Slashdot Mirror

Eugenia writes: "So, you think that BeOS or AtheOS are niche Operating Systems? Well, you haven't seen anything yet. OSNews provides a list and short description of the most active and most promising Operating Systems written by individuals or small teams just for the fun of it or because they have a dream of how the perfect OS should be (is there such a thing though?). Some of them, like SkyOS for example, are even quite far down the line in terms of usability and advancements."

JigSaw writes "AtheOS 0.3.5 has just been released. Lots of changes to the core of the OS, but the most important upgrade is the port of the Konqueror web browser (the author had to wrap around X/KDE/QT calls in order to port it). AtheOS is a modern OS, written from scratch using OOP and C++, it features a 64-bit journaled/attributed filesystem and (surprise) it doesn't use X, but rather its native GUI system (screenshots). Changelog is here, while you can download it here (only around 23 MB for the basic installation). There is already a number of posix software ports and third party native software available."

JigSaw writes: "Is the world ready for yet another Operating System? Travis Geiselbrecht, an ex-BeOS kernel engineer, seems to think so. (He is actually the one who wrote the Linux ext2 filesystem add-on for BeOS). He recently put up on his web site his personal Operating System, NewOS, with full source code. The OS was written from scratch and it is very modern and powerful as you can see from its feature set. It currently runs on x86 and... Sega Dreamcast but he is planning ports for Alpha, SGI and Sun Blade machines in the near future."

JigSaw writes: "Is the world ready for yet another Operating System? Travis Geiselbrecht, an ex-BeOS kernel engineer, seems to think so. (He is actually the one who wrote the Linux ext2 filesystem add-on for BeOS). He recently put up on his web site his personal Operating System, NewOS, with full source code. The OS was written from scratch and it is very modern and powerful as you can see from its feature set. It currently runs on x86 and... Sega Dreamcast but he is planning ports for Alpha, SGI and Sun Blade machines in the near future."

JigSaw writes: "Is the world ready for yet another Operating System? Travis Geiselbrecht, an ex-BeOS kernel engineer, seems to think so. (He is actually the one who wrote the Linux ext2 filesystem add-on for BeOS). He recently put up on his web site his personal Operating System, NewOS, with full source code. The OS was written from scratch and it is very modern and powerful as you can see from its feature set. It currently runs on x86 and... Sega Dreamcast but he is planning ports for Alpha, SGI and Sun Blade machines in the near future."

JigSaw writes: "BeNews has a very interesting interview with Kurt Skauen, the AtheOS creator and almost its sole developer. In the interview, Kurt is discussing the design of his OS which features a (nearly) micro-kernel, memory protection, 'true' multitasking, real C++ OOP design from the ground-up and all the rest of these buzzwords. AtheOS uses its own GUI, it does not rely on X or KDE libs, so porting Konqueror to his OS was a bit of a challenge."

JigSaw writes: "BeNews has a very interesting interview with Kurt Skauen, the AtheOS creator and almost its sole developer. In the interview, Kurt is discussing the design of his OS which features a (nearly) micro-kernel, memory protection, 'true' multitasking, real C++ OOP design from the ground-up and all the rest of these buzzwords. AtheOS uses its own GUI, it does not rely on X or KDE libs, so porting Konqueror to his OS was a bit of a challenge."

Mike Bouma writes "Since the QNX RtP will be free for personal use this late-september, this BeNews preview will see how QNX RtP compares to BeOS and to free Linux systems. QSSL is a member of the Phoenix Platform Consortium which goal is to produce an Amiga-like successor OS. QNXStart.com will be a starting point for the QNX RtP community and is first in a series of Phoenix partner websites."

BigZaphod writes: "BeNews has a story up that compares GLQuake and Quake2(GL) on BeOS R5 to Windows and Linux (Corel). They compare stats using a Voodoo2, Voodoo3, and a Matrox G200. BeOS wins almost every round -- sometimes by huge margins." Update: 06/19 09:06 by CT : several people pointed out that they did the tests under XF86 3.3 which of course is not an even remotely fast 3D platform. Restesting at the very least under XF86 4 w/ DRI would be necessary to get a fair comparison.

