Walking Through SkyOS 5.0 Beta

Hexydes writes "TechIMO has published the first preview of the next-generation SkyOS platform. The article includes a first-look at what users can expect in the next version of SkyOS, a review of how development has progressed from previous versions, and many screenshots." SkyOS is a free operating system for x86 systems; it looks very polished for being "mainly (99.9%) a one man project."

Comments

Ob. Joke

[sohp]

Please tell me that that IP stack on this thing is not called SkyNET.

Re:Ob. Joke

[ooby]

Silly, it doesn't use IP. It runs on a neural network. It's a learning OS.

Re:Ob. Joke

[Quasar1999]

Please tell me that that IP stack on this thing is not called SkyNET.

No, it's called the 'IP stack'... Thanks for playing...

Re:Ob. Joke

[Samus]

SkyNet won't come around until .NET is ported to SkyOS. Then we all have to worry as the 5 machines that are running this os try to take over the world. Or something like that.

Re:Ob. Joke

[bdejong]

Actualy, we have an ISP in belgium called Skynet.
Scares me everytime I hear their name ;-)

=> http://www.skynet.be/

Re:Ob. Joke

[Anonymous Coward]

you just don't get it...or you just suck...or you think your funny but your not...or you've been up to long...or maybe your rents wouldn't let you watch R Rated movies...your so dry you must work for M$

Re:Ob. Joke

[mark-t]

I would have expected Skynet to be what they would call the network that manages traffic control for sky-based personal transport vehicles once approved skyways are in place.

Re:Ob. Joke

[PD]

Informative?

We're not going to make it, are we?

Re:Ob. Joke

[Anonymous Coward]

It's in your nature to mismoderate yourselves.

Re:Ob. Joke

[Anonymous Coward]

Please tell me that that IP stack on this thing is not called SkyNET.

nah, it's called SkyLAB.

Re:Ob. Joke

[HeX314]

I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft bought it out just to release a product called Sky.NET.

I know it's redundant. Just had to do it.

Re:Ob. Joke

[laird]

"Please tell me that that IP stack on this thing is not called SkyNET. nah, it's called SkyLAB." When the network crashes, the network really crashes!

Re:Ob. Joke

[llzackll]

Affirmative

Not Informative.

Re:Ob. Joke

[mobby_6kl]

There is Skynet in Czech Republic as well, a friend of mine gets his DSL service from them.
http://www.skynet.cz/

Re:Ob. Joke

[Bingo Foo]

The Mods will BE BACK.

hobby os

[wed128]

With no clear advantage over other free unixes, why is this hobbyOS getting so much attention? i tried a beta disc a few months back, and i didn't see anything special...i mean, a one man OS is impressive, but i can't see anyone actually using it...

Re:hobby os

[slimak]

I have to agree -- there is no garuntee that SkyOS will remain (and be current) in say 3 years, but it seems likely that RedHat, Mandrake, etc will -- and almost positively Debian due to this

Re:hobby os

[da3dAlus]

"With no clear advantage over other free unixes, [like Linux?] why is this hobbyOS getting so much attention? i tried a beta disc a few months back, and i didn't see anything special...i mean, a one man OS is impressive, [see Linus Torvalds] but i can't see anyone actually using it...[like everyone uses linux now?]"

Not trying to blow your argument out of the water, but do you have to immediately assume that there is no use for this because you can't find one? Gee, if nobody else uses my web portal software, why should I bother to develop and release it, too? Maybe I should just give up programming cuz nobody will ever see a use for it. I think it's great that someone can find a hobby, stick with it, and share it with everyone else.

Re:hobby os

[benja]

I think the question was not, why should somebody work on a one-person OS in their spare time (kudos to them), but why should it be posted on the /. frontpage? Seems reasonable to me to ask, "Why would people use it?"

Re:hobby os

[finkployd]

Linux was once the same way. People doing stuff like this (imho) is what pushes the computing world further. There may not be a real good production use for it now, but who knows what will happen in the future. 10 years from now we might be talking about another hobby OS and asking what benefits it would offer over SkyOS? :)

The reason it gets so much attention is that people are now convinced that hobby OSs can actually become more.

Finkployd

Re:hobby os

[fredrikj]

With no clear advantage over other free unixes, why is this hobbyOS getting so much attention? i tried a beta disc a few months back, and i didn't see anything special...i mean, a one man OS is impressive, but i can't see anyone actually using it...

In the light of some dozen retarded case mod articles each year on Slashdot, this doesn't bother me at all.

Re:hobby os

[Alric]

Your point is valid but not a rebuttal to his statement. He is questioning why this specific OS, out of the myriad hobby systems, is getting so much attention. He is yearning for knowledge of what qualities distinguish SkyOS from the pack to the degree that it should be repeatedly highlighted on Slashdot.

He is NOT questioning why somebody would develop this. He is NOT saying there is no use. He merely wants to know what makes SkyOS special.

Maybe you should actually read posts before trying to make clever responses.

I don't mind seeing spots on SkyOS; I just wish other hobby systems were highlighted also. It reminds me of an earlier Slashdot.

Re:hobby os

[schuster]

I have to agree. The project is impressive, but what advantages does/will it actually bring? According to the article, the file manager looks and behaves like windows explorer- just like all the other free Linux GUIs. So from the user's perspective, what advantages do SkyOS (and by extension, KDE and GNOME) bring?

Re:hobby os

[Hard_Code]

One of the things I think make it special is that it is written by an ex-BeOS developer. At least I *think* that is true, but now that the site is slashdotted I can't verify that.

Re:hobby os

[AKnightCowboy]

I have to agree -- there is no garuntee that SkyOS will remain (and be current) in say 3 years, but it seems likely that RedHat, Mandrake, etc will -- and almost positively Debian due to this

I can believe Debian will still be around in even 20 years, but Red Hat and Mandrake will likely fade away after their companies go out of business. That's the flaw in using commercial Linux distributions. If the shareholders decide they want to get out of the Linux business and sell their assets to Microsoft you're shit out of luck. That's one of the reasons I love Debian.

Re:hobby os

[jasonbowen]

Good thing people didn't think like you with regards to Linux back when it was young.

Re:hobby os

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're confused. There is NewOS, which is written by an ex-BeOS developer and is the kernel being used by the OpenBeOS project. You could be thinking of AtheOS, which wasn't written by an ex-BeOS developer but a lot of people seemed to think it was. You're definitely not thinking of SkyOS, which is not written by an ex-BeOS developer.

Re:hobby os

[wed128]

that's not what i'm saying. When linux started, it completed a certian kernel-lacking Free OS. There wasn't another one at the time. Therefore, people embraced it and we have our linux. however...Free Operating systems are not a new idea, and we already have toys like this to tinker with. Also, i do agree that hobby oses have a niche. I just don't think that this story should have graduated from OSnews to slashdot, that's all.

Re:hobby os

[Alioth]

The difference is that Linux was never a proprietary OS. SkyOS is a closed source proprietary OS. It's unlikely to get the support or development effort that Linux got.

Re:hobby os

[Anonymous Coward]

I think what hobby OSes need is to port Gentoo's Portage. Their ebuilds seem ideal for getting lots of apps on any system with gcc quickly and mostly painlessly.

Has anybody (thought|done anything) about this?

Re:hobby os

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that when Linux was young, Torvalds gave away the source code so that people wouldn't be dependent on him.

Re:hobby os

[jasonbowen]

Irrelevant to his comment. He could give it away and people could say why bother, it's just another Unix like OS. It's a toy, just like minix and irrelevant...

Re:hobby os

[Deagol]

Linux was once the same way. People doing stuff like this (imho) is what pushes the computing world further.

I agree. Wasn't it this same kind of tinkering that advanced personal computers in the early 80s?

I mean seriously... if someone designs and builds their own version of an internal combustion engine and then publishes their work, they should be given some kudos. Not only is the exercise in itself impressive due to the skill involved, the fact that someone took the time to learn the process and share the results should be lauded. So what if the ICE is relatively ancient technology -- it's cool for cool's sake. And who knows -- a new design/technique may even be happened across.

Re:hobby os

[cayenne8]

...what about Gentoo Linux?

Sorry...had to put the obigitory reference to it with all the other distros being named around here...hahahaha.

Re:hobby os

[visgoth]

but why should it be posted on the /. frontpage?

Sweet merciful crap. What is nerdier than writing your own operating system?! I mean honestly, if Lego can make the frontpage then this guy's work most assuredly should be there too.

Re:hobby os

[SoSueMe]

Maybe it is because of an LOTR overload, but all I could think of after reading this thread was:
Nasty hobbiestesess

Re:hobby os

[Anonymous Coward]

"the file manager looks and behaves like windows explorer- just like all the other free Linux GUIs"

I wish this was actually the case.

Re:hobby os

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

a one man OS is impressive, [see Linus Torvalds]

I was under the impression that Linux has a large community of developers.

Re:hobby os

[apankrat]

He is NOT questioning why somebody would develop this. He is NOT saying there is no use. He merely wants to know what makes SkyOS special.

However he forgets to add what that special is for him. For some people IPv6 support is a major feature, for others it's the popup menu transparency. So he sounds like a troll :-/

Re:hobby os

[Anonymous Coward]

Try not to think, leave it to those of us that are more qualified.

Re:hobby os

[schuster]

yeah, I thought about that right after I hit the post button. I find it amazing that, for all the time and effort that has been put into them, both KDE and GNOME act like nothing more than fancy interfaces to the command line and that the file browser doesn't really serve any useful purpose. Maybe it's just going to take a whole new set of APIs to make them work like a real GUI. Does anyone know if the SkyOS GUI behaves like windows explorer or the mac finder? or is it just another interface to the command line.

Re:hobby os

[be-fan]

Yep. Linus has been probably the major contributer of code and design, but the simple kernel he wrote all by himself has probably long since been rewritten many times over. He certainly never got Linux as far as SkyOS has come, all by himself.

