Monthly Archive:: May 2002

Cosmoe Developer Release 0.5 Available

Submitted by Thomas Weibel 2002-05-31 Linux 35 Comments

Bill Hayden, the initiator of the Cosmoe project has released a developer version. Bill is looking for feedback, bug reports and even code contributions. You will need a 2.4.x Linux kernel, RPM and a framebuffer graphics driver loaded through LILO. At this point, Cosmoe should only run via the console, as root. A mirror and an additional screenshot can be found here. Recently, OSNews featured an interview with Bill.

UnitedLinux won’t Tip Red Hat

Eugenia Loli 2002-05-31 Linux 6 Comments

"A move by four sellers of Linux to unite behind a single version of the operating system might help those allies--and boost Linux's popularity--but it isn't likely to dent the dominance of the top dog, Red Hat." Read the article at ZDNews. Update: Interesting interview with Caldera's CEO, about UnitedLinux.

Sun to Reprieve Solaris 9 for Intel?

Eugenia Loli 2002-05-30 Solaris 13 Comments

"Solaris 9 for Intel could be poised to ship after all, Register spies at Sun suggest. The official line is currently that Sun is shipping Solaris 9 for Sparc, but that "Sun is deferring the productization and release of the Solaris 9 OE for Intel IA-32." In English this means that Sun has (probably) more or less finished it but is hesitating as to whether or not to ship it, while in ITspeak this sort of phrasing generally means that the product is headed for a lingering death in the netherworld." The story is at TheRegister.

Introducing JTMOS

Submitted by Charles Goodwin 2002-05-30 OS News 41 Comments

Check out this new operating system, called JTMOS. Currently under heavy development, however, it already features a GUI.

The m-o-o-t Secure Operating System Project

Guest post by Ian Smith 2002-05-30 OS News 21 Comments

"A group of self-proclaimed civil libertarians have launched an effort to create an OS and a set of applications that prevent computer eavesdropping and data collection, even by government agencies. The new open-source OS, dubbed "M-o-o-t," will ship in the form of a single CD_ROM that you can boot on popular PC hardware platforms. The CD-ROM will contain the OS and a set of applications that includes an email client, word processor, spreadsheet program, graphics program, and other unspecified software." Read the news at WinInformant.

Windows 2000 SP3 Nears, Adds Antitrust Tweaks

Submitted by ::JustBe:: 2002-05-29 Windows 26 Comments

"After a long break between releases, Microsoft on Tuesday issued the Windows 2000 SP3 Release Candidate, marked build 3.140. The long awaited update weighs in at 17MB and 30MB for Professional and Server versions of the operating system, respectively." Read the report at BetaNews.

Linux Vendors to Standardize on Single Distribution

Submitted by Sandro Barbieri 2002-05-29 Linux 42 Comments

"A number of Linux vendors will announce on Thursday that they have agreed to standardize on a single Linux distribution to try to take on Red Hat Inc.'s dominance in the industry. A media advisory issued on Tuesday said executives from Caldera, Conectiva, SuSE and Turbolinux on Thursday will make 'a major announcement that will change the shape of Linux worldwide.'" Read more at eWeek.

Hurd: GNU Mach 1.3

Eugenia Loli 2002-05-29 OS News 10 Comments

KernelTrap reports: "Roland McGrath recently announced version 1.3 of the GNU Mach kernel, offering several bug fixes. He also noted, "We are no longer actively developing version 1.x of GNU Mach. We plan to make only necessary bug fixes or trivial enhancements in the 1.x line, and make further 1.x releases only as necessary for those purposes." A new 2.x version of GNU Mach is under development, utilizing the University of Utah's OSKit."

Apple ‘iBrowser’ Insurgency Denied by AOL Techs

Eugenia Loli 2002-05-28 Apple 81 Comments

"The most tantalising net rumour burning up the wires this week is the one about the Apple iBrowser. Heard it? It goes like this. Apple co-opts the Mozilla code base for a skunkworks native OS X browser that's both super fast and grannie-friendly. A Galeon for OS X. "iBrowser" thus completes the set of consumer software apps gradually introduced with iTunes, iPhoto and iMovie, which are being advertised under the slogan 'everything's easier on a Mac'." Read the article at TheRegister. In other browser news, Opera 6.03 for Windows and Opera 6.01 for Linux were released today.

Linux Development Kernel Gets Bluetooth

Eugenia Loli 2002-05-28 Linux 9 Comments

"Support for Bluetooth has been added to the Linux development kernel, a step toward native Bluetooth support in upcoming releases of the Linux operating system." Read the report at ZDNews.