MrChris2 writes "Found this over on benews, it seems that Be have decided that Microsoft dominate the desktop market too throughly, and have decided to withdraw from the field. There will be several more updates to the BeOS, but eventaully they will fold it into an Internet Appliance only OS." I called Be Europe this morning to confirm this, and it's just not true. I spoke to Jean Calmon at Be, who feels that the interview with Lamar Potts was taken a little out of context. Jean informed me that while a large amount of the engineering firepower at Be is being directed at BeIA and the 'internet appliance' angle, there are no plans to stop supporting or updating the BeOS. Gosh, this sounds like NeXT, doesn't it?

Bruce Perens writes "Be is violating the GPL on my software. While it's something they can easily fix, it's a good example of why people need to keep track of where the software they are using came from, and what license is applied to it. We've got the full story over on Technocrat.net." Updated 23:15GMT by timothy: Thanks to reader Eugenia Loli, who wrote: "Andrew Kimpton from Be, was on the phone with Bruce Perens earlier, and Be is clearing up the issue once and for good! Please read the important update."

Bruce Perens writes "Be is violating the GPL on my software. While it's something they can easily fix, it's a good example of why people need to keep track of where the software they are using came from, and what license is applied to it. We've got the full story over on Technocrat.net." Updated 23:15GMT by timothy: Thanks to reader Eugenia Loli, who wrote: "Andrew Kimpton from Be, was on the phone with Bruce Perens earlier, and Be is clearing up the issue once and for good! Please read the important update."

duder writes "Well, it appears that Macromedia is going to open source their Flash player. There is a article at benews which contains an purported e-mail from Macromedia's Flash Player Manager. " From what the e-mail says they will be "releasing the Flash Player Source Code SDK & Flash File Format (SWF) SDK, in mid January."Update: 01/07 02:39 by H :A very big thank you to David Michie who helped bring me up to speed-looks like SWF has been open for quite some time, and Macromedia had announced the opening of the source back in May. Check out OpenSWF.org for more information.

duder writes "Well, it appears that Macromedia is going to open source their Flash player. There is a article at benews which contains an purported e-mail from Macromedia's Flash Player Manager. " From what the e-mail says they will be "releasing the Flash Player Source Code SDK & Flash File Format (SWF) SDK, in mid January."Update: 01/07 02:39 by H :A very big thank you to David Michie who helped bring me up to speed-looks like SWF has been open for quite some time, and Macromedia had announced the opening of the source back in May. Check out OpenSWF.org for more information.

Adrian Ziemkowski from Benews.com wrote in to plug a story that the Be/Quaker subset of you will enjoy: QuakeII on BeOS. Screen shots and other comments. Glide accelerated on Voodoo2 cards. Free upgrade for current Q2 owners.

Adrian Ziemkowski from Benews.com wrote in to plug a story that the Be/Quaker subset of you will enjoy: QuakeII on BeOS. Screen shots and other comments. Glide accelerated on Voodoo2 cards. Free upgrade for current Q2 owners.

Adrian Ziemkowski sent us a link to a BeNews article where you can read an interview with Richard Hess (the man in charge of the BeZilla project). He discusses porting GTK and the Gimp to BeOs. Several interesting comments in this one. Its worth reading.

Adrian Ziemkowski sent us a link to a BeNews article where you can read an interview with Richard Hess (the man in charge of the BeZilla project). He discusses porting GTK and the Gimp to BeOs. Several interesting comments in this one. Its worth reading.

Ed Silva writes "It seems Microsoft knows something we don't about Gateway according to their press page: it seems that Hitachi isn't the only PC maker bundling BeOS... Funny, 'cause most of us Be geeks thought Dell would be the one... " The table is quite interesting showing Dell and Toshiba will be or are shipping Linux according to Microsoft, in line with previous reports. update Apparently, Microsoft did not get it right about Gateway and BeOS. Michael Alderete of Be Inc. posted both in the comment section and on BeNews that at this time the only OEM comitted to ship BeOS is Hitachi. Thanks to Elwood. Interestingly... Microsoft seems to have removed the Gateway entry from the table. Hmm, do not seem to have changed the date though.