Re:hobby os

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, welcome our LOTR overloads.

Re:hobby os

[benja]

Mhm. :-) Ok, I thought there are probably too many homebrewn OS's to cover everyone on /., but I guess this is just one pretty advanced one and you have a point ;)

Re:hobby os

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok so my history may be a little rusty but didn't Linux start out as a one-person OS written in his spare time.

Re:hobby os

[Angst Badger]

With no clear advantage over other free unixes, why is this hobbyOS getting so much attention?

Why is it that any time someone comes up with either a new operating system or a new webserver, the invariable refrain is, "But we already have Linux," or "We already have Apache"?

It's a good thing that Linus didn't say, "Well, we already have Minix," and that the original Apache developers didn't say, "Well, we already have NCSA httpd."

Experimentation is good. Choice is good. I don't want to live in a world where my only choice is Linux any more than I want to live in a world where my only choice is Windows. Both of them have serious shortcomings. If nothing else, maybe SkyOS and the odd hundred other OS projects will come up with ideas that can be incorporated into Linux that the Linux developers wouldn't have come up with on their own.

Re:hobby os

[Ninja Programmer]

Its a *HARD REAL TIME OS*.

Nuff said? (Probably not -- but if you understood what is meant by that it would be enough ...)

Re:hobby os

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok so my history may be a little rusty but didn't Linux start out as a one-person OS written in his spare time.

Linux started out as open source and eventually used the GPL license. The kernel as initially written by one person, but the userland was written by many different people.

If SkyOS becomes open source, then, and only then, will it become something useful to other people.

Until that happens, its just a nice OS written by one person (which is really impressive, no doubt). Maybe he's hoping that someone will buy or license it.

Re:hobby os

[Anonymous Coward]

He merely wants to know what makes SkyOS special.

You seem to be ignoring the part where he says "but i can't see anyone actually using it..."

Maybe you should actually read posts before trying to make clever responses.
Indeed.

Re:hobby os

[Anonymous Coward]

You are mistaken. "What makes SkyOS special?" means the same as "What does SkyOS have that others don't"?.

The answer is, apparently, "Nothing."

It's an impressive hobby OS. Damn impressive accomplishment from such a small developer base. I wish this project all the best. And it may well be somebody's ideal workstation or server OS. But. There's nothing special about it.
br>

Somewhat unlike the Slashdot frontpage story leads you to assume. Sigh.

And it's funny how the article considers driver support and application software availability the main obstacles to mainstream adoption. Sheesh. The main obstacle is that THERE IS NO NEED FOR YET ANOTHER FREE OS THAT LOOKS JUST LIKE THE OTHERS AND DOES THE SAME STUFF. SkuOS doesn't scratch any real itch. That is, judging from this rather thoughtlessly written article. (Why not discuss what SkyOS has under the hood? The special ways it does things? It's philosophy and archtitecture? After all, there might be something quite special in there... ;-)

Re:hobby os

[quigonn]

Bwahahaha. The author is definitely _not_ an ex-BeOS developer, as I once saw a SkyOS presentation done by him in my school (and both he and I are Austrians, so any affiliation with BeOS or Be is _very_ unlikely, as he also presented his CV, and there was no foreign software company in it). SkyOS started as a personal project when he was still in school, he was supported by a number of CS teachers at doing this, and after finishing school, he simply went on with developing it.

Re:hobby os

[Hard_Code]

Ok, my mistake, perhaps it was NewOS that was written by an ex-BeOS developer. In any case i'm pretty sure it was [Something]OS ;)

Re:hobby os

[aardvarkjoe]

As of my reading, you have twelve replies, every single one of which has failed to answer your question. I'm curious too. Can anyone tell us what sets SkyOS apart from other operating systems?

Re:hobby os

[AlXtreme]

SkyOS isn't an open source project and there are rumours that it contains GPL'ed code. The day SkyOS's code would be included into Linux is the same day SCO doesn't make a brainfuck.

Heck, I'd rather have Minix on my machine, at least it has a BSD-like license now. Choice is great, but don't make it seem like SkyOS is actually an improvement. It isn't, it's just some guys pet project that he doesn't want to share. Case closed.

Re:hobby os

[unixbob]

I think one of the reasons that this and other hobby OS's (Atheos springs to mind) are featured on slashdot is due to their geeky nature and the probable genuine interest of the readership. I'm interested in what you define as "so much attention". When was the last SkyOS post? These hobby OS's tend to pop up every few months whenever the developers do s significant release.

Certainly beats the ongoing SCO saga anyway

Re:hobby os

[festers]

From the article:
"The core team may release the operating system source code under such a license once they feel comfortable interacting with outside developers, though such a scenario would likely not occur until well after SkyOS reaches a widespread audience.

The funny thing is, I just don't see SkyOS gaining a widespread audience until outside developers have access to the source. It seems like a classic chicken-and-egg problem.

Re:hobby os

[scosol]

Yeah no shit- he made a kernel, that's all- I respect what he did and all, but I do get kinda tired of the treatment of Linus as if he's some god.

As RMS had beaten in to our brains, "Linux" is *nothing* without a compiler toolchain and assorted userland tools.

And without XFree86, "Linux" remains a dinosaur.

My understanding is that Linus's kernel becoming the predominant "unix-like scheduling and memory-management core" to mate up with the GNU toolchain was just kinda a random fun accident.

Re:hobby os

[mar1boro]

wed128

"With no clear advantage over other free unixes, why is this hobbyOS getting so much attention? i tried a beta disc a few months back, and i didn't see anything special...i mean, a one man OS is impressive, but i can't see anyone actually using it..."

Maybe the point in making it, was in the making. Maybe the interest is rooted in appreciation for a cool hack. Why, by the way, can't you imagine anyone ever using it?

Re:hobby os

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

Let me tell you, Linux is NOT a one person project, it was, when it WASN'T and OS, but a Terminal Emulator, Thousands of people works on Linux, and, besides, Linux is not a complete OS, it's just a Unix-like Kernel, which runs fine togheter with the GNU OS.

Re:hobby os

[Anonymous Coward]

NewOS is was.

Re:hobby os

[Anonymous Coward]

Its a SCO killer.

Re:hobby os

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you a musician or a recordist? Seems as if nobody else gives a crap abour free real time OSs.

Re:hobby os

[cbreaker]

There's a few differences, actually.

- Like you said, it's closed source and proprietary
- Linux has a strong Unix tie; easier for developers to start writing for Linux right away
- Linux and the Open Source/GPL movement wasn't around when Linux came to be. This is important, maybe the most important.

Maybe something like this could have taken off before all the Linux craze started, but it's kinda late IMO. While there's always the possibility that this OS could serve some function as an embedded OS or something of that nature, it's unlikely that it will ever reach "wide-spread" audience. Linux is still too new*, Microsoft still has a monopoly, etc.. and this software isn't free. Promises of free-ness and open-sourceness mean nothing.

If SkyOS keeps being developed for down the line, it'll probably end up including a compatibility layer to allow Linux/Unix applications to compile under it. Why not just run Linux, it's not just promised to be free, it is, today.

* When I say new, I mean, mature. Linux/FS/GPL software and desktop software is still emerging.

Re:hobby os

[Tokerat]

i mean, a one man OS is impressive, but i can't see anyone actually using it...

Yea, that's never happened before... ;-)

Re:hobby os

[child_of_mercy]

"Linux and the Open Source/GPL movement wasn't around when Linux came to be"

Linux fitted into the pre-existing GNU framework which was (and is) most definitely GPL and predated it by many years.

Re:hobby os

[wed128]

The reason earlier free unix clones took off was because they were Actually free. Linus had opened his code to the masses before linux really took off, and the guy who wrote skyOS wrote he will absolutely never do this. Baleeted.

Re:hobby os

[cbreaker]

Let's face it; before the Linux boom, it was barely a thought in anyone's mind.

I'm not saying Linux is the most important, but I am saying that it was the catalyst.

Re:hobby os

[child_of_mercy]

so we're talking about fashionability now?

Re:hobby os

[cbreaker]

I'm not sure what angle you're coming from here?

What I mean is that once Linux showed up and gained some popularity and become something viable, it caught the attention of a lot of people; it proved that OSS works, and it brought a lot of new talent and money into the arena. Sure, maybe something else could have come along, but then we'd be having the same conversation about that.

Ever since Linux got pretty big, we've seen a whole slew of fantastic software developed, some for Linux, some of it not. It's been great!

Re:hobby os

[child_of_mercy]

the point is that linux is a product of the GPL and free software, not a cause.

For something small..

[vpscolo]

It looks very impressive with the sheer amount of work that has gone into it but I can't help but thinking apart from geek value why? The about page doesn't seem to give huge amounts of insight

Re:For something small..

[p4ul13]

I guess if one man can show people a fully functional OS that he wrote pretty much on his own, he could definitly land any programming job he wanted. Maybe it's to build a nifty portfolio. Maybe it's intended to make a couple extra bucks (seems he's managed to sell some copies to developers). Maybe it is jus to see if he could do it.

Would you or I do this? Probably not (I know I wouldn't), but I'll give this dude credit for what he has done here.

Re:For something small..

[lemonjus]

I guess if one man can show people a fully functional OS that he wrote pretty much on his own, he could definitly land any programming job he wanted

Yes, but a man that wrote a whole OS by himself must have serious trouble working in a team.

So maybe its not such a good idea hiring him :)

Re:For something small..

[RobinH]

Yes, but a man that wrote a whole OS by himself must have serious trouble working in a team.

So maybe its not such a good idea hiring him :)

Actually, if you hire this guy, you can fire the team.

Re:Has anyone tried running this in VMWARE?

