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Review of AtheOS 0.3.7

Posted by michael on from the next-linux dept.

MAIC-32 writes: "OSNews features a very informative and detailed review of AtheOS, the promising 32-bit GPL Operating System. The article describes the installation process, the GUI (screenshots included), usage, internal design, developement and much more."

5 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. AtheOS takes a Windows approach by nsample · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've always found the AtheOS approach an intriguing one, and quite reminiscent of Windows. They build and optimize for the GUI, rather than the command-line kernel with a GUI built on top (like an X11 + *NIX approach).

    It seems that one of the real growing pains for AtheOS is going to be that it's difficult to capture anything but local desktop users. It's not a good model for remote display; just like Windows.

    At the end of the day, I think it'll be a great desktop OS, but it will have the same growing pains that Windows did with remote display and cross-platfrom compatibility.

    1. Re:AtheOS takes a Windows approach by J.+Random+Software · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Terminal services is really only good for remote admin. X's model (any app on any box can ask for a window on your display, and all windows are equal) is much cleaner. When you put an entire virtual display (with yet another window manager) in a window, there are bizzare rules about which events are interpreted as commands by which window manager, and you can't really fit apps on different machines on your real display at once because all your real estate is wasted on remote desktops. Then there are the implementation quirks, like services blocking on modal dialogs you can only dismiss (or even see) by using the main console (VNC is a big win here, though it's awfully high-bandwidth and slow from Win32).

  2. Probably by nervlord1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Probably the best part about Atheos is that he ported Khtml (the konqueror rendering engine) to his OS for me atleast, and i imagine many others, a good browser is my number uno priority. Its good to see he ported such a sweet engine to his OS i can imagnie technically it would have been reasonably difficult Can we also stop with the "why another operating system?" comments? I bet linus heard all of the same drivel when he wrote linux, it didnt apply then, it doesnt apply now As far as im concerned, ill never critize anything i cant do better (its a stupid policy.. but thats me) and this guy has done alot better than most

    --
    Microsoft IIS is to webserving as KFC is to healthy eating
    1. Re:Probably by clambert · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The weird part is his port is a hell of a lot faster than Konqueror on Linux, which should say a lot about the rest of his code in the OS.

      --
      mailto:<?=implode("@", array("chris", implode(".", array("php", "net"))))?>
  3. enough of a difference? by mj6798 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Well, a kernel and GUI that is written from the ground up in C++ could be heaven or it could be hell. Properly used, C++ can help a lot with data abstraction and safety with no loss of efficiency, but poorly used, it can make things a lot worse than plain C and give you performance problems in addition. On multi-programmer problems, C++ seems to turn into hell rather than heaven more often than not.

    Altogether, I wonder whether AtheOS is sufficiently different from Linux/X11 to attract much interest. If kernel, driver, and application development for it were orders of magnitude easier, I could see switching. But given that it seems to be built using fairly traditional software technologies, why would it be all that much better?

    Time will tell, but I won't be an early adopter of this one...