Archive

Realtime Chat with AmigaOS4 Developers

Guest post by Mike Bouma 2002-02-17 Amiga & AROS 10 Comments

Hans-Joerg Frieden, Thomas Frieden and Steffen Haeuser will be attending an #AmigaFun meeting today at 6PM (GMT) and will be answering questions regarding AmigaOS4.x. Also this Saturday at the Alt.WoA Show in the UK, Fleecy Moss (CTO, Amiga Inc) and Alan Redhouse (CEO, Eyetech Group) will hold a presentation regarding Amiga's future plans.

A Titanic Story – The History of the Itanium

Guest post by Nicholas Blachford 2002-02-10 Editorial 24 Comments

"This will end up being one of the world's worst investments, I'm afraid," - David House, former Intel chief of corporate strategy said in the early 1990s. I've been fasinated by microprocessors for years and have been following the Merced debacle since back in 1994 when HP and Intel announced they were getting together to make some amazing new technology.

English Video of the Amiga 2001 Show Available

Guest post by Mike Bouma 2002-02-10 Amiga & AROS 12 Comments

Virtual Dimension has finished translating this year's video coverage of the Amiga 2001 show. This annual show held in Cologne, is the highlight Amiga event among the dozens Amiga events being held annually all over the world. Highlights inlude an interview with Ben Hermans of Hyperion Entertainment about the development of AmigaOS4, an interview with Gerald Carda of bplan GmbH regarding their new PPC based PEGASOS motherboard and MorphOS; 'a lightweight PPC OS which is able to emulate 68k AmigaOS and software on PPC hardware in a similar way to how Amithlon works on x86 hardware' and finally it also includes a demonstration of AmigaOS XL powered systems. Amiga Inc and some AmigaDE partners were not present as they decided to attend a very small Canadian Amiga show, which was being held simultaniously to ensure some interest.

Sun in Love with Linux

Guest post by Mike Bouma 2002-02-09 Oracle and SUN 30 Comments

Sun's chief executive dressed up as Tux the penguin at an analysts meeting to prove his love for the GNU/Linux operating system. CEO Scott McNealy: "Sun will create its own version of Linux". Read the rest of the article at ZDNet UK.

i-Mode Soon to be Released in Europe

Guest post by Mike Bouma 2002-02-08 Hardware 5 Comments

NTT DoCoMo, by far the most successful Japanese wireless internet technology provider for cellphones and PDAs is set to launch its i-Mode service for cellphones in Europe. DoCoMo is also planning to roll out an internet enabled version, of the soon to be released US and European version of the Zaurus PDA.

Running AmigaOS on a PC: Review of AmigaOS XL

Guest post by Mike Bouma 2002-02-04 Amiga & AROS 50 Comments

Today, most Amiga users and developers own PCs next to their Amiga platform(s). The PC platform is currently the only "cheap" solution available to give access to modern day hardware. This is why many Amiga fans use it as a development platform or use PCs for applications which aren't available for the currently dated Amiga hardware platform . Of course, this is soon to change with advent of new PPC based AmigaOS 4.x compatible computers on the horizon, as well as a huge variety of AmigaDE enabled devices. But there is also another way: run AmigaOS on your PC. This article will review a new product, AmigaOS XL, which allows you to run the AmigaOS under any modern PC. Screen shots included.

Could Apple be the One to Bring AMD to Mainstream?

Guest post by Ken Crandall 2002-02-02 Apple 29 Comments

There is an interesting editorial in the Inquirer that paints a picture of what an Apple/AMD platform might mean for the ailing PC industry and what a MacOSX/Hammer combination could do to chip-away at the Microsoft/Intel "Wintel" hegemony. The article is pure speculation, the conclusions highly unlikely, but interesting nonetheless.

FreeBSD Week: Migrating from Linux to FreeBSD

Guest post by Nathan Mace 2002-01-31 FreeBSD 58 Comments

By now, anyone who is even remotely related to an IT-type position has heard about Linux, and has most likely used it, if only to see what all the hype is about. However, GNU/Linux is not the only "free" Unix type OS available. FreeBSD and its cousins, NetBSD and OpenBSD are all offshoots of BSD UNIX, a commercial UNIX also known as Berkeley Software Distribution. This article will help you learn more about FreeBSD, its differences from Linux, and it will ease a potential migration process.

FreeBSD Week: Introduction to FreeBSD

Guest post by We don't know anymore 2002-01-28 FreeBSD 22 Comments

The BSD family of operating systems date all the way back to the 1980s when AT&T owned the legal rights to the OS known generically as "Unix". During that time, the source code was licensed out to a few communities, each of which developed their own proprietary version. One of the versions was BSD-Unix, named after the University of Berkeley. Due to license agreements with AT&T when Berkley tried to release their BSD-Unix for free, AT&T sued. The outcome of that lawsuit was the creation of BSD/OS, which was basically AT&T/BSD Unix with the proprietary AT&T code removed. Later on the commercial BSD was branched into what is today FreeBSD. FreeBSD currently runs on the Intel and Alpha architectures, with ports to Arm, Itanium, PowerPC and Sparc on the works.

