OS News Archive

"Visopsys (VISual OPerating SYStem) is an alternative operating system for PC-compatible computers, developed almost exclusively by one person, Andy McLaughlin, since its inception in 1997. Andy is a 30-something programmer from Canada, who, via Boston and San Jose ended up in London, UK, where he spends much of his spare time developing Visopsys. We had the great fortune to catch up with Andy via email and ask him questions about Visopsys, why he started the project in the first place, and where is it going in the future."

"After nearly three years of work, I have a pleasure to announce that Qubes 1.0 has finally been released! I would like to thank all the developers who have worked on this project. Creating Qubes OS has been a great challenge, especially for such a small team as ours, but ultimately, I'm very glad with the final outcome - it really is a stable and reasonably secure desktop OS."

HelenOS 0.5.0 was released today. Some of the noteworthy new features of this major release are USB support, reimplemented networking stack with full TCP support and new network drivers (including Realtek RTL8139 and Intel E1000), read-only ext2 and ISO 9660 file system support, read-write MINIX FS support and several ported applications (GNU Binutils, PCC, MSIM). For a complete list of user-visible changes, see the release notes. The release files can be downloaded from the download page.

As the first images of the Mars Curiosity lander start pouring in, let's talk about what operating system it runs. As I found out via Hacker News, the project runs on VxWorks, a very popular embedded operating system used for truly mission critical tasks. I'd love to know just how much work has gone into making it bug-free - this isn't the kind of environment where you want code to fail.

I had the chance to attend the bike industry’s annual DealerCamp in my hometown of Park City, Utah last week. It’s an event where dealers and manufacturers can meet up, and everyone can try the latest bicycle technology on the roads and trails. While there, I took a particular interest in electric bicycles, which were represented by several vendors. Electric bicycle tech has made some major strides in the past few years, but still has a long way to go, in particular on the software side.

The article I'm about to link to, by Oliver Reichenstein, is pretty terrible, but it's a good way for me to bring up something I've been meaning to talk about. First, the article: "Apple has been working on its file system and with iOS it had almost killed the concept of folders - before reintroducing them with a peculiar restriction: only one level! With Mountain Lion it brings its one folder level logic to OSX. What could be the reason for such a restrictive measure?" So, where does this crusade against directory structures (not file systems, as the article aggravatingly keeps stating) come from?

"Whenever there is a conversation about the future of computing, is discussion inevitably turns to the notion of a 'File'. After all, most tablets and phones don't show the user anything that resembles a file, only Apps that contain their own content, tucked away inside their own opaque storage structure. This is wrong. Files are abstraction layers around content that are necessary for interoperability. Without the notion of a File or other similar shared content abstraction, the ability to use different applications with the same information grinds to a halt, which hampers innovation and user experience." Aside from the fact that a file manager for Android is just a click away, and aside from the fact that Android's share menu addresses many of these concerns, his point still stands: files are not an outdated, archaic concept. One of my biggest gripes with iOS is just how user-hostile the operating system it when it comes to getting stuff - whatever stuff - to and from the device.

"If you want to get involved in business," Sen. Orrin Hatch warned technology companies at a conference in 2000, "you should get involved in politics." Hatch was referring to the shortcomings of then-software king Microsoft, which he had spent most of the previous decade harassing from his perch as Judiciary Committee chairman. The message was clear: If you become successful, you must hire lobbyists, you must start a political action committee, and you must donate to politicians. Otherwise Washington will make your life very difficult.

OSNews' server had a RAID controller go kaput earlier today. It's fixed and we're back up. Thanks to Jon Jensen and the guys at Endpoint for taking care of us.

So, I've been sitting on this one for a few days now, since I decided to let the sensationalist headlines pass by before I took a stab at it. Developer Christina B. has started - and released code for - an amazingly intriguing project: implementing Darwin/BSD on top of the Linux kernel. Just to make this absolutely clear: it's not her intention to allow iOS applications to run on this new, hybrid system. Let me reiterate: it's not her intention to allow iOS applications to run on this new, hybrid system. This, however, does not make this project any less interesting.

"An operating system designed to power the smart cities of the future will be put through its paces in London. Living Plan IT has developed its Urban OS to provide a platform to connect services and citizens. With partners including Hitachi, Phillips and Greenwich council, it aims to use the Greenwich peninsula as a testbed for new technologies running on the system. The OS aims to connect key services such as water, transport, and energy." UrbanOS goes way over my head - it'd be great if someone could summarise how it works and what its key aspects are.

"Lua OS is - or aspires to become - two things: 1) a first-class modern Linux distribution for the desktop that you can use every day for everything you want to do with your computer - and something that is always offering enjoyment. 2) a next-generation, orthogonally persistent operating system for portable, manageable and secure scripting code. The Lua OS project is spearheaded by Stefan Reich who deserted from Google Inc. in 2008 in order to pursue much greater visions."

HD Guru writes that new HDTVs now have all the hardware (webcams, audio mics, Internet connectivity) and software (facial and speech recognition, etc) to make them ideal for data collection on those watching. Samsung, the article's focus, does not disclose what OS its new HDTVs use, making it hard to judge whether they are secure from hacking. A follow-up article prints Samsung's privacy statement along with evaluation by Gary Merson of HD Guru.

MINIX 3.2.0 stable is released. Major features include: Asynchronous, multithreaded virtual file system (VFS) server, Better reliability, Better virtualization support, and much more.