Slashdot Mirror
AtheOS
garethwi writes "A new OS has been released, called AtheOS. It has been designed from the ground up for Intel architecture, and already has a lot of software for it. The screenshots aren't too bad either. " Quite a lot of people have been submitting this over the last few days - what does everyone think about it?
You installed QuickTime. It took over your system. It installed itself as the handler for all kinds of media without asking. Oh, it'll even pop up a nag screen now and then. Oh and it installs itself in C:\Windows\system (last I checked, even if your system dir is something else) as hidden system files, and it has no uninstaller. Honestly, I've never seen a worse citizen in my life. I've seen viruses easier to remove.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Those screenshots are quite confusing because it looks quite a bit like Qt ported to the Amiga, but I can assure you that neither of the previous products/user interfaces are involved (except for inspiration of course).
Wackamundo there. I'm can view the screenshots with IE 5.01 (the one that comes with W2K).
Try reading at threshold 2 sometime. Only bash against it I've seen at that level before I got to your post was that it was Intel-only, and it was reasonably well-stated. Any trolling AC can get an account and post at threshold 1 in minutes.
And if you indeed were replying to one of the threshold 2 posts, I sincerely believe you need to get a sense of perspective and accept honest criticism for what it is. It's nothing compared to what scientific publications go through.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Why do all the screenshots say "Altos" instead of "Atheos"?
I didn't say uname -a would tell you the distro, but it would certainly tell you more than uname does.
Funny, I thought the key phrase there was UNIX-like, something that Win2K most definitely is NOT.
There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
No, I'm not ;) But I do think that, given the existence of the Mach microkernel, anyone writing a new OS today would be mad not to use it.
--
It's a
-- Danny Vermin
And as the curtain closes:
We'll meet again
Don't know where
Don't know when
But I know we'll meet again
Some sunny day
Keep smiling through
Just like you
Always do
Till the blue skies
Wipe the dark clouds away
So will you please say "Hello"
To the folks that I know
Tell them
I won't be long
They'll be happy to know
That as you saw me go
I was singing
This song
We'll meet again
Don't know where
Don't know when
But I know we'll meet again
Some sunny day
Your fan, WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
Thank you.
... would not get high marks from me.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
...seriously! i'd be stoked to write my own OS from the ground up...or better yet, barrow bits and pieces of various other OS's to build one that fits my needs and my computer's needs perfectly...then hand optimize it for my processor.
i say more OS's is better (not that its a bad idea to continue a combined effort on one OS)...more options is always better.
-james
The UI is interchangeable, but I wouldn't try porting something like enlightenment or Qt. The interface to the application server is entirely different from X, and someone else is already working on "pretier" UI replacement.
Hmm. You mean more like "I wrote a GUI based OS that everyone liked so much it the GUI replaced X"? I'd be flattered.
AtheOS looks like yet another C/C++-based, Windows-desktop-like operating system and GUI. Do we really need any more of those? Do we really need any more operating systems in C/C++ at all given that we already have dozens, with just about all permutations of the different GUI, API, extensibility, real-time, and kernel designs you can imagine?
Even if someone wants to "implement an operating system", it seems like there are a lot more useful and innovative directions to go into. There are a bunch of kernels that already take care of all the drivers and hardware interfaces, including Linux, *BSD, Fluke OS, Mach, etc. On top of those, people can build just about any OS they might want to. Build an open source Java-based OS, contribute to the Express SML-based OS, help create a standalone system based on the Linux kernel and CMU Lisp or Squeak, help create a free version of Plan 9, etc.
They did not and cannot remove it from the actual implementations of FreeBSD, NetBSD, etc.
Just one more reason to use FreeBSD instead of NetBSD (click to read the licenses) because FreeBSD got rid of the ad clause in its license.
Will I retire or break 10K?
These are the things we need to look for. Instead of continuing to expand Linux or BeOS or xOS, we need to work toward the universal OS.
Some of the posts, are too reactive to anything other than Linux. Instead we need to look at each new OS as an opportunity to determine what features are better in some than others.
Is it a better idea to split off X and create an independent display layer? Hard to argue with that. Is this a better GUI than GNOME or KDE? Time will tell, but anything of benefit should be looked at against the current mainstream and if it flies, integrate it.
Linux does not suffer from much bloat because of its age, we really need to ensure we do not create another does everything OS that needs a 1 ghz processor to run. That should mean leveraging the best in practices and functions from all the other OS (yes including MS)
It was already slashdoted b4 the first comment was posted...
I realized about 2ns after posting this how much flack I'd get for omitting the even more obvious choice. So, obligatorily, here goes:
Wouldn't it now?
:)
--
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
You know, there was a time when I would have laughed at anyone who suggested a Linux user would bash a new operating system just because it's a new operating system. Now I see that the depths of human hypocrisy extend even to the supposedly "Open-Sourced" Linux community.
It's sad really. Someone comes along and builds something new, and people start tearing it apart just because it's new. Why are so many people afraid of change? For all we know, this OS could eventually whip Linux's A** in more ways than we can count, and leave us all with better operating systems as a result.
Competition is good. It forces everyone to produce better software, unless you're a small minded, frightened little child who's afraid of someone who can out code them.
Diversity is good. If there are 10 different operating systems with their own rules and procedures, then a virus or crack that kills one will leave the others untouched.
Change is good. I've heard a little about the BE API being the easiest to program, and bringing that flexibility to Open Source is a Good Thing(tm)
I remember when I was in high school, a MAC user and I would get into endless debates over which was the better system: MAC or Microsoft. (Back then they were called IBM Compatibles and not WinTel architecture)
"When I became a man I put away childish things," and when I met Linux, I put away my debates of which OS was better than the other. I started focusing on learning which OS was better for what uses.
Novell is my choice for a file server, Windows is what I throw at Newbies, Linux is my primary OS at home, and I'll be using Windows for games until that Open Source DirectX implementation comes along. I keep BE 5.0 around for those times when I manage to hose both Windows and Linux.
I want to try this new OS. It may be good for something that the others aren't. It may not. Whatever the case is, it's small, petty and childish to complain about someone creating a new operating system. They can do whatever the heck they want, it's their computer.
Stop bashing things just because they are new. If everyone attached everything that was new we'd all be sitting in caves eating grass and berries, and I don't like grass all that much.
Matthew Miller,
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Agnostics are those that don't have the guts to admit there are no higher powers.
I'm always excited to see new OSes. Maybe this is another OS to add to my quad boot machine!
Perhaps it's a comment on OS "religion wars".
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
why can't the guy write it? does he need the bloody approval of slashdot to have a hobby?
PHP is the solution of choice for relaying mysql errors to web users.
AtheOS is designed and implemented completely as a unique, new, Operating system! In the beginning, it was meant as a clone of amiga, but that decision was later thrown out. Now the only purposeful resemblance to Amiga would be the GUI, as the GUI is left over from those days. However, even this is soon to change.
Where did this come from? Out of the blue like this, it's kind of a shock. Has anyone been able to download and try it out yet?
Is AtheOS POSIX compliant?
AtheOS is not ment to be a new UNIX, and I don't want AtheOS to be tied on hands and feets to fit within the boundaries of UNIX and POSIX. Nevertheless AtheOS does support large part's of the POSIX standard, and are therefor capable of running a wide range of the command line tools you normaly finds on a UNIX system. Some functionality is not there cause I have not have any need for it yet, or I have not had the time to implement it. Yet some other features are ommitted cause they are to incompatible with other features in AtheOS.
I also might mention that I do not have the POSIX standard, so most of it is implemented after linux/irix MAN pages :) Consequently not all the POSIX like function's are 100% conforming, but again they work well enough to make most utils I have attacked to compile.
Why does POSIX compiance matter?
Someone could write an OS which could read your mind and correctly predict your next action, have built in AI to be solve your personal problems, run on every architecture ever built, be completely scalable and reliable, and fit into 2k of RAM, and the first question out of everybody's mouth will be, "Duh...Is it POSIX compliant?"
Personally, POSIX compliance turns me off. Basically, POSIX is a euphemism for "Yet Another Unix Clone and the only applications which run on me are the same old boring Unix programs". You choose a new OS for new applications - if you want to run the same old POSIX crap, why not just use an existing POSIX platform?
Because this story was on kuro5hin.org before it came to Slashdot.
Thus, 'slashdotted' is not the appropriate term. 'kuro5hined' is the appopriate term.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Hmm...I'd offer my opinion if it weren't for the fact that all of us scrambling to click over to their site /.ed them. :)
Anyone familiar with this want to give a brief outline?
Single user today, yes. Multiple user soon, yes.
Work is for people who lack the imagination to play.
really think before you say something.
Maybe the guys at slashdot should use all their new server power to take all of the sites they link to and mirror them first. I'd really like to see that. I know I'm offtopic (so sue me) but it's a good idea. Woulnd't everyone else agree? I think it's kind of slashdot's responsability these days as they slashdot more and more sites to hell, sometimes causing tons of problems for the people who run those sites. One of these days, slashdot is going to get sued (or andover or whoever) and I am going to laugh.
............ no.
But what *IS* it with this idea that designing for a specific platform is anything but a short-sighted, ill-considered, idea?
