OS News Archive

"C# has been a language with a mixed history but precise goals. Although the C# language definition is for some time an ISO standard, only a part of the Base Class Library, which contains the fundamental functions that are used by all C# programs (IO, User Interface, Web services, etc) is also standardized. Parts of the BCL have been patented by Microsoft, but that has not deterred developers from attempts at implementing the components that are standardized, in various forms (Mono and affiliated projects). What happens when you go beyond that? What happens when outside the language, you start to implement not a mere application platform, but an entire operating system around it? Brace yourselves, because there is not only Microsoft Research who has done this with Singularity, but at least two other projects doing the same; and they are doing this under opensource terms. A system based around a C# Kernel. In this article, we are looking at one of the two, Cosmos by asking Scott Balmos and Chad Hower about the project they are involved in."

OSNews has been reporting, since its start in 1997, on the world of operating systems, their applications, their hardware, and their people - both users and developers. OSNews has seen 3 major rewrites, various personnel changes, and numerous topics of discussion, some way beyond the original scope OSNews started out with over a decade ago. Today, we are announcing a major shift in what we do, with which we hope to re-ignite OSNews - yes, we are shifting our focus. Read on for the details.

"SWsoft today announced the release of the beta version of Parallels Server, the company's hypervisor-powered server virtualization solution. Parallels Server is the first virtualization solution designed to run on Apple hardware, including Mac Pros and Xserves, and the first to run multiple copies of Mac OS X Server v10.5 Leopard on a single Apple computer. Parallels Server also runs on any x86 or 64-bit Windows or Linux-based server."

"MenuetOS is an operating system in development for the PC written entirely in 32/64 bit assembly language, and released under the License. It supports 32/64 bit x86 assembly programming for smaller, faster and less resource hungry applications. Menuet has no roots within UNIX or the POSIX standards, nor is it based on any particular operating system. The design goal has been to remove the extra layers between different parts of an OS, which normally complicate programming and create bugs." Version 0.76 of the 64bit version has just been released.

Every now and then, I find OSNews a tad bit too serious. We get carried away over quite a few things - insignificant things mostly, in the grand scheme of things. For a while now, I've been trying to find a way to relieve the tension on OSNews, and I think I may have found a way how. The only problem is - you need to like it too. Read on.

From the OSNews team, we'd like to wish everyone a merry Christmas (it's Christmas Eve in my country already), or a happy whatever other holiday you might celebrate; it so happens that Hanukkah and Eid ul-Adha have already passed, so my best wishes are in retrospect if you practice the Jewish or Muslim religion. These matters are always like tight-rope walking on the internet, but I'd like to say one thing: please, emphasize not our differences, but celebrate our similarities. And yes, even if you are not religious (like myself), I'd still like to wish you very happy holidays. Enjoy the food, but realise this.

The Contiki team has just released version 2.1 of the open source Contiki operating system for low-power, wireless, memory-constrained networked embedded devices that typically have as little a few kilobytes of RAM. The major highlight of this release is a unique energy profiling mechanism that measures where energy is spent, and how much energy that is consumed. This is extremely important when optimizing for low-power operation: to know where to optimize, one must first know where energy is spent. Other additions to the 2.1 release are low-power radio protocols that increase system lifetime from days to years, and improved data collection routing protocols.

The latest LUG Radio podcast is on virtulaization: "if you're wondering what the difference between Xen and VMWare and QEmu actually is, or you like the idea of having one server which is actually thirty servers, then this is the section for you!"

"Bill Buzbee offered the first public demonstration of the Minix OS - a cousin of Linux - running on his homebrew minicomputer, today at the Vintage Computer Festival in Mountain View, Calif. Magic-1, built with 74-series TTL ICs using wire-wrap construction, implements a homebrew, 8086-like ISA."

HP announced the release of OpenVMS 8.3-1H1. "HP is pleased to announce the release of OpenVMS version 8.3-1H1 for Integrity servers, the 30th anniversary edition of the OpenVMS operating system! OpenVMS version 8.3-1H1 includes all the capabilities of its predecessor, and introduces new features and hardware support."

"ROX is one of the genuinely interesting file managers available for the major platforms - GNU/Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, and Windows (under Cygwin). As can be inferred from the manager’s website, ROX-Filer is a project aimed to move the best features of RISC OS onto Linux and Unix platforms. Its small footprint and configurability are its unquestionable hallmarks."

"MonaOS is a free operating system. It's new, small, simple, open source and well structured. So, MonaOS may be suitable for education of operating system and program at school." It's a microkernel-based operating system, MIT-licensed, and available for IA-32.

Visopsys version 0.69 was released today. Four months in the making, this is a maintenance release comprising the final round of tweaks and bug fixes to the 0.6x series of Visopsys, featuring lots of work on the USB subsystem including support for USB mice/keyboards and hubs, tuning of the FAT filesystem driver, usability fixes for various user programs, and loads of OS kernel and C library improvements and bug fixes. As always you can demo Visopsys as a live CD or run a scaled-down version from a floppy disk. Change log is here, and downloads are here.

MikeOS 1.0 has been released. It is an open source PC operating system, designed as a tutor for basic OS design and x86 assembly language. "MikeOS is a 16-bit operating system for x86 PCs, written in assembly language, which boots from a floppy disk or CD-ROM. It features a text-based dialog-driven user interface, a command-line, support for FAT12 (DOS) floppies and PC speaker sound. It can load external programs and has over 30 system calls. Basic DOS .COM program support is also included." This version includes a complete Handbook with a whole section on writing your own OS.