[Anonymous Coward]

if you would have read the article you would know part of the review was done with VMWARE.

Screen shot

[Anonymous Coward]

Screen shot

Re:Screen shot

[dash2]

woot! We've slashdotted a THIRD server!

Re:Has anyone tried running this in VMWARE?

[Sklivvz]

Basically RTFA! The whole test is done with VMWARE... also the screenshots are done using that.

Re:oh my god just pooped my pants

[Anonymous Coward]

Videotape it and see it in Japan, you'll be a millionaire, since they like that kind of crap (pun intended).

Re:Never thought

[PFee]

Well maybe they should have copied it. Looks like it's been /.d Can someone post a copy?

From the shades-of-atheos dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

That'd be Syllable. Syllable is cooler than SkyOS anyway...

Re:From the shades-of-atheos dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

Syllable sucks. They just took a decent OS (AtheOS) and dinked around with it. They haven't done any serious work on their own.

Re:From the shades-of-atheos dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. No support for GCC 3, no work on updating important core GNU tools, no changes at all the libsyllable (Sorry, libatheos. The name hasn't changed either). No re-write of the PCI system. No USB support. No re-architecture of the kernel and bus management. No re-architecture of the graphics drivers nor support for additional hardware features for video playback. No new drivers (Certainly none of those!). No support for CD-ROMs and a bootable installation CD. No new desktop and launcher. Certainly no additional multimedia framework. No bug fixes. No kernel improvement. No changes at all the desktop. No additional applications.

No, Syllable hasn't done anything in a year and a half. AtheOS would still be excelent if they hand't done anything to it. It'd be three years out of date, but it'd be excelent.

For x86??

[earplug]

It seems that x86 is on its way out the door, and 64bit is on its way in.

Is there a 64bit solution in development, or is this yet another project to keep our old hardware useful?

Re:For x86??

[Anonymous Coward]

is there any reason why you're opposing x86 and 64 bits ?
is there any place where you've seen things such as x86==32bits or x86==16bits or x86==8bits ?

Re:For x86??

[Anonymous Coward]

But it's not gone yet, is it? I mean, people are still using Windows 98, after all. My company just recently got rid of several Pentium 166 machines they were making people use. Yes, that's right, only three digits in that CPU speed.

Re:For x86??

[Anonymous Coward]

Er... yes. By definition, the x86 architecture is 32 bits. You can't suddenly make it 64 bits and expect everything to work on it as usual. Why do you think AMD's new architecture is not just called x86?

Re:For x86??

[azzy]

Wow.. 3 digit speed.... I wish I had that.. but I'm stuck on a 1.2GHz machine :( just a boring 2 digit cpu speed.

Re:For x86??

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, well, only about ALL THE COMPUTERS IN THE FRICKIN' WORLD are 32-bit x86 today.

Why on earth shouldn't we continue developing stuff for 32-bit x86 anymore?

If you don't want your x86 anymore, then fine, just give it to me, I'll take good care of it.

Re:For x86??

[Jaysyn]

If you want 3 digits, I've got a 700Mhz I'll sell you.

Jaysyn

Re:For x86??

[Hythlodaeus]

Is there a 64bit solution in development, or is this yet another project to keep our old hardware useful?

It seems to me that in the current marketplace there's more of a burden to make 64 bits useful.

Re:Has anyone tried running this in VMWARE?

[extra the woos]

sorry, the review site is slashdotted (i did try!)

Anyone got a mirror to the fullsize images?

[Anonymous Coward]

They keep timing out on me...

Re:Anyone got a mirror to the fullsize images?

[spickus]

Very creative goatse troll.

Re:Anyone got a mirror to the fullsize images?

[Anonymous Coward]

nice link Anonymous Troll

Re:Anyone got a mirror to the fullsize images?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice moderation. Click the link.

hmmm

[rogabean]

just as the debian tool's link from earlier, it seems these links have went down already too? /sigh oh well guess i'll wait till later to take a peek.

Re:Just what I need

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux distributions outnumber "hobby" operating systems like SkyOS & Syllable by almost 10 to one. Why do people complain about "Yet another OS" yet seem to believe that 2^64 Linux distributions (All slightly different) is just fine and dandy? I don't get it. Really, I don't.

Hardware

[sonoluminescence]

The minimum requirments are a pentium and 32MB of RAM.... And from the load time of the web page I think that web server is running on a that exact hardware.

Re:Hardware

[fbg111]

It must have been slashdotted by the firstposter.

Re:It looks like a good project and all...

[akiaki007]

Yes, it is hard enough to get Linux on the desktop. First, this isn't Linux. It's like it just like it's like all the other unices. The entire thing is written from scratch. Including the windowing system and all the GUI stuff. It is not compatible with Linux either. However, they are working on a Linux emulation program.

Anyway, the reason this thing is good is because it looks good. I think the menu has icons that are a bit large and all, but otherwise it looks very nice. There are other Linux distros that look very nice as well, but they are difficult to install for someone that hasn't used Linux before. Of course, it would be best to install an OS without a 50 page manual. So, therefore we eliminate quite a few of the best linux distros. The Linux distros that are super easy to isntall generally end up running KDE or Gnome by default, which are slow. If SkyOS is what it is, then the GUI will be faster and more intuitive.

I look forward to seeing how it all works out, and if I can find my 3GB hdd somewhere, I will install it and play with it - though it'll be hard to beat the speed of my fluxbox, but this one sure looks a hell of a lot better.

Oh, and unlike some of the "out-of-the-box" linux distros...this one is completely free.

Summary of posts, present and future

[haggar]

30% will say "Who needs another OS when we have Linux."
25% will say "Why another OS project? He should rather concentrate on MySQL/fishing/stamp collection"
25% will say "So what, it's his damn time, he can do what the pleases."
25% will say "HA! You can't even do math! 30+25+25+25 != 100"

Re:Summary of posts, present and future

[p4ul13]

25% will say "HA! You can't even do math! 30+25+25+25 != 100"

Some might say that, but I'll simply thank you for giving %105 to us, the slashdot community.

Thanks Haggar, you're an example to us all.

Re:Summary of posts, present and future

[Anonymous Coward]

HA! You can't even do math! 30+25+25+25 != 100

Re:Summary of posts, present and future

[JeremyALogan]

wait... that isn't right? damned windows calculator

Re:Summary of posts, present and future

[Dun Malg]

25% will say "Why another OS project? He should rather concentrate on MySQL/fishing/stamp collection"

Aren't they more likely to go off on the "charity" rant? You know, the one that goes "instead of spending so much [time|money] making a [homebrew OS|lego robot|wacky case mod], why doesn't the selfish bastard [pick up garbage along the highway|teach someone else's children to read|build linux based 286's for the homeless]?"

Re:Summary of posts, present and future

[dorward]

HA! You can't even do math! 30+25+25+25 != 100

Adam says foo
Bob says bar
Charles says foobar
Dan says foo

75% say foo
50% say bar

Don't mindlessly add up statistics.

Re:Summary of posts, present and future

[lemonjus]

I dont think this "hobby" is any different from somebody building a car from scratch, or a plane , or something.

It sounds like lots of fun to me. not wierd, not crazy. fun.

Re:Summary of posts, present and future

[haggar]

Well, OK, I can agree to amend my post like this:
He should rather concentrate on [MySQL .. stamp collection]
which should include every other pastime and charitable work.

Re:Summary of posts, present and future

[los furtive]

Correction:

50% say foo
0% say bar.

Someone had to say it ;-)

Re:Summary of posts, present and future

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get it.

As opposed to copying names?

[A nonymous Coward]

Unless you claim you came up with that name first ...

I have two problems

[msuzio]

I see a couple "problems" (well, OK, they're just gripes of mine, so take that for what it's worth):

1) It's not free-as-in-speech. I take a dimmer view of projects that aren't open and have already taken a firm stand that they will *never* be open. Coupling this with some allegations of *possible* GPL violations (which were covered in the last SkyOS story), and it just gives me a bad feeling

2) I just don't see anything here to get excited about. Kudos to the author for doing this all on his own, that's great... but without something new and exciting to offer, it's just a toy project at best. I'd rather see innovative minds like this throw their weight behind projects that we do need (like better Linux games <g>).

Re:I have two problems

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, I've got to hand it to you. You must have balls the size of fscking grapefruit. This guy is designing his own OS, an incredibly challenging task, and you want?

Games, what's more, no one should have to pay for them. With all the unemployed techies you've got the balls to say that if they're not giving it away, why bother?

What a dick.

Re:I have two problems

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

So, you desire to live off the teet of society and play games all day. Good for you. But when you come to the realization that you can't live in your mom's basement the rest of your life, YES, I WILL TAKE FRIES WITH THAT.

Re:I have two problems

[jez9999]

2) I just don't see anything here to get excited about.

Um, quite. I read the review... it says, at the top, "operating system with one of the most intuitive graphical user interfaces ever. Gone are misconceptions about conformance. SkyOS serves as a reminder to GUI developers that the current status quo will only suffice for so long." This heavily implies that SkyOS has loads of new, revolutionary features, and a totally new UI from previous OSes.

So I looked at the review and screenshots. It's got a desktop, a start menu, a menu-driven settings dialog, dialogs that look virtually identical to Linux dialogs, a shell (incredible!), and some basic hardware support. And, don't tell anyone, but I think it can do anti-aliased fonts too!

The article also states that "SkyOS definitely leads the alternative scene right now." I don't wish to detract from the work the SkyOS team has apparently put in, but... leads the alternative scene for what? Nicest looking default desktop OS? Best closed-source Linux clone? There is nothing at all revolutionary about this OS, and just about anyone would be better off installing MacOS X, Linux or Windows XP.

Re:I have two problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Its really funny, your post shows how ignorant you are of what SkyOS is. You've made a bunch of major inaccuracies in your post, due to the fact that this is probably the first time you've ever heard of SkyOS, and chances are, you didn't even bother reading about it.