You've surely got a point there. However, AtheOS seems to have a POSIX/Unix style API (at least the lower-level stuff). So applications are portable, even if the OS is not. It's one of the arguments Linus made back in the Minix vs Linux flamewars. I can't agree with it entirley (I like portability too), but there is, IMHO, some value to it.
If the GUI library were ported onto Xlib or something, developers would have few problems porting stuff to/from Unix. And keep in mind that even if a complete kernel rewrite were necessary to port to Alpha or PPC, applications should be totally portable. Consider Linux. Which would be harder to completely reimplement: the kernel and associated device drivers, or all of the applications living on top of it?
Right now the market is dominated by only 3 OSes (Windows, MacOS, and Linux), Windows taking up the vast majority. Anybody that wants to offer a new choice and give support for it should. Thing need to be varied if we are ever to break free of the strangle hold of relying on just ONE system.
-- From my Best Friend (Written to me over ICQ): "i was gonna go to a party...but i had to reinstall windows"
From Atheos screenshots page (http://www.atheos.cx/screenshots.php3)
More mirrored screenshots:
mutated.png and tabview.png
All screenshots as crappy jpegs
mutated.jpg, tabview.jpg, shot1.jpg, shot2.jpg, shot3.jpg and shot4.jpg
it's a big difference
.oO0Oo.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Anyway. If it did have a button, I thought they would have showen it at least once. And if they did have a new inivative way, I thought they would have mentioned it.
Alright, so it was funny when a friend came over, popped open his laptop, and we discovered that we were using the same background. But when I start seeing screenshots using my background, I get irritated.
If I wanted to be like everyone else, I'd run Windows.
Oh dear,
.oO0Oo.
bolting multi user on as a development goal is bound to be a losing strategy IMHO.
Unless the kernel was made that way and the front end has just not been implemented.
Just look at Windows multi user capabilities.
Truly awful model.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Since you're apparently speaking on behalf of BeOS...get your story straight. There are office apps (productivity or whatever the term is these days), graphics apps, and quite a large programming base (though not as large as linux obviously)...and btw, Be didn't give up on BeOS, they're continuing to support it as the development platform for BeIA as well as since they're essentially the same OS with small difference, support for beia IS support for BeOS...but I'm rambling and off topic so I'll shut up now. :)
Yes, Quicktime is a pain, but you can remove the png mime type from quicktime. Just open the Quicktime control panel, click the mime type button and scroll through the list until you get to the two png types. Then double click on the cross and close and reboot, (damn windows) and you got native png for Netscape and IE.
If everyone thought like you there would be no linux. I can think of some things windows has that linux doesn't.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Actually, "Atheos" in Greek *does* mean "atheist"... I dunno if it's on purpose or not though...
engineers never lie; we just approximate the truth.
Now, I've looked at the screenshots, heard the complaints about reinventing to wheel, and I've used BeOS (which this is claiming some similar design) and I have to ask, is there more to it than just an improved GUI?
Truth be known, I look forward for the day that I'll have a real OS (probably something unix derived) that has a polished and attractive look and a more attractive graphics API. (Which could be why Mac OS X is looking so appealing to me right now...) It might just be because I'm a media fan and appreciate a little visual stimulation, but these days, these processors/video cards have the processor power to deliver visual quality beyond what we're currently seeing.
Antialiased truetype fonts, alpha channel compositing, fast, clean, and virtually always double buffered: BeOS is a pretty good looking UI and (even better) it's graphics API is clean and simple! (I was able to write a decent application in about two hours thanks to the BeBook) It's the BeOS-like ui that catches my eye more than particular lower level os trait. Is there any reason why one could not just create/port the application server/gui to Linux? Are there in fact features that linux lacks that prevent such an X-killer to be written?
I'd be sad to loose all of my X apps, but with GTK+ and QT, it should be possible to someday replace our toolkit of choice and move on from X.
Coincidentally, I'm keeping my eye on the berlin project in the hopes that they'll bring everythign that I desire in an advanced display layer to linux.
[Posted from deep within the northen forests of North America, via TCP/IP tunneled over carrier pidgeon]
huh
.oO0Oo.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I think many people get scared when presented with something new.
.oO0Oo.
The mind set says that whichever OS I'm using right now is the best one because I like it and it's popular.
It seems whenever a piece of software is mentioned here that is similar to another piece of software plenty of people shout "what do we need that for, we've already got XXX why don't you work on that instead".
I think these people only see the world in terms of what they get out of it. If I had the time I think I would like to embark on the challenge of a full OS too because for me it's almost the pinnacle of pure programming. I respect anyone that's done it, whatever the results.
it's like saying "Hello World!" what did you write that for.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
yeah right.
.oO0Oo.
I like your new sig Chad
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
As far as I can tell, this is another Free OS. This is very good. The fact that they have both infrastructure and GUI, this has to be good news. Hopefully, they can optimize everything they want.
I see great potential in this.
maybe it's MMX or Screaming Sindy
.oO0Oo.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Thanks very much for the mirror!
stay out of the GPL kitchen
.oO0Oo.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
OK that was way melodramatic, and kind of missed the point. The previous poister was saying that it was bad because the author (Kurt?) was doing something that had *already been done many times before*. Of course I'm not sure many of us have had much time to take a look at AtheOS, so I'm sure there's *something* new and exciting in there, but at first glance it's just the same old.
Having new desktop OSes popping up all the time cancels out the "mature" requirement. If you want a mature desktop OS go to town with OS/2 or MacOS. Of course OS/2 is a moot point these days it does fill your requirement. With Linux many distros exist SOLEY for the purpose of making the user experience with Linux an easy one. Pop a SuSE, Corel, or Redhat CD into the drive and it'll walk you through installation and configuration. They all have system config programs that abstract the user from having to know a bunch of arcane scripting commands and config files.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
This is actually old news..it was Kuru5hin for quite a while I had the chance to look it over before the page got /.'ed to hell. It seems as if it's essentially one guy that's done most of the coding and he's written all of from the ground up sharing no code with anyone else. The GUI is in fact completely independent of X-Windows and while he does admit that his scheduler sucks overall it's pretty cool for a small-time alternative OS that the geeks can run to call themselves "reet". The hardware support is pretty strong as well...there are a lot of informative responses over at kuro5hin on http://www.kuro5hin.org/ ...this is pretty cool and that third partition on my harddrive was being begged to get filled by something....
Linux was initially designed solely for Intel. Linus made it perfectly clear that Linux was dependant on certain features of the i386 architecture, and would not work on anything else. Download an older (1.0) kernel and see it for yourself.
Before it was ported the first few times, Linux was hideously non-portable. The first few porting efforts made the core kernel itself more portable, by separating the i386-specific code from the cross-platform code, which in turn encouraged the next set of ports.
So if you want Atheos on [platform of choice], then do what the PowerPC / Sparc / Alpha / MIPS / 68k owners did when they wanted to run Linux:
Port it.
Charles Miller
--
The more I learn about the Internet, the more amazed I am that it works at all.
> This sounds like... Yes, it must be Linux a few years back! Do you remember the Linux interface "A few years back"... I think this OS has some new ideas, so let's see where it goes...
Thanks! Just because someone mentioned it above: the fonts do seem to be antialiased; open up the tabview one (which contains the font prefs), and zoom. Nice.
main(O){10<putchar(4^--O?77-(15&5128 >>4*O):10)&&main(2+O);}
I find it almost impossible to believe that someone in this day and age writes an OS specifically for one CPU. I mean, there's the Mach microkernel if you want to write an OS; you really don't need to do that lowest-of-low-level hacking any more.
--
It's a
-- Danny Vermin
Windows is written for only one type of CPU. :) (Of course, originally NT ran on several different types of processors, but they eventually locked themselves into Intel.)
while (1) malloc (1);
Thanks for the info!
.png? (the screenshots)
Now, can anyone tell me why my Netscape 4.72 on Red Hat 6.2 (upgraded from 6.1 upgraded from 6.0) won't display a
I get a pop-up window saying "/big/long/filename.png: Unknown or unsupported image type"
Anyone?
-geekd
You say that as if Cut & Paste are the sole province of MS Windows. You know, you can do that under half a dozen other OSes as well... including MacOS, BeOS, Linux, Solaris, *BSD, etc. etc. etc.... (In fact, it's easier on the X based systems as you don't need ANY keypresses on the keyboard. Left mouse button to highlight, middle mouse button to paste. You do have a three button mouse, right? ;-)
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
--
J Perry Fecteau, 5-time Mr. Internet
Ejercisio Perfecto: from Geek to GOD in WEEKS!
--
And Justice for None
I covered AtheOS on ANN two and a half weeks ago. Here is a direct link to the original article, 37 comments were added to it. The author, Kurt Skauen, actively participated in the discussion. It was predictable that Slashdot would bring his server and/or network connection down, since my site with about 2500 daily visitors already made him rip the network-cable off the server before it run out of memory.
Hmm, assimilate and conquer. Where oh where have I heard that before. But dont worry, its for a better user experience, and it enhances innovation.
Ill shut up now. :)
I noticed the Atheos site is a little slow, so I posted a mirror of the screenshots if anyone's interested. Here's the link:
http://atheos-mirror.tripod.com/
"Patience is a vitue, afforded those with nothing better to do." - I don't remember
"Patience is a virtue, afforded those with nothing better to do." - I don't remember
if I dual booted with the Jesux distro... I could have my very own holy war on my computer.
