OS News Archive

A program can't ever really die, but it can get old. Very old. This is a paradox millions of computer users are living with. Almost four years after the release of Windows XP and Mac OS X, they boot their machines into more senior versions of Windows or the Mac OS.

"So what should the OS vendors be doing? I can think of five things that operating system developers should look at having part of the OS." Read Brad Wardell's editorial here.

Mockup Web site has been migrated to Mocka from Plone. Mocka is the Mockup Web Platform based on Silva. In other news the first beta of the Mockup project has been released today, as a live CD.

QEMU is a generic and open source processor emulator which achieves a good emulation speed by using dynamic translation. Its sporting a new module called the 'Accelerator' which can achieve near native speeds, and currently runs on Linux 2.4.x and 2.6.x kernels. This means you could theoretically run Windows (or another OS) on a Linux machine at near native speeds without buying a commercial emulator.

JNode.org has just released a new version of the Java OS JNode with a port to the AMD64 architecture. This version 0.1.10 also includes several improvements.

As mentioned last week, we have five fine books to give away. Two will go to existing OSNews members, two will go to readers, members or not, who participate in enlightened discourse on our comments and forums, and one will go to a new member who signed up between last week and tomorrow. Only a handful of people have signed up as new members, so if you sign up today, you have a great chance of winning a free book. Winners will be chosen this weekend, so you only have one more day to make yourself eligible.

USB2 support for RISC OS 5 on the Iyonix is here.

LismoreSystems released today their x86 emulator for PPC. Prices start at $69.

I've got some great books that I'll be giving away to OSNews members next week. Here's how it will work: Two books will go to OSNews members picked at random, including people who sign up for new memberships this week. One book will go to a new member who signs up between now and next friday. And two books will go to regular OSNews readers, members or not, picked at random from people who post an insightful, non-troll, non-flame, comment on an OSNews story between now and next friday. Read more to see the books and learn more about signing up.

I just finished a quick round of mobile rendering optimizations for our sister site, GnomeFiles.org (automatic detection of mobile browsers included, just as for OSNews). The mobile mobile support of the site is not as good as OSNews' is, but it should serve well all smartphone & PDA users, as irritating horizontal scrollbars are now a thing of the past (tip for Netfront/iMode users: use the 'smart fit' mode with GnomeFiles, tip for Openwave's browser: use a phone with v6.2.0 and above). Also, browsers that hit the site and we know that they can only do WAP, will be automatically redirected on GnomeFiles' WAP site. In other site news, our other sister site, OS Galaxy is expanding quickly. Join OS Galaxy if you are in the OS-related business and you happen to blog about it. Update: More optimizations, Gnomefiles should render respectably now even on 128x128 phone screens.

For those who haven't been following the EROS project, it has now migrated to the Coyotos project. EROS, the Extremely Reliable Operating System, was a project to create an operating system whose security relied on capabilities rather than the traditional Unix model of root or non-root.

Lismore Software Systems announces Guest PC a new x86 software emulator for Mac OS X. With Guest PC you can easily create and manage virtual x86 computer on your Mac. You can install Windows operating system and access the application created for Windows compatible computers. Guest PC 1.0 will be available in the beginning of February 2005.

There is something fundamentally wrong with the way we create software. Contrary to conventional wisdom, unreliability is not an essential characteristic of complex software programs. In this 4-page article, Louis Savain will propose a silver bullet solution to the software reliability and productivity crisis. The solution will require a radical change in the way we program our computers.

True to the internet fashion these days, we believe it's time for an operating system "planet" site. We are happy to announce OS Galaxy, a site fed by blog posts of popular OS-related industry figures, mostly developers. At this time we have subscribed only 10 bloggers, but we welcome developers to let us know if they wish to join in if they fit in one of our categories. OSNews members will automatically see OS Galaxy with the same ad-free, fast-loading format that they enjoy for OSNews.