OS News Archive

Start-up XenSource has succeeded in booting Microsoft Windows on top of Xen software, an important milestone in its effort to commercialize the virtual machine.

"Based on an operating system called GEOS that was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Breadbox Ensemble is a small (a full installation weighs in at under 10 MB) and fast suite of incredibly useful programs. While small, Breadbox Ensemble has a graphical user interface that mimics the look and feel of the Windows desktop." Read more...

As part of our OSNews v3 project, we have a framework in place that would allow registered users to not only comment on existing stories and suggest stories for OSNews editors, but also post their own thoughts on their own personal pages and allow others to comment on them. Read more to learn about some ideas we've had, and to give your feedback and suggestions. Most of all, we'd like to know whether this is functionality you'd be interested in using.

EyeOS is a free, cross-platform personal content manager system based upon the style of a desktop operating system. The base package includes the whole operating system structure and ten apps: a calendar, file manager, text editor, internal messenger, browser and calculator. EyeOS's is thought to provide a complete, scalable and free (GPL) organization and work system. Everyone can port an existing PHP app to EyeOS and create a meta-package. You can test it online here.

For the "bleeding edge," the FreeDOS distribution GNU/DOS 2005 has had 15 software updates so far, including those dealing with speed and bug fixes, an improved menu system, a new screen saver, and a new package management system since its release last month to prepare for GNU/DOS 2006, which should be released by this winter. You can download these updates at the official GNU/DOS Web page. Meanwhile, the operating system/programming language TextOS has been updated to versions v1.0b9 and v2.0b8, which are both faster and include an updated version of the supplied editor/file viewer. Download both versions at the official TextOS Web page.

Visopsys is an alternative OS for PC-compatibles. Version 0.56 is a maintenance and bugfix release, with important fixes to eliminate potential boot problems, faulty EXT2/3 mounts, and problems with the detection of secondary hard disks. Important multitasker improvements related to process initialization have also been back-ported from the 0.6 development branch. Download page and changelog.

Have you ever gone on vacation and missed a day's news? Ever have a busy day and need to quickly catch up on what you missed? Well, your problems are solved with the new OSNews Digest. Read on for details. UPDATED

Today, after several weeks of testing, we are pleased to present OSNews version 3.0. This document will serve as the definitive guide to using the new site, detailing the new features and perks.

Lismore Software Systems announced today the release and immediate availability of an updated version of Guest PC 1.5. Guest PC is an x86 emulator for the Mac.

MenuetOS 64's first release is available for download, to AMD64 and Intel EMT64 users. It was released on the 23rd of June, but appears to have only been known to viewers of the MenuetOS Forum.MenuetOS 64 is free to use provided you agree to the license.

GNU/DOS version 2005 was released today. GNU/DOS is a FreeDOS distribution for desktops which includes some FreeDOS utilities, much of the DJGPP suite including many GNU utilities, vim, Arachne, and OpenGEM. All code used in GNU/DOS is open-source or public domain with source. ISO images are currently available, and there are plans to produce commercial CDs very soon. Installation is currently difficult due to the lack of an open-source CD-ROM driver. For more information, go here.

In August, XenSource will release Xen 3.0, software for running multiple operating systems on a single server. The Register's Ashlee Vance writes about big companies helping to make Xen a strong competitor with VMWare. New Xen features coming August and soon include better SMP support; x86 64-bit, Itanic, Power, and Intel VT CPU support; and Solaris and Windows support.

Guest PC, as described by Lismore Software Systems, Ltd., is "another computer inside your Mac". While in simplicity this is true, Guest PC offers Mac users far more. Guest PC has received a few bad reviews along the way, however, version 1.4 makes up for many of the previous versions shortcomings. This review will discuss the features and highlight some of the improvements found in Guest PC 1.4.

Desert Spring-Time (DST) is an OS based on the OCaml runtime+native code compiler. Their goal is to build a robust system through extensive use of OCaml language features, such as static type checking. Currently, this is only a prototype, and is best tested with qemu. More information can be found here.