Heh. Well, one must realize that this AtheOS project appears to be in a fairly early stage of development. For example, hard disk access is done with BIOS code.
Claiming that because the first release is Pentium-only means that it is unportable is foolish, at best. Linux, and most (all?) of the free BSDs were also intitially geared toward intel platforms. Things have to start somewhere...
Besides, if you don't like the hardware support, change it around until you do, or organize others to do it for you. Else, find an P5+ box or a different hack of an operating system (there seems to be no shortage of either these days).
Kid-proof tablet..
Hmm..."The only really new and unique part is thier window manager... Which looks vaguely Afterstepish to me..."? OS X has NeXTStep/OpenStep as a direct ancestor. As Afterstep was made to look like NeXTStep, I would expect them to look similar. I wonder, since Afterstep is a NeXTStep wannabe, and since Apple bought NeXT, would that mean that Afterstep looks Appleish?
"It's too bad stupidity isn't painful." - A. S. LaVey
I'm going to install this OS and have some fun with it ... I install OS's just because I can ... and I like all Operating Systems because it's something new to try out.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
He said it would only run on a normal HD (MFM/RLL). He didn't have IDE on his system.
.sig: Now legally binding!
I agree. It's also interesting to see multiple paths being taken in OS design. Some might be processor specific, some not, some might be more modular, some less. Effectively we're enumerating many possible OS solutions; remember, when there are million monkeys all writing their own OS, some of those might be a true pearl! And maybe the design decisions UNIX-like system designers have done aren't the only right ones.
I'd like to see a component interface in AtheOS like COM/CORBA, so that you can use components from dynamically loadable libraries, other systems in network and local servers with minimum overhead. Make it fast, something like 100 - 10,000 requests per second when on network, 1,000 - 100,000 rps when on local server and 10,000 - 1 000,000+ rps when component is being used as a dll. And support for some exotic SANs (system area network) with a *fast* request marshalling system would be pretty sweet for some fancy clustering solutions. :)
Oh and please create it so I can just throw some component binary at it, I can find out the interfaces, methods and properties of modules easily and dynamically, without having any IDLs or such beforehand.
Some day AtheOS might be really stable, fast and enjoyable to use. Or maybe not. We'll see. Anyways I'm truly happy to see a newcomer in this field.
Disclaimer: My knowledge about component object systems is still fairly superficial, feel free to point out my errors... :)
The 'Root' icon is the one used by the BeOS to represent a BeBox; the BeOS supports all the software shown running in the screenshots; the name can be parsed as 'A the OS'.
I'm sure there must be some sort of main nav to use. But I would really liked to have seen it. After all, it's one of the most important part or the UI.
Are there any other more detailed screenshots around?
Also, who is this OS aimed for. If it's a new OS, and as he mentioned, it's difficult to port stuff to his OS. I can't see it being a replacement for windoze.
Still, only time will tell...
IANA computer engineer, so I was wondering how much of a performance hit this system will take on something like an ATHLON. I know the Athlon supports everything Intel does and all that, but since this was written from the ground up as an Intel architecture OS I wasn't sure what the effect will be since an AMD is an exact copy of the Intel. Just wondering.
IANAL, but I play one on
Who wouldn't copy BSD and/or linux components...when writing a new OS?
People who want to learn the process of OS design and implentation, also people who don't simply want to create another *BSD/Linux clone. Honestly, there are a lot of them out there (I know of at least two other OS projects, and one i'm working on in my own time).
If all you want is an OS, yes you can copy the code without really understanding it. But if you want to understand the low level hardware design and the way the OS interacts with it, writing from scratch is the only way to go.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
I seem to recall that Linux wasn't initially designed to be portable either. Although it might be a royal pain doing the first port it's still infinitely better than trying to design the "perfect" portable OS and never getting it out of the door.
It's almost a fact of program design that you'll go through at least one major reworking during the lifecycle anyway, where you throw out the old cruft and do it properly. I think it's better to get code out of the door to start with, on the platform you're most comfortable with, and then if someone really wants to port it they'll contribute later on.
Has anyone stopped to think that maybe the designer just didn't have the spare cash to buy an ass-load of different platforms? Not everyone can just go buy an Alpha or G4 cause they want portability. The code is there, if you want it on another system port it.
any monopoly is bad monopoly,
Not true. A free market monopoly that is earned by merit is good. It's good because some monopolies are economically efficient, and because the inferior products have been driven out of the market. And because it's a free market monopoly, it's subject to failure, like certain Bellevue behemoths, when it ceases to provide the best solution.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
>Disk
> There is an IDE driver on it's way
> (Only tested on one machine, and not
> part of the current distro).
> But generally all disk access is done
> through the BIOS, so most IDE and SCSSI
> disks should work.
> I even boot AtheOS from my panic ZIP disk
> every now and then.
This also means that you get all BIOS-related
problems like 1024-cylinder-stuff. 8-(
-- I'm as unique as everyone else.
My understanding is that Linux based its TCP/IP stack off of a BSD, so this sort of "bolting on" has happened before.
This is a very popular piece of information but it's simply not true. The Linux TCP/IP stack has one or two snippets of BSD code in it (like the VJ Header compression for CSLIP) but was basically written from the ground up. This is why it's exposed many bugs in other operating systems - most OSes have stacks which *are* based off the BSD stack and thus places where it differed from the RFCs were never found.
Obviously, AtheOS is trying to compete with Jesux.
--
No more e-mail address game - see my user info. Time for revenge.
Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
Exactly. If someone wants to write his own Unix-style OS for an Intel architecture and freely release it...wait, wasn't that done once? If it could be done then, why not now? If he creates something that inspires others to expand their own software, great! If he creates something that others use as a replacement for their current OS, great! If he's the only one who likes it and/or wants to use it, great! Rather than flame and complain with "Why do we need this" or "This is so retarded", why not just admire his initiative, drive, and skill?
"It's too bad stupidity isn't painful." - A. S. LaVey
Don't be ridiculous. Putting a V8 engine into a model T Ford doesn't work. Neither does bolting on bits from another OS onto Linux or *BSD. Your thinking should be more on the lines of "what's useful about Linux that I can bolt on to this new OS?"
Whatever happened to Gardens Point Modula-2, from the Queensland University of Technology? I remember getting a copy of it with an old Infomagic linux pack.
I'm sure it's still around.
-- Post No Gravy
obviously has an intel machine that he wants to run it on.
We all disagree with M$ because it means locking yourself down to one software vendor. If an OS is CPU-specific, doesn't that mean you will always have to buy Intel, or change OS?
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
Haven't seen the page yet, 404'ed, but I wish the team the best of luck.
I've always thought one problem with open source is that you couldn't really just do something groundbreaking, you basically just had to copy other stuff, seeing as there's alot of design by committee.
It looks like this is something that requires some vision.
Sure linux is cool for computer geeks/ education, but why on earth do we need to keep Unix around? Let it die. I'm still waiting for Compaq to really give up on VMS and Open Source it, so we can see a l33t VMS hacker scene pop up.
It's time for a NG system. Imagine an OS with O-O dlls from the ground up, an OS that actually has a built in GUI. That's the real future.
- My password is slashdot
That may or may not be true, we can't tell without looking at the source. But the point is that NT is a single-platform OS, whether or not older versions were. Since they've stuck their GUI into the kernel I'd imagine that portability has been sacrificed, anyhow. But that's just speculation, and it's irrelevant since nobody but MS can do the porting.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Atheists
Alex Bischoff
---
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
Wow, so my programs can return exit statuses. Granted, it's useful, but you can hardly claim it's a core difference in the APIs.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Is it just me or does anyone else here the UI looks VERY Amiga like!
The widgets look nearly identical, and I certainly remember that IconEdit program from my Workbench days!
Does anyone know if the UI is interchangeable in the same way that we have different window managers under X11? Particuarly, does anyone know who actually owns the copyright on the Amiga "look and feel" these days, and do they mind?
I find a lot of these comments funny considering that Linus himself said once that he hoped someday someone would come up with something better then Linux. AtheOS may not be the "Linux killer", but it least it shows someone is willing to try something new. BTW why are so many of you pissed that it's based around the Intel CPU? What would you platform would you use for a new OS? (Before you answer ask yourself two questions 1. What hardware are you using now? 2. What hardware did you first install your very first Linux distro on?).
When punk rock is outlawed, only outlaws will have punk rock.
It appears that the webserver is suffering heavily from the /. effect, so I will comment briefly on what I saw before the system went down.
Essentially the GUI looks to be something modelled very heavily after the Amiga's Intuition UI. It is not immediately apparant to me what type of Video System abstraction they are using, but it does not appear to be X-Windows are a derivative.
As to software, they have ported XEmacs so it already supports the virtualization of at least one other OS (wink). Beyond that, it appears that they QT as well as some basic UI sys-admin tools (ps, top, etc).
They've also brought over some really nice software such as Apache, QMail, wu-ftpd, etc and claim that most of those came over with only minor alterations. This implies that they are either using a Unix like kernel or some Libc-based POSIX emulation layer.
