OS News Archive
JNode release 0.2
The JNode team is proud to announce the release of the version 0.2 of JNode. JNode.org is an open source java OS written fully in java (with a very small assembler nano-kernel).
China Announces Unix-compatible Server OS
Kylin, a server OS focusing on high performance, availability and security, that was funded by a Chinese government-sponsored R&D program, has been announced. Kylin has been organized in a hierarchy model, including the basic kernel layer which is similar to Mach, the system service layer which is similar to BSD and the desktop environment which is similar to Windows. It has been designed to comply with the UNIX standards and is compatible with Linux binaries. Unfortunately, the download page is currently nonfunctional.
DESKWORK – The Sci-fi in DOS
I just want to show you a great add-on for DOS, called DESKWORK. It's an operating system build upon DOS, just like older Windows versions were build upon DOS. It has been written by Konstantin Koll for several years now, who founded a small company called Mystic Bytes to produce DESKWORK.
GeekOS 0.3.0 Released
GeekOS is a tiny operating system kernel for x86 PCs. Its goal is to be simple enough for beginners to understand and modify, but realistic enough to be interesting and fun. Version 0.3.0 has been released. In addition to many critical bug fixes, there's now seamless support for compiling under Cygwin.
FreeRTOS – A Free RTOS for Small Embedded Real-Time Systems
FreeRTOS is a portable open source (GPL) real-time operating system for embedded devices. It offers a smaller and easier real-time processing alternative for applications where eCOS and embedded Linux (or Real Time Linux) won't fit, are not appropriate, or are not available. FreeRTOS runs on a bunch of architectures, both 8- and 16-bit. TCP/IP support is provided either from the uIP software TCP/IP stack (live demo server here) or by using the Wiznet hardware TCP/IP co-processor (live demo server here).
Visopsys 0.54 Released
Visopsys is an alternative operating system for PC compatible computers. This is a maintenance release, with numerous small improvements and bugfixes including some general back- porting from the 0.6 development branch. In addition, IDE disk-to-disk operations have been improved so that they can happen in parallel, the kernel hardware drivers have been given a new interrupt handing interface, and there is some improved efficiency in a performance-critical section of the multitasker.
FreeVMS 0.1.3 Available
A new FreeVMS release is available and a new bliss compiler is available in this release.
TextOS version 1.0b6 “Rock” released
Version 1.0b6 of TextOS, the floppy-based operating system/programming language built on top of FreeDOS, was released. Released a month after the previous release, it features various bug fixes.
Prex 0.1 Released
Prex, a portable real-time operating system for embedded systems, is a small, reliable and low power micro kernel designed specifically for the small memory footprint system. Prex 0.1 is the first public release, and includes kernel, syscall library, sample hello world application, and some technical documents.
XMK – eXtreme Minimal Kernel
XMK - eXtreme Minimal Kernel - is a preemptive multitasking real-time operating system for embedded microcontrollers. What makes XMK different from other RTOSes is that XMK is designed to be small first, then scaled up to larger platforms. The BSD-licensed XMK is designed to be highly configurable and comes with a choice TCP/IP stacks: the tiny uIP stack or the more powerful but larger lwIP stack. XMK is available for a number of embedded platforms.
The Spoon microkernel
Spoon is a hobby OS, a microkernel that's fairly complete. In order to test it, Durand John Miller also building an operating system on top of the kernel.
AireOS: 64bit Hobby OS
Portable, compact, and simple hobby Operating System for the 64bit age: AireOS.
Enhanced DR-DOS v7.01.07 has been released
The DR-DOS/OpenDOS Enhancement Project has released v7.01.07 of Enhanced DR-DOS, an Open Source OS based on DR-DOS 7.01 alias OpenDOS.
MenuetOS 0.78 Released
MenuetOS 0.78 is released. Changes: New Panel and Menu system, new options for Windows, automatic memory detection, .ICO support, and faster rendering, updated JPEGVIEW application; Displays jpeg image as backgound, new launcher application; Startup applications, PCNET32 Ethernet Driver, it now works with VMWare, TCP/IP bug fixes to TCP retransmissions, window resizing/moving.
Interview with Adam Dunkels
I have interviewed the author of the fascinating software Contiki OS, lwIP, uIP and protothreads, and asked him questions about the software itself, the way he develops on embedded platforms, as well as his interests in sensor networks and opensource.
Creaky Operating Systems Show Their Age
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.
Five Features Operating Systems Should Have
"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.
Editorial: The Boring State of Operating Systems Today
When I joined OSNews in 2001, I did it with a great excitment because of my love for... messing around with many operating systems in order to explore news ways of doing things. Back in the '80s and the '90s there were a lot of OS projects that would draw the attention of the computer users of the time. But in this decade, it seems that other than Windows, OSX, Linux and a very few other much smaller OSes, the scene is sterile. And it's only getting worse.