Way to go.

Mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

The server is running slow so here is a mirror. Pasted Anonymously so as to not karma whore:

Many would say "thinking outside the box" is an overused cliche, but the developers with the SkyOS project would be the first to challenge such an assumption. Spearheaded by Robert Szeleney, the group of part-time coders is furiously hacking away at producing an operating system with one of the most intuitive graphical user interfaces ever. Gone are misconceptions about conformance. SkyOS serves as a reminder to GUI developers that the current status quo will only suffice for so long.

About SkyOS

SkyOS started life in 1996 as a small operating system project written from scratch for the x86 architecture. As underground support grew, the project rapidly evolved into a full-fledge, freeware platform. Sure, it certainly is not Linux or Windows, but those with an insatiable appetite for tweaking and bleeding-edge development will probably come to love SkyOS over the upcoming months.

While a wide variety of hardware support still remains minimal, SkyOS does deliver features commonly found with commercial operating systems: 32-bit processing, symmetric multiprocessing, virtual memory, memory protection, multitasking, multithreading, hardware 2D acceleration, TCP/IP networking, PPP support, and much more. Given the small size and part-time nature of the core development staff, SkyOS has came a rather long way in a short amount of time.

The real centerpiece of the project is the graphical user interface. With the bulk of low-level coding already established, the SkyOS team has recently transitioned to developing a high-performance GUI capable of delivering a unique desktop experience. Just as with the OS layer, the GUI includes many impressive features: 32-bit color depth, hardware acceleration (as applicable), a message passing subsystem, and even preliminary OpenGL support.

Sure, I could write volumes about the technical aspects of the SkyOS core, but it seems the development team is already well ahead of us journalists. A thoroughly documented SkyOS manual and SDK are already available, packed full with detailed information. What would an operating system project be without an adjoining documentation project as well?

SkyOS 5.0 Beta Release

Following a few emails with Kelly Rush concerning ATI driver support, I found myself in a position to receive a preview copy of the SkyOS 5.0 Beta release. Never being one to turn down free software, I quickly snapped at the opportunity, plus secured TechIMO an exclusive first look at the operating system. Following several days of testing, SkyOS 5.0 represents a true evolutionary step from the current version 4.x installation.

While I will refer to this release as a beta build, the version I received was more typically aligned with a pre-beta development build. Since initial receipt of the code, the development team has opened up a SkyOS beta program for those interested in testing the operating system during the next few months. A one-time purchase of $30 includes a SkyOS 5.0 disc and technical support via a beta forum. Once finalized, SkyOS 5.0 will be free as with previous releases, but the developers needed to cover expenses for supporting the beta test program, thus the small fee. Only 100 spots were allotted, and those are being filled fast!

Installation

Installing SkyOS seems painless enough, assuming you already have experience with Linux or another Unix-type platform. While several options exist, my installation was successfully completed using a hard drive with two partitions (SkyOS install files and SkyOS install drive) and a simple boot floppy running a preconfigured version of the popular GRUB bootloader. I also installed SkyOS under VMware 3.2.1 with little trouble, though a few minor changes were required within a text configuration file to successfully detect the VMware graphics subsystem.

Once booted, the installation routines look fairly generic. Most options are clearly d

Re:Mirror

[jameson71]

I'm sorry, did I see that right, they are CHARGING for a "pre-beta", "hobbiest" O/S????

Re:Just what I need

[Quasar1999]

Okay, come on... there is value to other OS projects, yes, linux is the big thing, and everyone should concentrate on it, yadda, yadda...

But, if people don't do other small OS's, or even dead end crazy projects, then a lot of stuff could be missed. For example if I'm going to write an OS, then I'd have to worry about a bootloader... Now let's say I write one from scratch... Great, a total waste, as me and maybe 4 other people on the planet will ever use it... But if LILO (or whatever the latest bootloader for Linux is), would have a problem, it's quite possible that my bootloader may have a fix for it, and then the experience gained from writing my own useless OS, would pay off by being used to fix the current popular OS.

And posting about these projects on slashdot may be what is required to get enough attention that someone examines it's functionality, and discovers that the useless project has something working, that their project does not...

Re:Just what I need

[TiggsPanther]

Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to disparage the people working on this. I've done plenty of my own projects that will go nowhere. Should I start dragging them out so Slashdot can run stories on them?

Only if you want to stress-test your webserver. =^.^=

In all seriousness, though, it depends on the project. If it's something that you feel will go nowhere but would be useful if it went somewhere (and you feel you have the bandwidth to cope) then why not?
The worst that can happen is that the editors will reject your article.

Tiggs

One man show?

[mr_luc]

See, they SAY that they know it's a one-man show. But then they go and slashdot his one-hamster web server! :(

Re:One man show?

[ScottSpeaks!]

they go and slashdot his one-hamster web server!

Hamster is a usenet/mail server, not a web server. ;)

TEXAS HOT PLATE'S ON ME!

[Anonymous Coward]

mmmmm good.

[OT] Your company is called VPS _Colo_

[Anonymous Coward]

But nowhere on the site does it say that I can, say, give you a 1U box and you stick it in your rack and host it for me. So what's up? Do you offer server hosting? Also where is your datacenter located?

Re:It looks like a good project and all...

[Anonymous Coward]

But do we REALLY need another OS? I mean, it's hard enough getting Linux on the desktop, what about something even less known than that? Especially one that seems to be designed specifically to run only on the x86 architecture.

Some people don't have an agenda of "getting [my favourite OS] onto [other peoples'] desktops". Some people create things because they can, just the way other people climb mountains because they can. I feel sorry for the SkyOS people getting attention from slashdot, because it will get undeservedly slagged by large numbers of Linux bigots. OSNews is the right place for info about alternative operating systems because on Slashdot, there are only one or two "acceptable" or "worthwhile" OSes, supported by a political agenda. Would there be a Linux today if, 10 years ago, everyone had said "do we really need another x86 OS"? Some seriously closed minds around these parts. Sorry, but it's true. Not everyone, but a lot.

w000t!

[Anonymous Coward]

DOUBLE SLASHDOTTING!!!

Yes thats correct, we have successfully slashdotted two different sites in the same article! Keep up the good work and let's try for a triple slashdotting!!

Re:w000t!

[Anonymous Coward]

The site is probably hosted in a SkyOS machine

Re:w000t!

[LnxAddct]

If you were trying to insult SkyOS as not being up to the task of hosting a site, I believe you inadvertently insulted Linux. I guess they are having bandwidth issues.
Regards,
Steve

Re:w000t!

[MrEd]

let's try for a triple slashdotting!!

It's called a hat trick.

Re:w000t!

[sean23007]

And after that, if we do it fast enough, we could go for the slashdottacular!

I play too much Halo.

Some time ago...

[Anonymous Coward]

someone told to one student there: "Ahh, Linus, why do you need another OS? There is plenty of choice, and Unix already exists"

Bad press

[TrancePhreak]

I'm sure there are some people who are happy about this project, but showing off screenshots of you 'illegally' playing a Nintendo title on an emulator probably isn't the right thing to do.

Re:Bad press

[Stevyn]

It's only illegal if you don't have the real game...or so I'm told

Re:Bad press

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only illegal if you don't own the ROM/game.

Re:Bad press

[TrancePhreak]

This is somewhat incorrect... You see, the law says that you have to make the backup yourself. Very few people have that equipment. At least outside of China.

Re:Bad press

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite a few people had copiers back in the day. Stuff like the Super MagiCom which put ROM images on standard 3,5" HD diskettes -- hence the .smc extension on most ROMs. Anyway, they're not very uncommon.

Mirrors coming soon!

[Hexydes]

I'm sorry everyone, we didn't know we'd get Slashdotted! We're working on getting some mirrors up for all of you.

QUIT STEALING OUR BANDWIDTH! =D

Re:Mirrors coming soon!

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, it was you who submitted the article to Slashdot. If you submitted the article in the hope it would be posted..why didn't you at least suspect the possibility of a Slashdoting?

Re:Mirrors coming soon!

[hyperstation]

how could you not know?

Re:Mirrors coming soon!

[Hexydes]

Ok, here is one mirror, though I don't know about the bandwidth supply on it, so be careful:

http://skyos.lynx-tech.biz

Re:Mirrors coming soon!

[Hexydes]

Because the story came back to me as rejected and I put it out of my mind. Then all of a sudden our site wasn't working anymore, and we had to figure out what happened (which didn't take long), and now we're trying to find a solution.

Re:Mirrors coming soon!

[PD]

Bandwidth supply. I'm starting a band that does updated covers of sappy 80's love songs, and I've been looking for a name. That's perfect, thanks!

Re:Mirrors coming soon!

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, if you don't want people visiting your site (NOT stealing your bandwidth) you shouldn't have it online. Cry babies worried about bandwidth costs and running on a server that can't handle a few (thousand) extra hits shouldn't even be running a site and posting it here.

Re:Mirrors coming soon!

[Hexydes]

Uhm, I'm pretty sure I was making a joke, hence the ASCII emoticon, but apparently you didn't understand. So to make myself more clear, we're aware that Slashdot takes up a lot of bandwidth when your site gets posted, and we're working on getting a mirror.

Re:Mirrors coming soon!

[Dun Malg]

Ok, here is one mirror, though I don't know about the bandwidth supply on it, so be careful:

Careful? As in "don't click the link too hard"? "Don't let your browser load the page too fast"? A teeming collective mass of idiots* (slashdot) is incapable of being careful.

* I know we're not all idiots individually. en masse we are the equivalent of one very large, distributed idiot.

Re:Mirrors coming soon!

[DAldredge]

What ever came of the alleged use of GPL code in your OS?

Re:Mirrors coming soon!