Anyway, I'm sure that we'll hear tons more as soon as the webserver recovers, but overall it looks like it could be a promising project. A UNIX-like OS designed from the ground up around a solid GUI could be really nice.
-----
Jess
Throw the bums out!
Not a particularly unique user experience.
I offer a suggestion to anyone out there who is currently working on creating a new OS. Before you get too far, think about these questions: do you really need files? Directories? Attributes? Applications? Daemons? Kernels? Shells? Commands? Apache? Emacs? Vi?
And if the answer is "yes", then ask yourself why you're creating something that's pretty much already been done.
Just because one OS a long time ago had these things, there's no reason yours has to.
Please, don't give the wrong impressions in these slashdot articles.
there is a difference between "currently only ported to the Intel (x86) architecture" and "designed from the ground up for intel architecture"
To say they are doing it for the challenge is not enough; people who don't do things for the challenge don't create their very own operating systems.
Asking "why create a new operating system" doesn't mean skepticism about the motivation, or wishing somebody ill, or saying somebody shouldn't do something for the hack value. The answer to the question "why" tells us whether we need to sit up and pay attention now.
So far, what I can glean from his site he is targeting the desktop. So far so good, but what does he see that's needed on the desktop that current generation OS's cannot provide?
I see a lot of good things here: GPL, standard IPC for GUI apps, A streamlined multithreaded GUI architecture, Posix, SMP etc. What I'm interested in is how Kurt sees them coming together to accomplish something original. The server is slashdotted now, so I can't get the FAQ.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Interesting theory, but the FSF claim that the (modern, 3-clause) BSD license is GPL-compatible.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
http://slashdot.org/articles/99/09/30/1144255.shtm l
bad puns sometimes are worse than bad sushi
[Connection closed by foreign host]
'Atheos' in Greek means 'someone who does not believe in any God'. who needs a religious OS anyway?
Accept this sacrifice of great Lord of BSOD
a signature
It's called Comic Sans MS, I believe...it's part and parcel of Windows, but I'm sure you should be able to find it elsewhere...
"If there's hope, it lies in the proles..."
Not true. You forgot three letters. AMD
at the beginnings at least..
:-).
That's really too bad, there is one OS (Linux) which has good driver support, but each time someone starts a new OS (free or not), a lot of time must be spent again writing the device drivers, talk about reinventing the wheel again!
Does anyone have ideas in order to diminish the problem ?
At one time I thought that I2O could be solution but the folks from the kernel seems to think that it is a bad idea because of efficency issue (and concerns about binary only drivers), and I'm afraid that any "standard" device driver would cause the same efficiency problems..
Anyway, AtheOS seems a neat OS and I like the idea (beside I don't beleive in any god, so of course I like the name
Minix is hardly underpowered. I benchmarked
*And* it has a Modula-2 compiler. Beat that, Linux.
It must be freebsd ducks
marotti.com
What I suspect they did is perhaps write the base part of their OS themselves, and then took the Mac OS X route and borrowed the BSD utilities and the like. (Which is perfectly okay, and cool with me, as well as the BSD developers, of course.)
[to PPC, MIPS, Alpha, SPARC, 68k, etc.]
really, think before you say something
Hate to reply to my own post... but here are the hardware requirements for those not yet able to get to the site...
:)
CPU:
Pentium or betther (Yes AtheOS use Pentium only instructions and will
crash and burn on a 486)
Chipset
I have tested AtheOS on a few machines, and seems to run vel on everyone.
Video adapters
S3 Virge and Matrox Mill1/Mill2/g200 have native drivers and are hardware
accelerated. AtheOS can also use any video card that support Vesa 2.0.
This will ofcourse be un-accelerated and dog slow!! The matrox driver is
pritty generic and may work for other Matrox cards aswell. The cards
listed is the one it is tested on and found to work with. I also tested
it on a G400, and it kind-of worked but I had to install a Vesa extention
and the blitter could not blitt backwards so I could only move windows
in one direction
Mouse:
Standard serial and PS2 mices should be ok.
Network:
NE2000 PCI or EISA.
Disk
There is an IDE driver on it's way (Only tested on one machine, and not
part of the current distro). But generally all disk access is done
through the BIOS, so most IDE and SCSSI disks should work. I even
boot AtheOS from my panic ZIP disk every now and then.
Throw the bums out!
How soon we forget--remember Linus' famous statement in the early days of Linux that it would only ever run on an i386 with a certain kind of HD?
Seriously though, I think that more people should try out the various OSes out there and form THEIR OWN opinions for each. I'm so tired of people talking trash about an OS they've never tried (read: nearly everybody who has posted to this story). Give AtheOS a chance!
This looks like an interesting project. I'm a little disturbed that an OS is being judged by so many on the basis of a few screenshots, or whether or not it supports anti-aliasing of truetype fonts.
As far as I'm aware, even in OS's such as Windows, the GUI is layered on top of lower level services. Something that WINE shows is that you can take a tightly bonded GUI and run it ontop of another OS.
So, when I get the chance to download and install AtheOS I'll be looking at the relationship between the GUI and the rest of the OS.
What does the kernel provide that makes the GUI better?
Can this be fed back into [insert OS of your choice]?
Surely one of the features that Linux has is that it has support for lots of hardware. Can this be fed into AtheOS?
My thinking for the last few weeks has been that UN*X isn't necessarily the be-all and end-all of OS design -- especially if you're aiming for a desktop OS. The very features that make UN*X great for servers can provide the problems that make it unsuitable for a desktop OS.
Since I consider myself a user, I have to ask what features I'm actually directly using of the OS and what have been abstracted away for me. Once everything is configured, I only use the shell and associated utilities for messing around with files and netscape, xemacs, java, gcc, licq, mesa etc for getting my `work' done. `work' == scratching my itches.
Beyond that, I don't care what OS I'm running. If I had a similar environment under W2K (with a decent WM) then I'd probably be just as happy, although a bit poorer and some of my value systems would have to be chucked out the window.
In short, I have to agree with the person who said that having many OS's available is a good thing, if only to provide research into different design methodoligies.
It seems like this OS could really be useful in the home market. From what I have read it seems to be alot easier to use then Linux , and it also seems like it would be alot better then Windows9*. I would really think about switching over to this and using it every day. They would just need to port Wordperfect , Netscape , and an Mp3 player. Quake3 wouldn't hurt either..
Really hope to be seeing more of this.
I can make these machines do anything I want. Make this world anything I want it to be. Just so long as concentrate hard
OOooh, knocked down by moderators.... Well, I agree with this post, anyhow. Note the BeBox icon and the kernel icon (the globe with two spinning spheres) on the AtheOS desktop *cough*ripoff*cough*
Wah!
Can't use an OS without themes! ;-)
hehe
-Ben
When I first read the title I thought that it was a prank like Jesux and co, only for atheists.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
From the programming point of view, the intersection of all feature sets certainly is the simpler approach (says Kernigan and Pike), but sometimes the union of all feature sets is required so that each system can be utilitzed to its fullest.
The big question though is: will it run quake? 1, 2 or 3. if (yes) i'll_try_it(); else i'll_wait();
Of course one would have to rewrite portions of the kernel, but that can be managed.
I think it is just as portable as the next os. Excluding products from a certain company
Darn, you beat me to it. ;-)
Is there an AgnOStix in development out there?
This doesn't surprise me. In fact, the Minix true probably out performs a lot of other systems. Remember how little the OS is going to do to get in the way here. It must out perform Linux since the GNU implementation of true is a shell script. This is just one of many stupid things GNU programmers due. :(
Basic Questions....
Whats Browsers currently run on this?
How hard will it be to port existing code to this OS?
no sig.
Mac OS X manages to be POSIX compliant, and its anything but "Yet Another Unix Clone" which only runs "the same old boring Unix programs."
Hell, NT can be made POSIX compliant, and it isn't a Unix no matter how far you stretch the meaning of the term.
--
This space unintentionally left unblank.
The problem is that the introduction of more OSes doesn't necessarily break Windows' hold. People are more likely to move from Linux/*BSD to Atheos (and whatever else turns up) than to move straight from Windows. Then, instead of a Windows majority and a substantial minority of (say) Linux users, you have a Windows majority and lots of other OSes, each with a tiny market share, so noone bothers to write apps/build chips et cetera for them. Result: more Windows dominance.
----------------------------------
What are the weapons of happiness?
Excluding products from a certain company
If, by this, you mean Microsoft, NT is portable (has run on Alpha, MIPS, and PowerPC). Windows is an extension to DOS which was a straight-on port of CP/M from the 8080.
There are some attempts to build an OS out of Squeak, with or without Linux. One of them is SqueakOS which uses SVGAlib. For a project this summer, I'm planning on doing something similat, but which uses the Linux framebuffer, largely for cross-platform compatibility (SVGAlib, to my understanding, only works with x86 and ARM architechures). Hopefully something will come out of this idea! Stay tuned!
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
I think Tanenbaum was right.. not to say Torvolds was wrong...
I'm more saying that I don't know if I'm interested in using a platform written by people who can't learn the lessons of the past. Linux is a good example here. Rather than having the pain of writing a non-portable OS, and then rewriting chunks for portability, as Linux did, why not write it with portability in mind from the start.