Rediscovering Object Orientation

Guest post by Nicholas Blachford 2002-05-28 General Development 15 Comments

"Does anyone really know what "object oriented" means? Does the phrase signify anything, or are the words just strung together because of an historical misnomer? One thing is clear. No one understands what the phrase "object oriented" means when they first hear it. While it does appear to be a juxtaposition of two ordinary words, its meaning does not jump out at you." Read it at CobolReport.

Editorial: Reviewing Linux Mandrake 8.x

Guest post by Charles Goodwin 2002-05-27 Mandriva, Mandrake, Lycoris 74 Comments

I keep reading review after review after review of the current crop of linux distributions. And everytime I'm annoyed at the end. I'm not annoyed by the style, or the comments, but more at the way they always end far too soon? One of the latest reviews of Lycoris is a prime example. What is this a review of? It's a review of the installation, and a quick insight into some of the packages found. To compare, it's like reviewing the opening cinematic sequence of game. You need to review the way the game plays as well! And people need to start reviewing how the distributions function over a period of time greater than a day or two. So here's my Mandrake 8.x experience.

The Commercial Feasibility of a Next-Generation User Interface

Submitted by Jared White 2002-05-27 Graphics 38 Comments

There's a new personal e-zine, The Idea Basket, that's debuting today with an editorial on the commercial feasibility of a next-generation user interface. The editorial talks about the state of current user interfaces, software such as Apple's iPhoto that is pushing the envelope of interface design, reasons why there has recently been such a lack of innovation and research in the field of interface design, and some ideas that both consumers and developers can employ to help bring computer software to the next level of usability.

Mac vs. PC: Which is Better for Digital Video Editing?

Submitted by Prognathous 2002-05-27 Rumors 99 Comments

DigitalVideoEditing.com features an article listing the 10 top reasons why someone would or should use Mac over the PC, or a PC instead of a Mac for Video Editing. Update: Another one here, submitted by CattBeMac.

Slackware 8.1 RC1 Now Available

Eugenia Loli 2002-05-26 Slackware, Slax 10 Comments

"The first release candidate for Slackware 8.1 is now available on ftp.slackware.com (and hopefully some mirrors by now). Recent additions to -current include Mozilla-1.0rc3, KDE-3.0.1, and gcc-3.1. This is all leading up to what we're hoping will be the best Slackware release ever!" Changelog, mirrors.

Securing MySQL on FreeBSD

Submitted by Dan 2002-05-26 Databases 5 Comments

Jason Lam has submitted a step by step guide (PDF format) to securing MySQL on FreeBSD, which he recently wrote for FreeBSD 4.5, to fulfill his SANS GCUX certification. The original submission can be found at BSDForums.org.

Doom III In-game Footage

Eugenia Loli 2002-05-26 Games 12 Comments

XP-Erience.org carries the news about the release of an in-game footage of Doom III. The 37 MB video is in the DivX format (captured by a camera, so the quality is not great, but it is more than enough to show the impressive lighting effects in the game). Real screenshots can be found at Avault. ExtremeTech reported that the demo was running on a Pentium4 2.2 GHz, with an unreleased ATi graphics chip, codenamed R300. In other graphics news, Microsoft has just released the SDK of DirectX 9 Beta 1 to their beta testers.

Dual-Booting FreeBSD-STABLE and FreeBSD-Current

Eugenia Loli 2002-05-26 FreeBSD 16 Comments

"I'm one of those people who is sacrificing a small portion of their mental health to the greater good, by testing FreeBSD-current. Now that we're approaching FreeBSD 5.0, the FreeBSD Project needs people to test -current in a wide variety of installations and environments." Read the tutorial at OReilly.

Apple Aims to Boost Bandwidth with 1.5 GHz G4s

Eugenia Loli 2002-05-25 Apple 108 Comments

"Recent word from sources close to Motorola confirm that a significant speed bump will be timed for MacWorld Expo in July, raising current bus speeds, and seeing new 7470-based G4s raise frequencies to as high as 1.5Ghz. What of the G5? That's still on course for volume production early next year, in the form of what's codenamed the 7500. Public Motorola roadmaps describe this as a processor that conforms to the e500 Book E G5 spec, and it's been rated stable at 2.4GHz internally at Motorola. But to get a handle on this it's worth paying attention to the internals, as this indicates an important rethink in the Megahertz wars." Read the report at TheRegister.

Is Microsoft Losing the Console Game?

Eugenia Loli 2002-05-25 Games 47 Comments

"For the software publishing industry, video games are a numbers game. And for now, Microsoft is on the losing end. That's the upshot from the Electronics Entertainment Expo, the game industry's main trade show, where new games for Microsoft's Xbox have largely been limited to "me too" titles--games already appearing on other consoles. Microsoft has said it expects to have more than 200 games for the Xbox by the end of the year, but less than two dozen of those will be exclusive Xbox titles from third-party publishers." Read the story at ZDNews.

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