[visgoth]

I know we're not all idiots individually. en masse we are the equivalent of one very large, distributed idiot.

So that's what a beowulf cluster of /.ers is!

Re:Mirrors coming soon!

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

I know we're not all idiots individually. en masse we are the equivalent of one very large, distributed idiot.

Because none of us is as dumb as all of us.

Re:Mirrors coming soon!

[be-fan]

"en masse we are the equivalent of one very large, distributed idiot."

Let me get this straight. So what you are saying, is that Slashdot is a beowulf cluster of idiots?

Re:Mirrors coming soon!

[r_benchley]

SkyOS contacted the owners of the GPL code, and an agreement was reached that they would provide the source code once SkyOS 5 final (not the beta version) was released.

Re:Mirrors coming soon!

[RebelWithoutAClue]

Careful as in "wget --limit-rate=xxx" ?

Yes Hobby OS

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Reminds me of another "hobby OS" I ran into circa 1991 also developed by a single person. What was his name ..Linuz something. Ah yes Linuz Torousveld. Wonder what happened with that OS?

Re:Yes Hobby OS

[log0n]

SkyOS won't ever 'blossom' as Linux has because the guy who is writing it doesn't release source and is quite adamant about never releasing the source freely/publicly.

Re:Yes Hobby OS

[somethinghollow]

Kind of like Windows "doesn't" release source code and is/was adamant about not releasing it?

Maybe it will blossom in a different way...

Re:Yes Hobby OS

[drakaan]

Linuz Torousveld...he was the inventor of Linouex, right?

Re:Yes Hobby OS

[oblivionboy]

> Linuz something. Ah yes Linuz Torousveld

No, no. I think his name was Tortelvis.

(http://www.dreadzeppelin.com/)

Re:Yes Hobby OS

[wed128]

true, but unlike windows, SKYOS isn't a default install on any computer, isn't advertised in mainstream media, etc.

Re:Yes Hobby OS

[Hiro Antagonist]

From what I heard, he got sued into nonexistence by some sompany called SCrOtum.

Re:Yes Hobby OS

[Tim C]

Nor was Windows, once.

Not saying that SkyOS will ever get that big - it's even harder now, with an incumbent "default" desktop OS - just pointing out that *everything* starts out small. That doesn't mean that everything gets big, just that you can't assume that nothing will.

Re:Yes Hobby OS

[squiggleslash]

Nor was Windows, once.

That's true. And back when Windows wasn't preinstalled on PCs and was barely advertised (actually, I believe Microsoft did heavily promote the first versions, FWIW) it had a marketshare only fractionally bigger than SkyOS's.

Not that I'm suggesting SkyOS is a waste of time. These "Why oh why did someone write a new operating system/editor/office suite/leg amputator/baby mulching machine" types of post really get on my wick. Maybe he did it because he wanted to. Perhaps other people will run it because they like it better than Windows/Linux/OS X/etc. Does every project need fifty pages of justification to be considered "useful" and "worthy of talking about"?

Re:Yes Hobby OS

[Anonymous Coward]

almost funny!

or not.

Re:Yes Hobby OS

[scosol]

What can I say, you're wrong- you know what a linux kernel does without the surrounding tools/compiler?

absolfuckinglutely nothing

To say Linux was developed by a single person is a) plain wrong b) a disservice to *many* people/groups

Re:Yes Hobby OS

[wed128]

I'm not asking why, nor trying to be condescending, i merely want to know what all the hubub is about... I realise he wrote it for fun, i realise that everything starts small...i was just wondering what makes this OS special, what are it's advantages, whatever...

Re:Does SkyOS come with....

[Anonymous Coward]

No it comes with OnStar

What license is the source code under?

[dido]

It's at least free as in beer, but is it free as in speech? That's what I'd like to know, and is the most important question from my point of view. Is it GPL, BSD/X-Windows, or public domain? Or could it even be proprietary but gratis? I can't tell from looking the pages from the SkyOS website I was able to see at before it got totally slashdotted just like the TechIMO website.

If it's closed source and proprietary, then forget it. Such a system is of no real use.

Re:What license is the source code under?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's closed source and proprietary.

Apart from the parts which arn't, but they're not releasing the code for them yet. They say they'll release stuff which they've modified under the GPL when they release SkyOS 5.0 This is fine and dandy and well within the terms of the GPL but it doesn't address the issues of binaries of GPL'd stuff which are already being distributed in the current version of SkyOS.

Re:What license is the source code under?

[Betcour]

From what I understand it is "proprietary but gratis".

Re:What license is the source code under?

[DAldredge]

The project lead has stated in the past that the source code will NEVER be open.

Re:What license is the source code under?

[dasmegabyte]

If it's closed source and proprietary, then forget it. Such a system is of no real use.

Then let it join the realms of other useless software. Winamp! DivX! Qmail! Irfanview!

(BTW: I come from the Real World. You know, where people believe in consistancy, accountability and responsibility in software development. We consider most Open Source to be of no real use in any of these three areas. But, you know, keep up your liberal dreaming. I too am a fan of Bob Dylan)

Re:What license is the source code under?

[dido]

Consistency, accountability, and responsibility is something that you hardly get assured of with proprietary software. On the other hand I would argue that you actually have a better chance of getting these three values with Open Source and Free software.

Let's take consistency first (yes, there is no letter 'a' in that word). What kind of assurance do you have that your proprietary software will remain consistent with your needs? All you can do is take the developer's word for it, and trust that they won't force you into upgrades that contain features you don't want or don't need, and make the software less suited for you. Not a particularly strong assurance to me, and one that I see Microsoft along with many other proprietary software vendors routinely violate. For Free/Open Source Software on the other hand, you have the source code, and the right to change it, and you have a better chance of achieving consistency with your needs by either making the changes yourself or paying someone to make them for you.

How about accountability and responsibility? Let's see... Some proprietary software vendors (e.g. Microsoft) have EULAs that totally shirk this, and actually disclaim all accountability and responsibility for their software. Strike one. Other vendors may give this to you only at great price, because their privileged access to the source gives them a de facto monopoly in this. Strike two. Even if the vendor does give you the level of accountability and responsibility you require, what assurance do you have that they will continue to provide this for as long as you need it? The vendor could go bankrupt. They could get acquired by someone that has no interest in supporting their products. They could just simply and unilaterally decide that it's no longer worth it for them to go on supporting the software you're using. You've basically tied the accountability and responsibility for your software to the fortunes and whims of its vendor. If they decide to screw you, all you can do is bend over. If they eventually get screwed themselves, then so are you. Strike three. Open Source / Free software suffers from none of these problems. Nobody has a monopoly on supporting OSS/FS, and you have a much better chance of getting the level of accountability and responsibility that you need by taking your choice of support from many possible sources. If all else fails, the fact that you have the source and the freedom to modify it for your own needs gives you the ability to provide that support yourself should it come to that.

Windows syndrome.

[jotaeleemeese]

Why there is always somebody that comes with a screenshot when here is an announcement about a fscking Operating System?

I would be more interested in talking about the internals, not the eye candy (which is not part of the OS in any serious OS anyway).

Re:Windows syndrome.

[JDBrechtel]

It's probably because everyone doesn't bend to your will.

You don't rule the world you know?

Re:Windows syndrome.

[Anonymous Coward]

because the gui is the os, despite your thinking to the contrary

Re:Windows syndrome.

[Trashman]

I would be more interested in talking about the internals, not the eye candy anyway).

Then you are posting in the wrong thread my friend. You do realize that the "eye candy" is what most people see when they use a computer. Apparently It isn't the case for you but for me, I typicaly don't compile my OS.

(which is not part of the OS in any serious OS

That's a lame and short-sighted comment. (I don't use it, but) MacOS X isn't a serious OS?

Re:Windows syndrome.

[wed128]

macOS X's pretty gui still sits on top of the Darwin kernel, remember...it is not part of the os, just an iterface to it...

Re:Windows syndrome.

[jdtanner]

I would be more interested in talking about the eye candy, not the internals... ;-)

Re:Windows syndrome.

[__past__]

It is still part of the software package known as Mac OS X. What is and is not part of an OS isn't that clearly defined and, just to make flamewars more likely to happen, differs between OSes.

The Linux-view that more or less OS == kernel is not the only valid one, not even the most widely used or most useful one.

Re:Windows syndrome.

[be-fan]

Its the computer science definition of OS. In OS Design class, you don't learn about making GUIs. GUIs are just apps as far as the kernel is concerned. The masses might not get it, but it doesn't make them any less wrong.

Re:Windows syndrome.

[__past__]

Do you learn about implementing an TCP/IP stack? Or filesystems? There are OSes (and kernels - I repeat, they are not the same) which consider either part of themselves, as well as others that consider them userland stuff.

Re:Windows syndrome.

[be-fan]

If the reference OS is Linux (like in our school's OS design class than yes, they do learn about these things, because they are a part of the OS. They don't learn about the GUI because its not part of the OS, just as in MacOS X.

I'm not saying that GUIs cannot be part of the OS (much of the Windows GUI is in the kernel) I'm saying that this is not the case for the OS in question (Mac OS X).

Re:Windows syndrome.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a lame and short-sighted comment. (I don't use it, but) MacOS X isn't a serious OS?

Many people wouldn't consider MacOS X to really be (only) an Operating System. It's more of "Operating Environment" (or "distribution" in linux lingo, or something); traditionally operating system has consisted of not much than kernel core and supporting functionality. Not everything typical end user needs.

What he is saying is that part of MacOS X is OS, but that the desktop part, for example, is not generally part of OS.

But it all of course comes down to terminology disagreements, and unfortunately there isn't really good term for the whole package. Thus, many people do think OS refers to everything one gets when installing Windows, or Mac OS, or one of linux distributions.