I could help port it to other platforms. But if I was going to pick up a new OS, I'd rather it was one that wasn't designed so shortsightedly. And I have to wonder what other design decisions have been made in the short rather than long term.
tangent - art and creation are a higher purpose
postmoderncore - art and creation are a higher purpose
I'm not saying that there is a problem with the first release being Intel only. I think they are very wise to do this.
But you'll notice it says "designed for Intel from the ground up" - this is what I think is foolish. We've seen Linux have large amounts of work put into rewriting Intel designed code so it can be cross-platform. I think OS designers should learn from these lessons, and start out with designing for the fact that if your OS takes of, it will become cross-platform.
And I'm currently using pure Intel. You rude sod.
tangent - art and creation are a higher purpose
postmoderncore - art and creation are a higher purpose
Not what I'm saying - I have access to plenty of Intel boxes. What I'm saying is designing for one chip from the ground up is a mistake. While obviously you have to start on one platform, I believe designers of modern OSes should count on the OS becoming crossplatform, and design for this fact.
tangent - art and creation are a higher purpose
postmoderncore - art and creation are a higher purpose
Why do all new Operating systems have to look like Windows? You people are trying to be different but always end up the same. Linux, BeOS, OS/2 all look like Microsoft Windows. It's time to change the way we think. Consider LCARS. How about something 3D like in the movies. Rotating cube menus. Animated transitions. The windows 95 interface is old and boring. You don't HAVE to copy Microsoft.
Bah. The Amiga's desktop environment was mediocre (which is why so many Amigans replace it with stuff like Directory Opus Magellan). Saying Amiga OS itself was mediocre, is a sign of cluelessness. Amiga OS kicked ass, and is probably the most elegant OS ever sold to the public.
Tracker is Open Source is under a BSD-style license. Go write a FM for that!
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
It's been said before, but evidently it needs to be said again:
When you quote verbatim a massive portion of the contents of a linked page, without any meaningful commentary included, it is not "Informative", it's "Redundant".
This shouldn't be moderated to +5, it should be 0 or lower.
--
The whole "it's OpenSource it can be anything" spiel is a little trite. You can really change Linux to be a new type of OS without having to start from scratch. Linux is a UNIX and always will be, no matter how much jiggering people do with it. At best, the OSS license will allow people to cannibalize parts of it for the new OS.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Here are the screen shots in JPEG format for people with PNG impared browsers: shot 1 shot 2 shot 3 shot 4
Stupid Cheap Guitars
I meant "can't" and I know it!
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
With the GDI in the kernel, it's no longer portable. They faced a lot of reinventing the wheel in order to port 2000 to the Alpha, so instead the port was dropped. Ironic, considering that much development for I64 was done using Alpha based machines.
I have a legitimate bone to pick with them, since we were about to buy an Alpha to replace our trusty VAX, but had to settle for a flaky Proliant. I pushed for sticking with the Alpha AND OpenVMS instead (heh heh!), but the guy in charge has been assimilated by NT.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
The Atheos kernel is written from scratch and supports SMP, loadable device drivers and file systems, and provides threads and processes with the means to communicate amonst themselves with ease. From a cached Atheos site: "Threads can communicate through message ports, shared memory, posix signals, sempaphores, ppes, pty's, TCP/IP, and more".
The GUI isn't repackaged X. It's a native GUI that is more integrated with the OS that has a multithreaded GUI system that is more high-level. More things in the GUI are defined by the OS than the apps, leading to more consistency (ala Mac & Windows).
Here's a link to a couple Atheos related software pages:
http://www.latech.edu/~jta001/AtheOS/
http://www.coolcateditor.dk/Download.asp
Well, 'theos' in greek (th for greek theta, stress on 'o') means god. 'Atheos' means he who doesnt believe in any god (atheist).
;-)
Coincidence or conspiracy?
tell me again in three years. Maybe by then it will no longer look like sad little Amiga clone. Or even more likely it will be dead and forgotten by then. I mean what is this? GUI: Amiga. Apps: GNU tools. Anything new? Well, the site is heavily slashdotted, but so far I haven`t seen anything excitingly new. Why is it that everyone has to split resources? there are quite some flavors of different operating systems ranging from Windows, OS2, BeOS, BSD, Unix in genral to Linux. All of them developed for some time now. So why this new one? Shouldn`t we concentrate on whats already there? Shall we again take the pain of going back to basics or even below with an undeveloped OS? Or should we rather stick with the ones we have now and work together to make them succeed in the upcoming years? Maybe those analysts are right and there won`t even be that many PCs around in some years and it will be mostly about IAs. Where would AtheOS fit in by then? Compared to Linux Windows and BeOS?
Not "designed from the ground up" for the 432 or 960XA, then? Now that might be fun to play with....
Plugger apparently has some problems handling .png files.
.png files.
A fix that was sugested on Linuxnewbie was to nuke both PNG mimetypes (or, if you don't feel comfortable deleting the mimetpyes, reasssocate both mimetypes back to your browser), and restart netscape.
Make sure you have a recent version of libpng installed, or you you won't be able to do anything with
Freedom. And we all know what kind of freedom. :)
Seriously, Once I can download this I actually plan to do something with it, because I have longed for a free OS like this wih a nice simple GUI with good API's and whatnot that isn't as fragmented as Linux (which is good and bad, but can be annoying at times). I can't do anything with Be (from a coding on the OS perspective).
I wonder how hard it would be to make it portable (Alpha?). Perhaps the author just thought saying that 'designed from the ground up for x86' sounded lke a good thing, but not much is arch specific.. who knows.
-----
Who says you have to have a Start button or Apple or anything else visible on the screen at all times?
I run fvwm2 on Slackware because I can customize it my way. I have no borders, no title bars. To get menus, I click on the root window, or I use keys combined with that extra "Windows" MENU key.
When I have dozens of xterms scattered around my windows and desktops, I am working, and don't want to waste precious screen space on decorations and sillybuttons. Need a new xterm? MENU + KP-INSERT, up it comes. Want a new browser window? MENU + 'w'. And so on.
Maybe this guy set his up the same. Maybe he waits until the mouse is near the edge before he shows the home menu. Maybe he double clicks two buttons together. Maybe it's voice activated!
Ya gots to think outside da box.
--
Infuriate left and right
If no OS has a definitive hold on the market (like Windows does now), then for any of them to survive they will need to have some sort of standardized, interchangeable file formats. You know how annoying it is to deal with the CR/LF difference between Windows Notepad and the rest of the known universe. It's even worse for binary files. For any of them to be really sellable, they will have to be compatable with each other. That means open or at least non-proprietary standards, which is Good Stuff(tm).
The same extends to applications, as well. For instance, most of the Adobe product line is completely compatable between the Mac and Windows versions. They use the exact same file format. That makes my life a lot easier, since I regularly have to futz with Photoshop files on both PC and Mac.
Now, if Photoshop, and The Gimp, and whatever image editor is common on BeOS or AtheOS all used the same file format, then my life would be easier still. I could futz with the file in whichever program and OS is best suited for that task, then combine it with another file created using a different program on another OS, and dump the whole thing into another file/program/whatever on yet another OS. The best tool for the job, whatever platform that may be.
Even if you choose to stay to one OS, the impact of standardized file formats will be good. Those who use Windows will know what I'm talking about when I point out that the translators between even basic MS Word and WordPerfect files are lame at best. When you're dealing with something more complicated, like a presentation file or vector-based image file, you pretty much have to pick a program for the file and stick with it. That's Bad Stuff(tm). If diversity in the OS market forces non-proprietary standards, that will be a boon even for the mono-OS market.
I routinely use two or three HTML editors plus raw code when designing a web page, all intermingled. Why shouldn't I be able to do the same thing for the graphics I use?
--GrouchoMarx
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
Is it really a good thing that AtheOS is only designed for Intel? There is only two good reasons for doing this - to gain performance, and to make the design and implementation easier.
As far as performance goes, in this era of high powered chips, is it really worth tying yourself to one platform and sacrificing a significant group of potential users, in return for gaining an extra 1% of CPU time for SETI@home.
And if it's for expediency, I think it's very short sighted not to put the extra effort into making a potentially portable OS (even if you do no porting).
Overall, the Intel-only thing makes me a bit wary.
tangent - art and creation are a higher purpose
postmoderncore - art and creation are a higher purpose
Anybody else noticed that all the titles in the shots say "AltOS"? :)
What happened to the days when something was posted on Slashdot and people would actually try it out? I would install it and tell y'all about it but the site is still slashdotted. Stop looking at screenshots and try the friggin thing out!
Sheesh! That's like Al Gore accusing George Bush of being dull!
Agnostics are the only ones with the guts to admit they don't know.
Real faith, and maintaining it in the face of adversity, does require courage. But that kind of courage is extraordinary. Most people resort to faith out of the simple fear of going to hell.
Heck, I'm Catholic, but that statement was so idiotic I had to say something. Color me baited.
I can see the fnords!
You're a moron.
Linux is not, nor has ever been, the epitome of operating system design. It's a reworking of UNIX, the same operating system that could have used by the fathers of Slashdotters twenty or more years ago. Linux is a good UNIX-like system, and it is free. There's no argument there.
