OS News Archive

En weer een week voorbij, dus weer tijd voor een weekoverzicht. This week saw some interesting developments, mostly around Conficker and GNOME, but we also had some browser news, Shuttleworth on Windows 7, and more details on the Palm Pre. This week's My Take is about Firefly.

The past week ranks pretty high on the uninteresting weeks list, with few things of note happening in the tech industry. Still, we learned when the release candidate for Windows 7 will be arriving, the Ubuntu 9.04 beta arrived, the RIAA got a smiling nod of approval from the Obama administration, and, well, that's about it. This week's My Take is about The Cardigans.

And yet another week passes. This week has been characterised by lots of new about browsers, from Chrome to Safari to Internet Explorer. Apple published information on the third revision of the iPhone operating system, IBM wants to buy Sun, and GNOME released a new version. This week's My Take is about The Streets.

Recently we've had a couple of articles and discussions on OSNews about browser statistics. Every now and then someone in the comments will ask what OSNews statitstics are like, and what browsers and operating systems our readers are running. Well, recently we installed a fancy new web site analytics program, Mint. I figured I might as well put it to good use by showing some of the browser and platform statistics we've gathered over the past month.

PolishLinux has an editorial on program installation on Linux systems, and even though it's a bit hard to wade through (the author's native language sure isn't English) it does make a number of very good points in favour of the way most Linux systems handle things. Still, as always in the discussion on program installation, it always feels a bit like listening to a discussion between a deaf and a blind man about whose condition is the easiest to live with.

Another week, another Week in Review, number 9 already. The past week won't go down in memory as a memorable one, but despite that, we did get lots of new Macs, an LGPL'd Qt 4.5, a sort-of optional Internet Explorer, and some more details on Snow Leopard - among other things, of course. This week's my take is about a sport most countries aren't really interested in - long-track speed skating.

Yet another week has passed, so it's time for another week in review - the 8th instalment already. This week was marked by the realisation that Qemu and DOSBox on mobile phones are cool, that Apple is working hard on Safari 4, and that Microsoft appears to be more concerned about Linux than about Apple. And, of course, Haiku got Flash. This week's My Take is about zombies.

The Genode project has released the version 9.02 of their Genode OS Framework. This open-source framework allows for creating custom microkernel-based operating systems for executing dynamic application workload while maintaining high security. In addition to the already supported base platforms 32-bit Linux and L4/Fiasco, this release introduces support for the L4ka::Pistachio microkernel. This high-performance kernel implements the latest L4 kernel API and supports a number of advanced features such as multi-processor support and virtualization support. By bringing Genode to this base platform, we will be able to leverage these features in the future. On the functional side, the new release brings two major additions, a basic networking facility and the native port of the Qt4 application framework. Read on about the new features described in the release notes, and download the release 9.02 of the Genode OS Framework.

It was a fun week for OSNews, with many interesting debates on polarising subjects such as the global menubar in GNOME, Chrome using Gtk+ on Linux, and Cuba moving to Linux. We also took a look at Haiku, talked to Nicki Clyne and the CEO of Lunascape, and reported on a few releases of small operating systems. This week's My Take is about the economic crisis.

A new version of the experimental HelenOS operating system has been released. Version 0.4.0 features a simple user command line interface, FAT file system support, application loader and tracer, improved hardware support for ia64, ppc32 and sparc64, and many other improvements over the previous release. Get it from their download page.

There are many contenders to the desktop crown, and a relative newcomer in that area is Whitix, an operating system which, despite what the name suggests, is not based on Linux. It comes with a fully pre-emptive multitasking kernel as well as ports of GCC, Python, and Mono. A bugfix release has just been posted on the website.

The center of gravity is shifting away from the traditional, massive operating systems of the past, as even the major OSes are slimming their footprint to make code bases easier to manage and secure, and to increase the variety of devices on which they can run, InfoWorld reports. Microsoft, for one, is cutting down the number of services that run at boot to ensure Windows 7 will run across a spectrum of hardware. Linux distros such as Ubuntu are stripping out functionality, including MySQL, CUPS, and LDAP, to cut footprints in half. And Apple appears headed for a slimmed-down OS X that will enable future iPhones or tablet devices to run the same OS as the Mac. Though these developments don't necessarily mean that the browser will supplant the OS, they do show that OS vendors realize they must adapt as virtualization, cloud computing, netbooks, and power concerns drive business users toward smaller, less costly, more efficient operating environments.

Creating a new operating system isn't an easy task. Even if you have dozens, hundreds of people, it may still take years. And even if you do get some code out there, chances are no one will really give a flying monkey butt, and your hard work will wither away in irrelevance. You really need something unique in order to stand out and be noticed, and Dmitry Zavalishin claims he has that something: his Phantom OS never dies.

The team behind KolibriOS has released a new version, KolibriOS 0.7.5.0. This operating system is written entirely in assembly language and fits on a single floppy disk. Sadly, there is no information available on what exactly has changed between this version and the last one, so all I can do is point you towards the downloads section.