At least

[Gothmolly]

it wasn't reviewed on OSNews. Had it been, there would have been snide comments on package management, anti-aliased screen fonts, and the color scheme used for the 'Recycle Bin' icon. And Eugenia would have tried to build a custom version of GAIM, and failing dependencies would have caused another tantrum.

Re:At least

[omega9]

This is not FUNNY, it's TRUE.

Re:At least

[MarkoNo5]

Fyi, they won the OSNews 'Best Hobby OS 2003' award.

Re:At least

[crush]

But there would have been at least one positive aspect mentioned: mp3 support would be available and there would be no confusing multiplicty of applications!

Re:At least

[Accipiter]

Oh God, that is so accurate it's not even funny... wait, yes it is!

All user-error problems would get blamed on the OS itself. Anyone who points out where she's wrong will get modded down into oblivion and receive an e-mail telling them not to be so "abusive."

Because, as we all know, when you tell someone they're wrong (and explain why), you're being abusive. Haw Haw!

Politics in SkyOS

[pcraven]

This is kind of an interesting post from one of the SkyOS guys. Even being a small 'one-man' OS, it seems that people get mired in politics these days.

Re:Politics in SkyOS

[qtp]

Apparently much of SkyOS is built on GPLed Software.

From reading your link, it does seem that there is a question about some of the SkyOS licensed software being modified from GPL sources.

I also found few references to SkyOS as an open-source project on Google, as well as more than one article about possible gpl violations.

It may be all a big misunderstanding, or it may be that SkyOS is indeed built of modified PGL sourcees.

Does anyone have a link to the SkyOS license? It is refered to on thier download page (see above link), but I haven't been able to find a copy of it anywhere.

Re:Politics in SkyOS

[Anonymous Coward]

...built of modified PGL sourcees

The Pro Gamer's League is releasing code these days? Cool! I wonder if the code is GPL'ed...

Mirror of content

[Mr_Silver]

A mirror of the SkyOS review can be found in a Slashdot comment here.

No-one seems to have modded it up to a point where people might start actually seeing it.

/. effect

[Karem Lore]

Hey all,

Just a few little question:

If we manage to slashdot all these sites all the time:

how come /. never gets /.'d?
What the hell are /. running over at /. to maintain /.'s high speed at all times allowing /. readers access?
Everyone must come through the /. site so the /. site must be hammered at least as much as other sites...

Karem

Re:/. effect

[Anonymous Coward]

albeit they are old and garbage (Cisco Arrowpoints), they are using load balancers nonetheless, which is why /. can handle the load

Re:/. effect

[jube_fl]

Im guessing /. is helped quite abit by being constructed by mainly text.

Re:/. effect

[llamalicious]

As he often comments on the state of their hardware and network, go peruse CmdrTaco's Journal, and hell, e-mail him or someone on the staff if you're really really interested.

Re:/. effect

[Anonymous Coward]

/. uses Windows Server 2003

Re:/. effect

[soulsteal]

Uber-tweaked, load-balanced web and database servers. Probably a decent amount of bandwidth as well.

Re:/. effect

[skooba]

Hey! What the hell is /. doing using sql server?!? Heresy! I feel tainted. Ewww.

Re:/. effect

[pyrros]

It's quite simple really: A site is slashdotted when it gets a lot of unexpected (ie they are unprepared for it) traffic.

CNN, NYT, google etc are immune because /. traffic is not a lot by their standards.

Slashdot is immune because /. traffic is, by definition expected.

Re:/. effect

[kjd]

It's MySQL.

Re:/. effect

[skooba]

thank gawd. i was really worried for a minute there.

You submited the fscking story!

[DAldredge]

Damn, YOU submited the story? What where you expecting? Also, what every happend about those possible GPL violations?

Re:You submited the fscking story!

[Anonymous Coward]

- Damn, YOU submited the story? What where you expecting?

Well, I for one would expect from him exactly that degree of incoerency! What else from someone that first says that the OS will be released as GPL, then decides to keep the sources closed, and when someone dares to warn him about possible GPL violations due to unreleased sources of modified versions of GPL code, that someone gets banned from the forum without any warning.

Skyos developers are bully kids who cannot become adult by only being able to code an operating system. Sorry guys but I won't run on my computer a closed source product coming from such unreliable people.

Re:It looks like a good project and all...

[drakaan]

FATAL PARSER ERROR: "It's like it just like it's like all the other unices."

System will go down for reboot in 15 seconds...

And You Didn't Even Mention

[CrankyFool]

SkyOS's biggest benefit -- from what I hear, multiple SkyOS boxes across the nation could actually network together and form a pseudo-intelligent network-driven parallel processing system that could be used for scientific calculation, SETI, or even potentially combatting a very serious virus outbreak, if one was to occur. AND, because it'd be completely distributed, it'd be very hard to take it out with an attack on any of its nodes.

Surely such an idea has tremendous merit!

Re:And You Didn't Even Mention

[Skapare]

I bet the spammers will like that feature.

Looks like another SCO Unix Varient

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet again, another blatent example of SCO having their Intellectual Property being ripped off, this time by some lone hacker working on his own.

That my friend....

[jotaeleemeese]

.... is the most disingenous comment in the history of /.

You mean you posted something to /. and you were not prepared for the slahsdotting? In which planet do you live? And gimme some of that stuff you are smoking.

They intend to release the source..

[Ayanami Rei]

once they get it to the point where they think people will be able to contribute to it in a way that is meaningful to the core team. They are apprehensive about having to take patches/requests from the public yet. Or maybe they are embarrased at the state of the internals! :-)

In the meanwhile, they had the SDK and DDK which will get you very far.

Re:They intend to release the source..

[msuzio]

Do you have a link to an announcement about this? It would be a good step... I'm a little unsure about the development team's real intention, though, since I seem to recall a lot of slamming of the GPL on their discussion forum. I mean, I don't care -- pick any Open Source license you want, I'm no zealot. I just hope they have actually considered this and are committed to a real open source release.

I do understand the desire not to "go open" right away -- we all write some pretty crufty code when we know only we will be the ones looking at it... However, they should make open-sourcing an actual goal, something on a roapmap that is just as important as any feature they might add...

Opening it up would in the longer term help them achieve more features I think (although as we can see in the Mozilla project, there is a period of time where just bringing everyone out there up to speed consumes time and resources).

Re:They intend to release the source..

[FreshFunk510]

Chicken and the egg.

I'd say that the reason WHY Linux gained popularility was because it was an open OS and Linus was able to get support from the community. I find it hard to not open it and expect people to start contributing.

Re:They intend to release the source..

[dasmegabyte]

Or maybe they're afraid to release the source until the OS has evolved its basic design far enough that it can't be ignored by contributors who don't understand or don't agree with it. See, Linux's success has partially been a result of its being a "Unix Like" system. One of the ideas of SkyOS was to get away from trying to make a clone. Therefore, it needs to have precedents in programming and user interface design, or else contributors will donate their own arbitrary, and possibly incongruous, designs.

In short: it is easier to create a strong system by following loose rules and methodologies than it is to create one with no rules or methodologies.

Re:They intend to release the source..

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not the original poster, and I'm at work so it's AC time in addition to not having the link on hand. But I checked out their site last night, and noticed the anouncement fairly early on. So if it's worth a couple minutes looking around, you should be able to find it somewhere on their site.

Re:They intend to release the source..

[cbreaker]

Naa.

The developers don't have to accept code from contributers if they don't wish to. I don't like the idea of any system like this being closed source, pay to beta, "we intend to be open source, maybe."

I won't even download it.

Re:They intend to release the source..

[Anonymous Coward]

Fascist.

How about nVidia support.

[Chemisor]

SkyOS has full support for nVidia cards, something that the Linux kernel is still missing.

Re:How about nVidia support.

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't full support for nVidia cards, it is a port of the XFree86 driver which supports accelerated 2D and some video processing but nothing else.

Re:How about nVidia support.

[wed128]

exactly, and if we want better support than that, at least we have the unified (binary only) driver (with wrappers)...i am very happy with my GeForce 4 under linux thankyou very much

Re:How about nVidia support.

[Anonymous Coward]

Except we're talking about SkyOS. It doesn't have the option to use the nVidia binary drivers, so what does your shiny GeForce 4 under Linux got to do with it?

Re:How about nVidia support.

[be-fan]

1) VesaFB supports NVIDIA.
2) XFree86 supports NVIDIA.
3) NVIDIA supports Linux.
4) SkyOS does not fully support NVIDIA cards --- no hardware OpenGL.

Um, x86 is an instruction set family

[ScrappyLaptop]

8088/8086's were 16 bit

The 80286, '386, '486, Pentium, PPro, PII, PIII and P4 are all 32 bit

AMD's latest CPU's are 64 bit

...all are in the x86 family. The later CPU's have a few extra instructions, math copro's, larger L1 cache, on-die L2, more address lines and a few other bells and whistles but include (almost) all of the instructions of the very first x86 chip and can run code written for the first IBM PC 5150.

Intel's 64-bit Itanium, which has been a bit of a marketing disappointment for them, on the other hand, uses an entirely new instruction set. Might as well be a PowerPC, Transmeta or Motorola CPU as far as the base of installed and legacy software is concerned. Does anyone remember the Pentium Pro? Similar tactic; it's 16-bit performance was awful as it essentially had to emulate a 16-bit processor set internally. There was still too much old code in use and the PPro line was abandoned after only one or two clock increases (introduced at 150 or 160Mhz, killed off at only 200Mhz). Intel had to backpedal on that one and the Pentuim II was a PPro with MMX and adequate 16-bit performance.

Watch for the Intel x86 64-bit CPU sometime in the next year!