The modern OS philosophy is beoming more and more that "operating system" is an outdated term. Does anyone care what OS makes a Palm run? Or what the low-level features of the Mac OS X kernel are? No. If you do, then you're fixating on the wrong part of the computer.
Smaller, cleaner alternatives are certainly a good thing. Don't bash them because they conflict with your zealotry.
Being available for only one chip isn't good. However, I'd assume that the OS would be portable if someone wanted to take the time to port it. The author may not have the money to buy suitable non-intel machines, and he may not of the time or desire to learn the intricacies of the machine well enough to port to it.
-- Superlame http://catpro.dragonfire.net/joshua/
$ file `which true`
/bin/true: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1, dynamically linked (uses shared libs), stripped
Maybe you need to update your distribution, or, if it's current, change to a better distribution.
--
goldfish
Where are you drawing the line between "another OS" and "Linux or *BSD"? My understanding is that Linux based its TCP/IP stack off of a BSD, so this sort of "bolting on" has happened before. That's how things are supposed to get better in the open source world.
Of course, I admit to a knee-jerk distaste for "plundering it for parts", but on the other hand if the windowing system becomes popular with the Linux crowd, that will translate into more applications that the Atheos users can enjoy. The real issue isn't other OSes reusing Atheos code, it's whether Atheos can get enough developer mindshare. I think in this case, though, that if one was an open source developer one would already know about Linux, *BSD, etc., and would have already been working on one of those if you wanted to. So Linux et al. aren't likely to steal Atheos developers, but Atheos might attract Linux developers. In that regard, making the front page of /. probably didn't hurt :)
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
What wrong with that, 8 years ago Linux was in the same position, now look at it, it has the backing of many companys, a user base that in the 10's of millions. Give it some time it might just be a great system in a few year, then again maybe not ( I no furtun teller)
Hmm... that means there are 4 Amiga-Like systems available today - two closed source and 2 open source:
:-)
Closed source:
AmigaOS itself: closed source operating system, now severely outdated, but groundbreaking for its time - soon to be replaced by a completely different OS from Tao, which is rather cool in itself, being a VM a bit like a Java VM, but without the language dependency (it includes a gcc/g++ port...)
BeOS - what most people think of as the AmigaOS done right. While it has been market mostly to Mac-like media people, in fact it attracted a load of ex-amiga people, particularly developers too. It's OS structure is undeniably similar to a refined AmigaOS.
Open Source:
AROS, the Amiga Research OS. An Open-source clone of Amiga OS 3.x, ported to architectures including x86. Many Amiga os-legal apps work with just a recompile. Not finished. Work progressing slowly due to legal complications - the OS depends on Amiga-copyrighted system include files and infringes on several Amiga patents. However, the current amiga intellectual property owners seem to look quite favourably upon AROS, and it looks increasingly likely it will get their blessing, since the Amiga is now going to be based on a completely different OS from Tao, and does not use any old AmigaOS code, so AROS is a good option for keeping the "classic" amiga alive and up-to-date. There's already Quake and Doom ports, so they've got the important stuff going.
Atheos The new kid, the subject of this discussion. People have noted its UI similarity to the AmigaOS UI already on this thread, but architecturally it is also very similar to AmigaOS and BeOS. But it's open source, unlike AmigaOS and BeOS.
An monolithic-kernel-based minix/unix-like OS that can barely run emacs, only works on the x86 processor family, is still being modified to use GNU tools, and has virtually no driver support?
This sounds like... Yes, it must be Linux a few years back!
War is one of the most horrible things a human can be exposed to. And one of the worlds largest industries.
howardjp@dragon:~$ uname
Linux
howardjp@dragon:~$ file `which true`
/bin/true: Bourne shell script text
You won't get an argument from me regarding Intel/AT/x86 (or whatever you want to call it) having some serious problems.
/. from an Intel (or AMD) based system.
However since it's installed base is so large it's a good place to start.
I also think that most of the people bitching about this issue are accessing
When punk rock is outlawed, only outlaws will have punk rock.
Not when Linux first started out. Orriginally Linus only wanted it to run on a 386 with a specific hard disk.
Atheos at SourceForge
To get a directory upwards, you have to use the menu...
If you look closely, you'll notice that it has a directory entry for the parent directory, so, no you don't have to use the menu. It's not as convienent as a toolbar button, but still better than Be's FM.
I like Be (I'm using it right now), but there are still a few things (like above) that I don't like about the interface. By biggest gripe is that it opens a new window when you open a directory, instead of reusing the window you're in. In 4.5 you could hold down a certain key when opening a directory and it would reuse the window, but that appears to have been taken out of R5.
Joe
Sounds all very attractive... but I wished they would have a better file manager than the Beish thing from the screen shots. To get a directory upwards, you have to use the menu... Thát is what counts. Thát is why I don't like Be (oh, yeah, and because it was so damn EASY to overwrite my Linux partition, that I did so by accident...)
But this beast is GPL }:-) Har har! So it won't take much time for a nice file manager to get there...
It's... It's...
"We can confirm that Debian does *not* ship the version with the trojan horse. Our version predates it." [CA-2002-28]
As this comment states, the problems are with the bandwidth they have, not the server load.
tangent - art and creation are a higher purpose
postmoderncore - art and creation are a higher purpose
It's nice that they're planning a remote-able GUI, but until it gets an X server (presumably as an app - as opposed to merging the X server with the main GUI) for all my existing X clients to talk to, it's not going to do me much good. If there isn't an X server, perhaps writing one might ease the transition for a lot of people who want to try something new.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
I don't need to think.
God told me that he hates AtheOS and atheists, and fucking hell, so do I.
This is the real Steve Woston's home site.
Cheers, CV.
no sig
Sorry, I don't usually reply to my own posts, but there was a URL mistake This is Steve Woston's home site. The REAL Steve Woston.
no sig
x86, merced, etc. sorry, but machine optimized operating systems leave me a little cold. anyone that has been contributing to the global warming situation over the past couple of years by emitting co2 through metabolic means must have noticed that the development cycle for new processors has been getting a bit shorter lately. today's optimization could be tomorrows downfall. not to say that you shouldn't compile a kernal with something that knows about the complete instruction set, but writing around an architecture is likely to be a losing proposition going forward. any guess how long it will be before you have wider machine to work with? how about some of the powerpc machines with multi-processor on die? and so on. just write a good kernal without regard to the particular platform and tweak your compiler to make the best of it.
Wholly christ... The most ham-fisted tongue-in-cheek sarcasm I could possibly dole out went FLYING over heads...
I cry for the future. So to celebrate, I leave slashdot!
I bequeath to the troll community my +2 account! No more begging for moderation, just TAKE IT!
Username: jikes
Password: trolltech
I want you all to have just as much fun with it as I did. My beloved little pieces of crap.
[sniff] May the noise be with you...
-troll taker
The Amiga was a machine before it's time; everyone will admit that. The hardware was brilliant (RIP Jay Miner) and the tiny multitasking kernel was very nice. But you have to stop there. The desktop environment of the Amiga was generally poor, even when compared to a Macintosh from the same era. It improved somewhat later, but it was still nothing that should be raved about. The Amiga was a brilliant graphics and sound box, but that doesn't mean that everything with the Amiga name on it was brilliant. Amiga OS was mediocre at best.
Atheos has been in the works for four years. It's not something that has been hidden, if you've ever done a two bit search for operating systems you could have easily stumbled upon it. It's quite an interesting project. I hate to plug another os, but i find it ironic that all these comments attack new os's. V2os (which i have been working on recently) [at http://www.v2os.cx ] was only out for a couple days when slashdot first presented it, but atheos has been out for quite some time. i just think its funny how most of you readers respond to new os's. v2 got attacked like wild-fire and with the exception of only a couple people, all of us working on it are under 20, and it's quite impressive and becoming more innovative. -brecasx
Linux wasn't very portable in the beginning either, and consider, this is kernel programming, it's bound to have platform specific codes.
megumi
Hope this clearify some things. BTW I have no problem seeing why the uni-architecture discussion started, after all the story, both at kuro5hin and here at slashdot implied that AtheOS was designed tightly around the Intel architecture. Believe me it's not, or when the server stop bouncing around in my office, take a look at the sources :)
--- Kurt Skauen
I'd love to know if even 20% of the people bragging about how many OSs they have actually have legal copies (SCO Unix, NT4, Win2K especially) Personally.. another OS? Ho hum. I know this is an unpopular opinion here, but I don't have a problem with the NT4/W2K kernel and I think it is much better written than the Linux one. What I'd like to see is an Explorer replacement. I want to be able to use all Windows 2K drivers, all 32 bit app, I just want my desktop to look like one of the Linux WMs. I know there are desktop enhancements out there, but all that I've tried failed miserably.. BeOS should've been a windows explorer replacement, and not a new OS. They can probably market their appliance version, but why bother with a new desktop OS? Same for AtheOS. Just my opinion.
Slashdot represents an insignificant clique of whiners
Then why for the love of whatever are you in here??????????????????????????????????????
Whiner.
This job would be great if it wern't for all the fucking customers...
