely satisfying intellectual pursuit".

A very, very long time ago I personally advocated the inclusion of a certain feature into GNOME. We set up a poll at OSNews, which resulted in a very, very resounding "yes!" from the OSNews community - many of which are GNOME users. The feature in question was the global application menubar, which allowed the GNOME desktop to have a menu bar atop the screen similar to that of Mac OS X. The poll is long gone, the debate thread in the Bugzilla has died out, and no decision has yet been made. I wanted to know where this feature stands, and how much the developers have improved it, and I was in for a surprise.

The iPhone, Apple's current cash cow and best selling cellular phone in the United States, is a completely closed phone in that only applications from the App Store can be installed on the phone. However, by jailbreaking the iPhone you can install applications from whatever source you want, which might be desirable if an application you want isn't allowed into the App Store by Apple. The Cupertino company has never had an official stance on jailbeaking, but this has now changed: according to them, it's a breach of copyright.

A common response when someone first hears about containers is "How do I create a secure container?" This article answers that question by showing you how to use Linux Security Modules (LSM) to improve the security of containers. In particular, it shows you how to specify a security goal and meet it with both the Smack and SELinux security modules.

There's a new essay called "Optimizing Code for Speed" available on Shlomi Fish's site. It covers the motivation, methods and terminology of optimizing code, and provides many links and examples to illustrate this important subject.

Following in the footsteps of the likes of Apple and Sony, Microsoft has announced via a press release that it is going to launch a chain of Microsoft-owned and operated retail stores. From the press release it becomes clear that the retail stores are not so much about making huge profits, but more about learning from customers what they want and to spread the Microsoft brand.

What a lovely holiday to release the latest and greatest creation brought to us by yours truly, Debian. February 14th marks Debian GNU/Linux 5.0's supposed release into the wilds of the world, nearly two years after 'etch,' lenny's predecessor. The date is set nearly in stone unless something very serious goes wrong in the final days of development or if one of the needed servers for download kicks the bucket at the wrong moment. Read on for the scoop on the most prominent of features.

It's not as if nVidia really needs Microsoft's stamp of approval to go ahead and sell their upcoming Ion-based PCs as people would certainly buy them anyway, but it certainly helps for us to know that they are tested to be certified for Windows Vista. Of course, we can't exactly trust just because a computer is "certified" for Windows Vista that it'll be a pleasant experience after previous events involving the system's specifications. However, the small form factor Ion-based machines showcased in the videos on Hot Hardware are rather impressive (if you're willing to wait through an annoying 'online scuba lessons' ad), playing 1080p HD video fullscreen without any dropframes, running Vista without hiccups, and even playing 3D games with equivalence to a mid-tower, mid-range quality. These little buggers are expected to roll out Summer of 2009, the cheapest of the lot reaching a delicious low of $299.

This article discusses the architecture and the mechanism behind a generic NFS mounter, a utility that will undoubtedly help the NFS clients by providing easier, one-point access to the files on the NFS server and by offering a more consolidated view of the NFS space. See how to automatically consolidate many different NFS versions into a uniform mount.

Lunascape5 Genesis is a feature rich browser that brings the best of everything in the browser world. It is the world's first triple engine browser that gives users the freedom to choose between Trident (IE engine), Gecko or Webkit. The beta version of the browser was released today and it is available for download from their official website. In addition to offering three different rendering engines, the company blog announced that Lunascape5 has emerged as a winner in the SunSpider Javascript benchmark outperforming IE8 (alpha), FF3.1 (beta), Google Chrome and Opera 10 (alpha). We also have a short interview with the CEO of Lunascape Inc, Mr. Hidekazu Kondo.

Novell's Miguel de Icaza has announced on his blog that Moonlight has hit the 1.0 milestone. Moonlight is the open source implementation of Microsoft's Silverlight technology, a framework similar to Adobe's Flash. Silverlight has already been used during the Olympic Games and President Obama's inauguration for streaming those events across the internet.

Cuba recently launched its own answer to Windows this week, or, in the bigger picture, what the Cubans are calling "US Hegemony." Nova, the new open source OS being offered by the Cuban government, is being made to boot out US-based Microsoft products.

The Palm Pre caused a bit of a stir when it was first announced, but after that, few details have made their way onto the web about the device that needs to more or less save Palm. At the Thomas Wiesel Technology and Telecom Conference in San Francisco, Palm CEO Ed Colligan gave out some more details on the Pre, while also downplaying the possibility of a legal spat between Apple and Palm.

Even though it's not new to OSNews, it is a rare occurrence: an interview with an actress. Today, we have an interview with Nicki Clyne, the Canadian-born actress who portrays Cally Henderson in the popular and critically-acclaimed TV series "Battlestar Galactica". She talks about what it's like to be part of the BSG family, her role as Cally, but also about things that have absolutely nothing to do with the series. Be warned that this interview contains spoilers; you can skip straight to page 3 to avoid them.