Re:Um, x86 is an instruction set family

[edwdig]

The reason the Pentium Pro (and also Pentium 2 and 3) weren't very good at 16 bit code was due to a bug in executing multiple instructions simulataneously. The Pentium Pro was the first x86 with that capability. The CPU would look at the next few instructions, and if they didn't use the same CPU registers, would execute them simulataneously. Before updating the CPU registers or memory, the CPU would verify that the simultaneous execution was ok. If it was wrong in its earlier assumption, it would redo the instructions individually, which would require clearing the pipeline.

The problem was if you weren't accessing the full 32 bits of a register, in the first step, the CPU would think it could do instructions simultaneously when it couldn't. It wouldn't detect this until later on, and the pipeline would be cleared and the instructions redone. A code block like this would trigger the problem:

mov al, bl ; put the low byte of bx into the low byte of ax
mov cx, ax ; put ax into cx

Those instructions must be done in order but the Pentium Pro wouldn't realize it at first, because the initial detection stage didn't realize that changing al also changed ax.

Re:Um, x86 is an instruction set family

[True Grit]

AMD's latest CPU's are 64 bit ...all are in the x86 family. The later CPU's have a few extra instructions, math copro's, ....

AMD's AMD64 architecture (on Opteron and Athlon64 CPUs) also doubles the number of general purpose registers and doubles the number of 128 bit XMM registers (for SSE2 and FP) from 8 each to 16 each. For some apps, being recompiled with a compiler aware of those extra registers will make a big difference.

Re:Um, x86 is an instruction set family

[drsmithy]

The 80286, '386, '486, Pentium, PPro, PII, PIII and P4 are all 32 bit

The 286 was a 16 bit chip.

Does anyone remember the Pentium Pro? Similar tactic; it's 16-bit performance was awful as it essentially had to emulate a 16-bit processor set internally.

Well, it wasn't "awful", it's just 16 bit code didn't get as much of a performance increase as 32 bit code did. A similar thing happened with the introduction of the Pentium (and the P4 for that matter) - for "non native" code, 486s at similar or only marginally higher clock speeds were faster - it's just what happens with a significant architecture change.

There was still too much old code in use and the PPro line was abandoned after only one or two clock increases (introduced at 150 or 160Mhz, killed off at only 200Mhz).

The PPro line wasn't really abandoned - P2s, P3s and the Pentium M are developments of it. The packaging of the PPro was abandoned for a while and replaced by the slot/cartridge of the P2s and early P3s due to the costs of including the CPU and L2 cache in a single package.

Re:It looks like a good project and all...

[wed128]

"Oh, and unlike some of the "out-of-the-box" linux distros...this one is completely free."

Nope, you are wrong. Source for SkyOS is not released or free in any way. Free beer, not free speech

From the Source

[Civil_Disobedient]

From the /. FAQ:

Slashdot's new co-location site is now at Andover.Net's own (pinky finger to the mouth) $1 million dedicated data center at the Exodus network facility in Waltham, Mass [...] All boxes are networked together through a Cisco 6509 with 2 MSFCs and a Cisco 3500 so we can rearrange our internal network topology just by reconfiguring the switch. Internet connectivity to/from the outside world all flows through an Arrowpoint CS-800 switch which acts as both a firewall load balancer for the front end Web servers.

The Hardware: 5 load balanced Web servers dedicated to pages; 3 load balanced Web servers dedicated to images; 1 SQL server; 1 NFS Server.
All the boxes are VA Linux Systems FullOns running Debian (except for the SQL box). Each box (except for the SQL box) has LVD SCSI with 10,000 RPM drives. And they all have 2 Intel EtherExpress 100 LAN adapters.

The company I used to work for was co-located at the Exodus network facility, and I've been in it a couple of times. It is, in a word, awesome. The security is tighter than Ft. Knox. They usually don't let you past the front "desk" unless you've got a good reason. (By "desk" I mean a tightly secured room with heavy glass, steel doors, a million cameras on you). They make you wear trackable badges when you enter the building. You're instructed to not look at Altavista's boxen (which were also located at Exodus, at least when I saw it). Of course everyone looks anyway. The drool factor on these systems cannot be measured in simple liters. The battery backup system alone is massive, and there's something like 3 redundancies for each system. All the boxes are inside steel cages, most of the cooler systems use optical data transfer... There's enough heavy-iron Cisco in the building to grill yourself up a pancake the size of Texas. (Oh, that's crisco).

In other words, not IIS with a cracked copy of MS SQL running off XP Pro on an AMD Thunderbird.

Re:From the Source

[FreshFunk510]

Interesting.

That's some serious hardware. From a web application point of view, it probably helps that the majority of content from /. is text instead of images. I'm sure that cuts down on bandwidth a lot.

What I found most curious was that /. runs SQL Server. May I ask why?

Re:From the Source

[urmensch]

Surely this meant a Structured Query Language server, as in the language not the brand.

Re:From the Source

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot runs on MySQL, not SQL Server. It has an SQL server which is running MySQL.

Re:From the Source

[dasmegabyte]

Silly mortal. You don't need to crack MS SQL. Just run MSDE (the Microsoft SQL Desktop Engine) and restrict your script engine to 5 or fewer connections...

Re:From the Source

[FreshFunk510]

Ah yes. I guess the key thing to note is that it's "SQL server" not "SQL Server" (note uppercase). I thought for some reason they were running something for fun. I knew they were running some open source sql (mysql or postgresql). Anyway, thx.

Aw. No GPL?

[skryche]

Without a libre license, this project doesn't seem to have all that much potential for mass adoption/development.

Which is a disappointment, because I would hella like to see a good libre desktop OS.

Re:Aw. No GPL?

[Vanders]

I'm glad to hear it. Meet Syllable.

slashdot killed the sky

[craqboy]

i wonder if the web server is running skyos. back to the drawing board.

Re:It looks like a good project and all...

[fuzzix]

'Would there be a Linux today if, 10 years ago, everyone had said "do we really need another x86 OS"?'

They did say that as well as "Do we really need another kernel?"

Re:It looks like a good project and all...

[Belghast]

But do we REALLY need another OS? I am sure Microsoft uses the same statement in marketing brochures against Linux :)

BitTorrent

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly what bittorrent was made for.

Re:Need the "sun"...

[Anonymous Coward]

oh, come on, parent is funny...

SkyOS's critical fault

[Anonymous Coward]

to quote the author, he "will never" release the source code. At least with a big company like Microsoft you've got some security that they're not going to suddenly shutdown -n and disappear. But if you're planning to invest your eggs in SkyOS as anything more than a toy, you're doing so without security, much like how BeOS users had with an OS from a small company.

SkyOS is receiving tons of attention. Whereas Syllable, which is being developed openly, under the GPL, and at a faster rate, is not. And why? Maybe because SkyOS's website burns through ~35gb of screenshot bandwidth per month, or its geekcooler or something. But it isn't fair to compare this project with Linux in 1991. Linus liberalised his licence from what it was originally to make it freer for others to use for their own purposes. Whereas SkyOS was relicenced and has withdrawn source-code availability with the de facto promise to "never" release it again.

Re:SkyOS's critical fault

[dasmegabyte]

Or maybe it's because SkyOS is a nice, polished system with direction from a "benelovent dictator," while Syllable is a mismanaged kludge of an OS.

In short: it gets press BECAUSE of what you call its "critical fault:" it's restricted to a core of talented people who don't want a bunch of hackers fucking things up in the name of the community.

Re:SkyOS's critical fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Syllable a kludge, what are you talking about?

Re:SkyOS's critical fault

[yuri benjamin]

Surely you can still maintain this level of control while still opening it up. Afterall, the development team gets to accept or reject contributions. And if they get too busy they don't even have to look at the contributions until they get around to it.

Unless they're afraid someone will fork it and make it better, such that they lose control over it.

IIRC Linus once commented in an interview that anyone could fork linux and call it something else, and there's nothing Linus could do about it. That didn't seem to bother him though.

Re:SkyOS's critical fault

[Vanders]

Syllable is a mismanaged kludge? Care to back that up?

There are exactly four people with CVS write access to the Syllable CVS server. Patches come into Syllable via. Henrik, myself or Arno. I get the final say if something gets checked into CVS, and I have at several points in the past rejected or refused changes.

If you could point out how that isn't exactly identical to how SkyOS manages their development I'd like to know.

The only part of Syllable that is a problem is the desktop & launcher, and only because they're stopgap measures which will be replaced when we're ready. It's not like we've removed funtionality from the desktop in AtheOS 0.3.7

Please, if you have specific examples of "kludges", fuckups or mismanagemtn please tell me so I can fix them and make sure they don't happen. However if you've just got a grudge over something then fine, but why not just come out and say so?

Re:Just what I need

[AstroDrabb]

And posting about these projects on slashdot may be what is required to get enough attention that someone examines it's functionality, and discovers that the useless project has something working, that their project does not...

This works fine-and-dandy when the projects are all Open Source such as Linux and FreeBSD. SkyOS is NOT open in any way. What have they contributed to Open Source?

Yeas but ...

[jotaeleemeese]

... I am THE BRAIN! Ha,he,hi,ho,hu!

Re:Screen shot (mirror)

[drachen]

I mirrored the image because that took five minutes to load...

Also it's NOT a screenshot of SkyOS with goatse loaded in a browser on it. In fact it doesn't even show a web browser in the screenshot.

Mirror of the image

Re:Just what I need

[Anonymous Coward]

Careful talking about bootloaders - it's SkyOS's use of GRUB, allegedly in violation of the GPL, that got them into trouble recently.

No source

[nurb432]

He's not going to release the source anyway.

In this day and age of OSS projects, that fact sort of killed any interest I had, as its locked into his whim on its longevity.. no thanks. I dont need another 'discontinued' project due to lost interest from the sole developer.

Its nice work and he get kudos for the *technical* side of course.. espcially for a one man team..

Hi Frodo!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm Teleporno. Wuh? No, Nerwen sailed away.