Dirty Pirate Hooker
Get a clue. I was *disagreeing* with those who claimed that Intel-specific = silly. By [mis]quoting the similar comments which the author of Minix made about Linux when it first came out. (Now it's a fully portable OS). You can be forgiven for not recognising the quote, but I even posted a comment explaining it - *before* you posted yours.
I disagree, there are hundreds of insightful comments on slashdot every day. And if you laugh at some of these because you misunderstand them, then that's not a sign that the forum as a whole is clueless.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Thanks for the info - I stand corrected.
Although I think my original point still stands - borrowing code is the name of the game when it's possible (allowing for licensing issues, etc.), rather than being an exception case.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
you mean the brown ball thingy from Propaganda?
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
He was simply trying to help everyone that can't get on the other server. Some of the people here like you take this moderation crap way too seriously. Get a life!!! Don't bite the hand that feeds you!!! That was the most useful post here because you can't get on the site!!
I thought the point of GPL was the ability to reuse in other GPL projects? If the BeOS icons were GPL, it would be perfectly acceptable to steal them for your GPL project. (They would have to be credited somewhere in the code, i believe)
I think the problem though is that BeOS is NOT GPL'd.
6.1?? .. that's pretty damn recent.. I tried the same test on my originally 5.1 box at home and that one is a shell script. My 6.1 machine at work has a binary for /bin/true.
:)
The versions of sh-utils involved:
5.2 machine: rpm -q sh-utils
sh-utils-1.16-14
6.1 machine: rpm -q sh-utils
sh-utils-2.0-1
Looks like there's our problem
Not that I really CARE that much, but it's nice to sort things out.
--
Delphis
I phrased it poorly. I should have used the word clone somewhere. However you can find that in a number of books on the history of Microsoft. But, let's say that it is not false. Look at the CP/M API and compare it to the DOS API. You'll find almost no differences.
Moderation always was Slashdot's biggest mistake.
Oooer... I posted my comment as a reply to #139 .. but instead it's been made a child under #58 ...
Odd. Most odd.. is it because we're getting too far to the right margin?... it's not even displayed under that comment which is weird..
--
Delphis
Then I saw that it uses BIOS calls for disk access- ugh!
I've always wanted to get into OS hacking in a big way, so as soon as I get some spare disk capacity I'll consider helping them out.
so the "portability" of DCOP you are talking about doesn't exists !!!
Don't be such a paranoid freak. Remember, the Stack for BeOS was written by one guy in one day. An OS can probably be hacked out by a few dedicated coders in a few weeks, add a few months of testing and tweaking and building GUI APIs and you're set for a beta release. And as for the post about 'not anyone finding out', I doubt they tried to keep it secret, more like no one cared.
Anyway the code is GPL'ed so if you want to be paranoid go read and look at the code yourself, not that you'd recognize BSD code if you saw it but...
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Hey, who let Bill G. in here.
This is an open source, GPL type OS, right? Well then, this means that one can grab whatever is good in there and stuff it into a more mature system. You say it has a good X alternative? Well, then, what would prevent someone from porting that to Linux or BSD? Why fragment the OS world further when you can assimilate it?
BSD removed that advert clause. There was a slashdot story about it like, a couple months ago.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
That is true, but then Be is not opensource, and certainly not GPL :( Anyways why would this be needed as OS - take good staff and plug it into the Linux kernel f.e. ... BTW server running Atheos (if) is probably overloaded now, and being young and immature could not handle the load....
AtheOS what does that sound like ? Atheous thats RIGHT.. THIS IS TRULY THE COMMY OS.. stop it NOW..and install slack :0
And Linux used to be a poor emulation of Unix, what's your point?
Anyway, the major diffrence is that this is GPL'd, meaning that people can hack on it, unlike BeOS.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
OK, we really dont want to hear your krap about how great Be is... This is a new OS, and as with most new OS's it takes time to develop and flourish into a quality solid OS (as im sure you're quite fimiliar w/ this concept, being a big Be supporter) sure, all OS's have their problems, but you gotta give people much more than a few months to solidify. As, i believe, OReily said, mimicking is the form of flattery in this "internet" age (or something to that e/affect) who cares if it "looks" like or is an "attempt to replicate" Be? You should only be so lucky that someone has recognized this model as a supperior or, for lack of a better word, good. So do us all a favor and can it.
~~~ They call me Little John, but don't let the name fool you...in real life I'm very big.
From Atheos page (http://www.atheos.cx)
Mirrored screenshots:
Shot 1, Shot 2, Shot 3 and Shot 4
What is AtheOS?
AtheOS is a free operating system for the Intel architecture released under the GPL license. I have seen quite a few anouncements of "promising" OSes with "great potential" during the development of AtheOS. The problem is that when I follow the links I normally find a description of the concept, a floppy-bootloader written in assembly, and not much else. AtheOS is a bit more mature, and is already running quite a lot of software. As a "proof" I can tell that the server you currently are browsing is running the AtheOS operating system. AtheOS is not ment to be a new Unix clone (like Linux and *BSD) but a new clean desktop OS. It does not run X-windows, but has it's own heavy multithreaded GUI system. Not using X has its ups and downs. The big down is ofcourse the lack of application's that can be easily ported to the OS. Another down is that the current GUI does not support remote display, even though implementing it should not be hard at all. The up's is that the GUI interface is much more high-level, and is much better at defining how a GUI should work. This leads to better consistency between applications. Drag and drop, clippboard, and other forms of high-level communucation between apps are defined by the OS. This will hopefully lead to applications that work well together and that give the user an impression of a compleat system with consistency between applications. I belive this consistency is important so the user dosen't have to start from scratch each time she learns a new program to know.
The AtheOS GUI consists of two main components: An application server and a dll providing a C++ interface between the server and the application. The GUI is therfore programmed through a C++ API providing windows containing a hierarchy of widgets that all have their own graphical environment.
The kernel was written from scratch. It supports SMP (Symmetric Multi Processing), has a built-in network TCP/IP stack. It supports loadable device-drivers and file-systems. It provides threads and processes with several powerful communication systems that makes it easy, efficient and safe to create server/client implementations where both the server and the client run on the same machine. Threads can communicate through message ports (most common), shared memory, posix signals, semaphores, pipes, pty's, TCP/IP, and propably a few other method's as well.
If you have any questions or comments you can reach me at kurt@atheos.cx
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: When trying to boot AtheOS the screen flicker for a while and then everything is dead. Why?
A: It might be due to missing fonts in the atheos/sys/fonts directory (see INSTALL). If that is not the case check the boot.ini. Make sure the memory and boot-device settings ar ok. You might also try to disable some features by uncommenting any of the DISABLE_* entries in boot.ini If possible, taking a look at the kernel output from the seraial port as configured in boot.ini can often geve a clue to what when wrong.
Q: Why does my serial-mouse dont work?
A: Propably cause it is in COM2, currently only COM1 is scanned for a mouse. If you use a serial-mouse you MUST set the DEBUG_PORT to 2 (in boot.ini) even if you dont have a serial cable attached for the kernel-debugger.
Q: I have run AtheOS from the native FS for a while, and now I installed a new kernel, but it seems like it still boot with the old one. Why?
A: Since the bootloader don't know how to load the kernel from AFS you must also install it on your FAT partition (in atheos/sys).
Q: AtheOS boots, and the GUI seems to be working, but there is a problem with the mouse-pointer, it leaves a trail of pixels when moved, what's up?
A: The problem is most likely that you have selected a 15-bit screen-mode. Both the Matrox driver and the Vesa20 driver is broken in that they list's more screen-modes than the render-module supports. Only 16 and 32 bit are fully supported by now.
Q: What kind of architecture is the kernel built around? Monolitic, micro-kernel, nano-kernel?
A: I often ask myself that question to :) The kernel is very modular and the it have a well defined interface between the kernel and it's device-drivers and file-systems. So given that each component comunicate through a thin defined interface, and don't know much else about each other, it ressembles a micro-kernel. I am not sure if this is the right term though, since all kernel-components lives in kernel-space and is not protected from each other, this is all properties from a monolitic-kernel. I am a bit confused :)
Q: The GUI look very Amigaish, is it an AmigaOS clone?
A: No. In the beginning it was actualy ment to be one, but this days there is nothing resembling the AmigaOS in AtheOS other than the window-borders. This seems to be rather hard for the Amiga-community to grasp though. They still think AtheOS is an Amiga clone :) Hey the Window borders look like on my Amiga! It must be an Amiga clone Right? I find it rather amusing to see that the Amiga-hord think that the single-most important property of an OS is the window-borders :) BTW: You can replace the border-look by writing a plugin to the appserver so I guess the Amiga look will go away quite soon.
Q: Is it a BeOS clone?
A: No, AtheOS is not meant to be a BeOS clone. I have never run BeOS myself, but I have read a lot about it, and I realy like the high-level API's and the GUI. The AtheOS GUI is very inspired by BeOS, but it is not meant to be a clone. Even though many of the general concepts is similar, there is also many differences in the API details.
How can it possibly compete with Linux in terms of stability/driver support?
Windows can compete in driver support. NT can in both. The BSDs can in stability. Solaris can in stability. So can Tru64 and SCO.
