Emanuel Chanampa writes: "E/OS LX 0.2.2 pre is now available. Based on the linux kernel and Wine, the user gets a free Windows-compatible system, capable of running programs and some games."
VMWare 4.0 has been released and there is a demo version available to download. In other similar news, get to know QEMU, an x86 processor emulator. Its purpose is to run x86 Linux processes on non-x86 Linux architectures such as PowerPC or ARM. By using dynamic translation it achieves a reasonnable speed while being easy to port on new host CPUs. Its main goal is to be able to launch the Wine Windows API emulator on non-x86 CPUs.
The Fiasco Team is pleased to announce Fiasco version 1.0, the first official release of the Fiasco L4 microkernel developed at the University of Technology, Dresden.
Virtual PC 5.2 for Windows released recently and fixes a number of issues, but it will now only work on the NT/2k/XP/2003 Windows versions. In the meantime, next week, VMWare will begin shipping the 4.0 version of its desktop virtualization software, VMWare Workstation.
eCosCentric Limited working in conjunction with the eCos maintainers, today announced the release of eCos 2.0 Beta, the latest version of the eCos real-time operating system.
A thought-provoking ZDNet editorial talks about Intel's plans to bring the BIOS into the 21st century by making it more sophisticated and operating system-like. That will bring some welcome benefits to the PC world, but there are lurking dangers. The real birth of the PC platform was not IBM's invention of the PC or the release of the IBM PC Technical Reference Manual, but what rather Compaq's clean room rewrite of the PC BIOS. While IBM maintained proprietary control over the BIOS, it still had a stranglehold over the platform. Now, Intel wants to push through a new BIOS, and it's unlilkey that anyone will be able to pull off the clean room stunt again. Intel will own the PC platform going forward, even more than it already does.
Some users swear by Aqua interface of MacOS X, others proclaim the desktop-readiness of Linux, the polished presence of Windows XP, or expound upon the stately Solaris as the ultimate operating system. All of these users are wimps.
"When considering emulation, should companies count on a product like CodeWeavers to serve a limited number of applications, or should they choose software that requires them to buy licenses for Windows but can run more applications?" Read Zonker's article at NewsFactor.
Mike Janger writes: "What is Open Croquet? Alan Kay (one of the inventors of Smalltalk, one of the fathers of object oriented programming, conceiver of the laptop computer, inventor of much of the modern windowing GUI, etc.) is working on it. But what IS it? Have you guys looked into it?" I downloaded its 90 MB late last night. It's an 'academic' project featuring a futuristic OS 3D environment running through the Squeak environment on Windows or Mac. It requires a supported 3D accelerator (however, it didn't work with my Voodoo5 in hardware mode so it was painfully slow).
"Various analysts report and company insiders reckon that HP earns an estimated $400M USD per year in profit on the OpenVMS operating system, which is one of the most robust and disaster-tolerant OSes on the market. For example, it's used to build the Intel chips it hopefully will run on, some day. So why is it being given short shrift in favor of Windows, Linux and HP-UX and the mythical--and nearly impossible to actually implement--Consolidated Enterprise Unix?"Read the mini-article at TheInquirer.
"LynuxWorks today introduced LynxOS-178, a commercially available DO-178B level A certifiable (FAA standard), real-time operating system (RTOS) that meets the stringent standards for safety-critical systems. LynxOS-178 originated from a partnership between Rockwell Collins and LynuxWorks. Rockwell Collins made several enhancements to the original LynxOS product and created the Rockwell Collins' Virtual Machine Operating System (VMOS)." Read the rest of the press release here.
VMWare released a beta of their flagship application, VMWare 4.0 Build 4183. The new version includes support for new versions of Linux and Windows OSes, better VESA BIOS, ACPI and APIC support, better sound, new interface under Linux and more. In the meantime, the OpenOSX company released recently "WinTel", a re-packaged version of Bochs for MacOSX, with a new easy to use interface.
"Linux, Windows, Mac. All have their place, and before long that place will be in history books. The seeds of a new style of computing device have been sown, and as they grow they will inevitably lead to a world where the computer operating system as we know it today is as dead as the planetary transmission that drove the Model T Ford."Read the editorial at NewsForge, by Roblimo.
The version 0.73 of MenuetOS includes a tiny HTTP & Mp3 server, IRC client, real-time additions & demos. Also, SkyOS redesigned their driver handling, while Syllable is preparing an IDE driver.
We've received an anonymous report from Trumpet Software that they have a 64 bit (x86-64) version of their operating system PetrOS running in their lab. This kernel (which is fully 64 bit) can run 32 bit and 64 bit userland programs which conform the PetrOS ABI. The development team used the latest version of Bochs 2.0 which has recently been enhanced to emulate x86-64 architecture. The anonymous source hinted that a beta version of 64 bit PetrOS would be released some time in March 2003.
There's a cool little app called Konfabulator for Mac OS X that allows you to display, build, and modify little "widgets" for your desktop, like the weather, a clock, or the OSNews top stories, updated continuously! Screenshot here. Thanks to Adam Pearson for the source sample. Additionally, we added support for a truckload of mobile devices and we would need your help testing them.