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.

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.

KernelTrap Interview with Alan Cox

Guest post by Jeremy Andrews 2002-01-15 Linux 3 Comments

KernelTrap has spoken with Linux guru Alan Cox. He is perhaps the second most influental Linux kernel hacker, next only to Linus. In this interview he talks about himself, his history with computers and Linux, working for Red Hat, Marcello and the 2.4 kernel, the DMCA, the future of Linux and much more.

Simply GNUstep Delivers UNIX, Simply

Guest post by Richard McKinley 2002-01-09 OpenStep, GNUstep 50 Comments

I'm a happy BeOS refugee this morning after having just tried Simply GNUstep. Simply GNUstep is a new Operating System that runs on the latest Linux kernel compiled with the latest GNU compiler. This new OS is way more (perhaps by being less) than just-another-Linux-distribution. It aims to be similar, extremely similar, to Apple's OS X. However, Simply GNUstep, unlike OS X, will run on your PC. In fact, you can be running it in under 15 minutes from this very moment.

New OS Would Link PCs, Gadgets

Guest post by Mike Bouma 2002-01-05 In the News 22 Comments

Sony, Toshiba and IBM have reached a basic agreement on jointly developing a new operating system to be released in 2005 for computers capable of high-speed Internet connections. The OS will allow personal computers and home appliances to exchange huge volumes of data, including the high-resolution graphics of a television screen, through a broadband connection.

Designing a Dream OS or GUI

Guest post by Desmond Ong 2002-01-01 Editorial 34 Comments

We hail those who attempt to create new operating systems from scratch. They are the leaders, the visionaries, the influencers of this great tech-age. There will always be only 2 areas of how an OS can be great - great marketing (which provides great third party support), and great design. Microsoft has always invested more in the former, and Apple in the latter. This article discusses some design aspects. Update: The article has been updated at several places.

BeOS Refugee Redux

Guest post by Scot Hacker 2001-12-31 In the News 19 Comments

The 'Tales of a BeOS Refugee' seems to have touched a nerve. In the two weeks since it was published at OSNews, I have received more than 500 email responses from users of Mac OS, BeOS, Linux, and Windows. Most of the responses were point-by-point rejoinders to facts and observations in the original piece, some of them highly detailed. Because it was impossible to respond to everyone individually, and because I thought many people would appreciate being able to read some of the comments and my reactions to them, I've assembled this addendum: Reactions to "Tales of a BeOS Refugee". The piece includes further clarifications and extrapolations on my ideas about the Creator code and application binding, plus dozens of miscellaneous notes and continued comparisons between BeOS and OS X. Many thanks to everyone who took the time to write. As always, comments are welcome, but no guarantees on responses.

News on AmigaDE

Guest post by Mike Bouma 2001-12-30 Amiga & AROS 32 Comments

Amiga's CEO has posted his latest executive update in which Bill writes about the progress being made. Also included are videos of AmigaDE software running binary identical on various devices. For instance the Compaq iPAQ and Sharp Collie. Also Luca Diana recently visited the Amiga's headquarters and made a little report with pictures for us to enjoy, included is a picture of a PDA by Casio running the AmigaDE.

Review: Windows eXPerience

Guest post by Sebastian Alvarez 2001-12-28 Windows 60 Comments

After years of crashes, BSODs (Blue Screen of Death), Stop errors and dozens of other problems, Microsoft finally has delivered what most of us would think impossible from them: a rock stable operating system. Granted, Windows 2000 was a decent try, but it had its share of system crashes, even with the neatest possible installation. It was more susceptible to bad written device drivers than Windows XP, and that shows. Of course, it’s not like you can throw anything at XP and it will stay unharmed, drivers are a very important component of an operating system, and if they’re buggy they make the whole system unstable, whatever OS it is.

Lindows Done Right

Guest post by Charles Iliya Krempeaux 2001-12-27 Linspire 44 Comments

You may or may not have heard about Lindows already. Lindows (the company) is a new Linux start-up, launched earlier this year by former MP3.com CEO Michael Robertson. The promise of Lindows (the Operating System) is to be an affordable alternative (Operating System) to Microsoft Windows. And, as an extra boon, this alternative to Windows (which promises to run all your Windows applications), will run Linux applications as well.

Kernel Hacker Interview: Dave Jones

Guest post by Jeremy Andrews 2001-12-27 Linux No Comments

Kerneltrap interviewed Dave Jones who currently lives in London, employed by SuSE as a Linux kernel hacker. In the past six months since he graduated from the University of Glamorgan he has gotten involved in an impressive range of kernel related projects, including Powertweak, x86info, OProfile and the Kernel Janitors Project. Additionally, he maintains a -dj patch for the 2.5 development kernel, helping to sync it with the stable 2.4 kernel as well as offering increased stability.