You know you sond like some people I deal with over at http://bbs.msnbc.com/bbs/msnbc-scitech/index.asp but the diff is that they say the same about linux. A new OS is a good thing it put more new and cool ideas into the life blood of the industry and forces every one to inovate better, in the long run it is always good to have more choices.
The trouble with analogies: they only illustrate, but they cannot prove. In ... if
this case, the obvious question pops up: why not? What is it about Linux or
BSD that would preclude incorporating specific hunks of code from Altheos?
We are not talking about mechanical contraptions here, but more malleable
software. Forget the automobile analogies: X Windows, RPC, NFS, JFS
they are useful, we can stick 'em in. It has been done before, and can be
done again.
Chris
I had heard that icons can not be copyrighted or trademarked.
-- Thrakkerzog
Well, why not? This is GPL. Under this license, you write a hunk of code and
say: "Here is my nifty code. Share and enjoy." So go ahead: share and enjoy.
GPL coding is inherently altruistic, with egoism satisfied by
acknowledgements in the code.
Yeah, NT has run on Alpha, MIPS, PowerPC. No longer. MIPS and PowerPC support hasn't been around since the early days of NT 4.0. Windows 2000 was the last MS OS you'll ever see that runs on Alpha, as the other day AXP64 support was dropped completely in Whistler (i.e. Windows 2001... or whatever they decide to call it eventually). It's Intel as far as the eye can see for Windows NT's progeny now. Now that MS has jettisoned (and been jettisoned by) its other chip architectures, how long do you suppose NT will remain nicely portable?
--Ford Prefect
At high scoring points levels, the only criticism I've seen is mine and others that AtheOS is designed for Intel from the ground up. This is not "bashing things just because they are new". This is a legitimate criticism of a design decision. I don't think that designing your OS for one platform is a wise choice in this day and age.
tangent - art and creation are a higher purpose
postmoderncore - art and creation are a higher purpose
That's why you're score zero. Hot grits and M$ SUX posts dissent with my opinion of what I want to be spending my time reading.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
What a crappy job of moderation. "Troll"??? WTF?
Maybe there should be a computer literacy/humor test thet you have to take before getting mod points or something. Some people just have no sense of humor.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
If you hold down the Ctrl-Alt-Shift keys when you click on the Be menu, you get a choice of changing your layout. You can have your windows look like BeOS (obviously), Windows98, MacOS, or, surprise, AmigaOS. I suspect that this person hacked it a little and coughed up some screenshots that didn't look like BeOS.
(BTW, BeOS 5 Pro is excellent.)
-Paxton
Um, why? Intel architecture isn't particularly new or interesting. So there's no compelling reason the OS can't be portable. So, why isn't it?
That's the kind of thing that terrifies me. I already have Windows. Why would I want another system that wants to devote its existance to a single platform?
Now, this system is probably better than Windows. Hell, I can't *imagine* how it could be worse.
But what *IS* it with this idea that designing for a specific platform is anything but a short-sighted, ill-considered, idea? Do you remember the amount of trouble Linux/alpha was? The amount of effort that the *BSD's had to put into getting the early Alpha and PPC ports? It's a *HUGE* amount of work to redesign. Design from the ground up for *generic computers*, and let the individual machines cope. You'll end up better off.
(Remember the Apple ads based on using 486-optimized Bytemark code on PC's? Same problem. If you tie yourself down, well, you're tied down.)
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Right. Linus said when he originally started Linux that it would only run in i386. As of 2.3.99pre6, though, there were 11 directories in arch/. I'd say Linux has evolved quite well, and it should be possible for this OS to do the same.
Now please explain how this is troll? Off-topic, yeah, well, ya. Once again, my comment just a few screenfulls down stands, moderation was Slashdot's worst idea.
AtheOS' website has been /.ed
Humorless sig goes here.
Many people claim that $OS is the perfect OS.... Well, it isn't. I use Win95 for my main system because quite frankly, it is the best OS for what I want to do with my system (namely games). When I went to setup a small router to allow multiple computers to share an internet connection, I never even looked at setting up a Win95 box to do that, *nix was odviously a better choice, so it's running a small linux based distribution built to be a router and nothing else. Works great, I never have any problems with either system. I've personally got fedup with zealots that claim $object is better than $all_other_objects in everything.
If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
No, not unless you have an ancient BIOS that don't support the "new" 64-bit IO functions. All the disks I am running AtheOS from is >4GB, no problem.
--- Kurt Skauen
I like Linux because with Linux people could make software to suit their needs. They had true freedom to do whatever they wanted. Now open source is catching on because people realize that they can make software to suit their needs. And now that companies are spreading the word (yes for their own benefit but at least it's letting people know about a good thing) it's becoming attractive to develop for an OS like Linux. As a result software is as good if not better than commercial stuff and it's coming out at an extremely fast rate. However a qualm of mine with Linux is that it's built "for" a 20+ year old OS and it is made to be the best UNIX system it can be, not the best operating system it can be. Therefore alot of things meant to be compatible with UNIX systems stay which shouldn't, and things which are better for the OS are not implemented because they have to stay "compatible". I loved Linux because you could do anything with it and because eventually (and now it's a reality), tons of software is coming out for it. In my opinion it's already ready for the desktop for basic tasks. I use Linux solely for everything now. The only reason I keep Win98 around is for MS Office. However now that an OS made for today's computers has been released, and it's made from scratch to be clean, fast, and efficient, AtheOS looks much more attractive in my eyes.
I don't like these comments like "oh just another OS with no software" or "it's just an Amiga-like OS". It's not Amiga! It's a new OS built from scratch with support for UNIX programs (a must because there is tons of software out there for it). And it will have lots of software coming out for it soon just because it's a promising new OS and people have the source! That's the most important thing! If you give the source, people will make stuff for it! And you cannot argue with this because look at OS most of you are using (wink wink). Getting back to what I was saying earlier, it's almost like BeOS doing it right. So stop cracking on this. I for one have been looking for this for a long time, and I think I've found it. I plan to give AtheOS a try and maybe even develop software for it. I want to see this succeed because I think it's a good piece of software that should!
I go through the comments, and I honestly can't find much bashing it. Also, while it might be easy to paint the entire Linux "community" as hypocrites. It's not as though the same people that complain about Linux being bashed because it's new are also the same people who are bashing this new operating system.
Chris Hagar
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
The only folks that are "forced" to "boot into" X11R6 are idiots who don't know how to edit inittab. Uh, oops... :^}
Anyway, this is even configurable at install time, if it makes you pee your pants thinking about editing inittab.
i hate to say it, but i just saw a screenshot (the dude is gona hate me for the slashdot but http://www.latech.edu/~jta001/images/final.jpg it looks like a mutation between, yep BE, and... GNOME...with funky windows icons, weaaahhoww what a ride! i say it again, crack does not smoke itself fellow programers... ;)
Istigkeit -"is-ness" being and becoming & i'dfiying it with the mathematical abstraction of the idea
What I'd like to know is if it's POSIX compliant. I'm a little uneducated as far as some of this stuff goes, but it would be nice if it adhered to some kind of standard. It would therefore be easy to port apps to, and be easier to port to other architectures.
See, my theory is that if all software adhered to some kind of standard, we'd be much less platform dependant as any application could easily be ported to another architecture. Then maybe there'd be demand for better architectures like Alpha, and prices would fall and there'd be competition! And therefore better architectures and such. Maybe then Intel might stop farting around and giving the same shit a different name.
-kidlinux.
But my point is, how is it innovating? By introducing yet another driver model? Open Source OSs need a common driver model, but that's another story. It seems like what the project has to offer is its innovative GUI, rather than the OS. So why not start with an established OS with established drivers, that have years of maturity, and provide a GUI for them? Or maybe someone can answer my question: what does the OS itself have that's innovative/impossible or hard to do with Linux/BSD*?
Which proves what? That Stupid_Distro 0.0.1 had a Bourne shell script for true? That you accidently deleted /bin/true so you wrote it in shell script?
Maybe even that the GNU fileutils maintainers had it as a shell script and then changed it a executable? You didn't even bother showing uname -a or telling us what distribution it was.
As for me, file `which true` tells me it's a dynamically linked executable. This on Debian Woody for the i386.
Amen to that brother. People don't always have to be a part of some holy war. At the very least, it's just a cool thing to do. Whether it actually plays any role in the OS world at large is antoher issue, but it's not like this dude is forcing anyone to start using it.
Why challenge the urge to create a new operating system? What if Linus had said, "Oh, MINIX is just fine for what it does. Why bother changing it?"
You forget the simple fact that human beings are creative and need a challenge. Perhaps the developers think Linux is too krufty? Perhaps they wanted a GOOD API for a change? What if they just wanted an open source achievement like that of BE?
When confronted with the prospect of an unknown ocean, did Columbus shrug and say, "I already have a country to live in, why would I need to visit another?" What if Ford had said, "We already have horses, why would we need something different?" What if ID's developers has collectively decided "We already have Wolfenstein 3D, what more could we do?"
I will close with a quote from the first posting Linus made to Usenet about his then nameless OS: Do you yearn for the days when men were men and wrote their own device drivers?"
By God, some of us do.
Matthew Miller,
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
It is an older RedHat release, 5.2 or 6.1.
Of course, if you know jack, you'd know that uname -a wouldn't tell you the distro.