Re:oh my god just pooped my pants

[Anonymous Coward]

Use the Standard Excuse: Run around screaming "Oh No! Someone put shit in my pants!" /jthm

And I will say:

[Ayanami Rei]

Your four events are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and thus do not necessarily need invidually to add up to a probability of 1.0.

Also, I will register myself in the another OS project category and his own damn time.

Specifically: 1) I don't really see what is good or bad about this OS. It doesn't have any particular feature that can't be gotten elsewhere, nor does it do anything particularly well. That being said 2) it is impressive being primarily an single individual's effort. If only an attempt to understand operating system design on x86, then he has succeeded thouroughly.

He should next attempt to develop a robust security architecture in the style of Trusted Solaris, NT 5.x, or SELinux, because this is the new hot shit of operating system design, if he really wants to stress his noodle.

Atheos

[spitzak]

What happened to "Atheos" (it was called something like that). It was also a one-person effort to make a Unix-like system designed for the desktop, with integrated GUI. A few years ago that sounded very interesting, but nothing ever came of it. Not a good precedent for this project (unless this is the same project, it is hard to tell).

But I think one thing that killed Atheos is the same thing that killed almost any alternative to X: inability to support any modern graphics cards at any resolution higher than VESA. Unfortunatley this information is locked up in X drivers that are so tightly integrated with internal complexities of X that it is impossible to extract and reuse it, despite the open source nature. Perhaps XDrive will help here by making the driver interface cleaner. In any case this project sounds like it has some hardware acceleration, so maybe they will escape this trap.

Personally I am not thrilled with putting widgets into the OS. My feeling is that this locks GUI design and innovation. I would prefer a design where there were powerful graphics and event handling calls, so it is easy to write a widget, but the interface is designed so that it is obvious that you can write different widgets that have not yet been invented.

Re:Atheos

[Vanders]

Development of AtheOS stalled for various reasons. Syllable was created over a year and a half ago by Henrik, Rick & myself to take the AtheOS codebase and open it up for further development. So while AtheOS itself is dead, the code and its spirit lives on quite nicely in Syllable. Some more developers have joined us (Arno and Kaj, with submissions from other developers such as Micheal Krugger and Hilary Cheng) We've developed the original AtheOS 0.3.7 codebase rapidly and released Syllable 0.5.2 only last week. I'd suggest you take a look at the Changelogs or just try it out to get an idea of how much work we have put into it.

But I think one thing that killed Atheos is the same thing that killed almost any alternative to X: inability to support any modern graphics cards at any resolution higher than VESA. Unfortunatley this information is locked up in X drivers that are so tightly integrated with internal complexities of X that it is impossible to extract and reuse it, despite the open source nature.

Syllable has drivers for the following graphics cards with full 2D acceleration, and the ones marked with an asterisk also support video overlays (Xv in XFree86)

• S3 Virge
• S3 Savage IX/MX
• Trident video (VLB & PCI)
• Matrox Millenium & Gx00 cards
• ATI Mach64*
• SiS 3xx/Xabre*
• nVidia TNT/GeForce*
• nVidia GeForceFX*

In fact the only notable omisions are the ATi Radeon, S3 Trio & Intel Extreme (i810), and I'm confident we'll have some support for those chipsets soon.

Porting drivers from XFree86 is not that difficult and lack of specs is a problem, but not as bad as you might think.

Re:Atheos

[Kent Recal]

I have one question: WHY? (no offense!)
I'm really curious what the motivation behind these projects is.

Are you in it mainly for the learning expirience or what is it that keeps you working on this?

I mean you guys spend a lot of time duplicating a lot of work that others already went through.
Your website looks nice (didn't read it all, yet but will do some more reading) and the screenshots look good, too (actually quite impressive considering it's all built from scratch).

But still. Personally I'd prefer to see you talented guys working on improving the more "mainstream" GUI components (X, gtk/kde whatever)
or probably inventing completely new goodness to the linux desktop.

Looking at what you came up with (syllable) tells me you could do a lot of good in that area.

I guess you've been asked this a trillion times, but I didn't find it in your FAQ, so I'm asking again...

Re:Atheos

[Anonymous Coward]

Because we want a free desktop OS that isn't the following:

slow
bloated
DLL / dependency hell
hard to use
fractured in incompatibilities
slow to boot up
baned by X-Windows and multiple kludgy tookits

which Linux has all of in great abundance.

We want something that is fast to bootup, can be used by anybody, can work fine on anything from a new computer down to a Pentium 90, and supports hardware with a minimum of fuss. Linux doesn't do this, has never done this, and never will. And what else is there? There isn't really anything. That's why Syllable exists.

Re:Atheos

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the current "mainstream" components suck! No, really. No matter how much time you put into improving GTK, Qt or XFree86, the underlying architecture itself will still be flawed (All of this is as always, in my own opinion). Seperating mechanism from policy made sense to the X designers 20 years ago but it is a hinderence more than a help when you have four or five different toolkits competing for the same space. I could on but I've said it all before (I don't want so start a flamewar either)

There are also things that you just couldn't fix. I'm a big critic of the way drivers are handled in Linux. I don't like the way important functions get pushed into userspace deamons rather than changing a design flaw in the kernel.

The problem with Linux is that it is Linux, and every time someone attempts to improve the situation it simply creates another distribution with it's own flaws and incompatabilities. With Syllable we start from scratch and design the entire system as a whole, which lets us avoid many of these problems.

I'll stop now before I get carried away!

Re:Atheos

[LWATCDR]

>Personally I am not thrilled with putting widgets >into the OS. My feeling is that this locks GUI >design and innovation. I would prefer a design where >there were powerful graphics and event handling >calls, so it is easy to write a widget, but the >interface is designed so that it is obvious that you >can write different widgets that have not yet been >invented.

Most GUIs will let you write your own widgets it may not be easy but it is possible. The real problem is that most programs just want to make a program work. They do not want to spend time making a new class of buttion, pick list, or file dialog. They want to write that accounting system or MP-3ripper. Also most users do not want to have each program work differently. It comes down to are programs art or tools?
If you want your program to be art that is fine but most people want tool.

Let's see how long it will last

[Zutroi_Zatatakowsky]

If the main developper dies, or scraps his box and all his backups, the whole project is sent to /dev/null.

All right, other developpers may have the source code but how many of them? Five? If two of them get children and stop working on SkyOS, another one dies, another gets arrested and the last one simply switches to another project, well... SkyOS will be pinin' for the fjords. Too risky for a big project like that.

Frankly, I just don't see why some developpers, especially with an OS project like this one, release softwares for free but not the source code. Call me paranoid but I wouldn't be surprised if huge chunks of GPL'd code is ever find in SkyOS.

Re:Let's see how long it will last

[zgwortz962]

The advantage of open source is everyone can see it and modify it.

The disadvantage of open source is everyone can see it and modify it.

In order to create an operating system that works, you need to have *some* kind of central control over the core functionality of that OS. Without that, things fragment so much as everyone adds their own favorite feature in different ways. There are two ways to accomplish this:

1) The Linux way: You make the kernel open source and have certain specified people maintain the core kernel release and a central place to get that core kernel. And you hope everyone sticks to it, because there's *nothing* preventing someone from producing their own major open source variation of that kernel other than peer pressure. You still get umpteen jillion *minor* variations, however... we call them Distributions. This makes it very difficult for applications programmers, because you often need to be aware of the quirks of each distribution.

2) The Closed Source way: You don't give source to the core of your OS to anyone. This way you maintain your vision of what the OS is supposed to be, and don't have to worry about people changing it in incompatible ways. And people programming for your OS only have to worry about *one* variation, which simplifies their job immensely. The limitation here is you don't have oodles of people pouring over your source to add needed functionality and fix the problems in it, so you better have a very good development and debugging team, and plenty of time.

I'm not advocating one over the other. And I think you can accomplish very impressive things with a mix of the two schemes (as Apple has). But there *are* valid reasons for making a free OS closed source.

IMHO.

Re:Let's see how long it will last

[Vanders]

That simply isn't true. You seem to confuse the development model of the Linux kernel with the development model of an entire distribution. There are many different distributions of Linux, but there are very few versions of the Linux kernel itself. You can see the same model at work in BSD. There are not hundreds of different BSDs.

The "Linux" development model works and works well, and it can easilly work across an entire Operating System

Re:Let's see how long it will last

[Anonymous Coward]

Call me paranoid but I wouldn't be surprised if huge chunks of GPL'd code is ever find in SkyOS

Well.. found some, and that was not only in the obvious places, let`s say the "kernel" is an interesting place to start to look, if someone want to study and comparice binarystructures!

And hey!
1* don`t waste your time with comparing with the linux-kernel.....
2* get a good lawyer :)

Re:Let's see how long it will last

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? What in the source code is GPL? Because I'm pretty sure you don't have access to the source code, and could not verify if anything is indeed GPL.

What a loser.

Re:It looks like a good project and all...

[slruss]

"Some seriously closed minds around these parts. Sorry, but it's true. Not everyone, but a lot."
--

The above statement is true. Narrow mindedness is a disease.

One more mirror!

[Hexydes]

Ok, here's another one. This one doesn't have the images on the front page, sorry about that.

http://skymirror.nathanpalmer.com

Reminds me

[pcs305]

what happened to Adam Ant?

What is special?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can anybody tell me whats special about SkyOS. I read the article and I can't seem to figure out what is supposed to be special about it? Is it supposed to be super secure? Or easy to program for? They say they are trying to create a better GUI and whatnot but what is better about it? What have they done to differentiate it from the other 4000 window managers out there? Not knocking it, just curious.

--Greg

Re:What is special?

[gregarican]

It has to be super secure. Because hardly anyone is actively running it I'm sure there aren't a wealth of Internet-borne exploits in the wild that would affect it. Kind of like if I took my Tandy 100 minicomputer and placed the phone handset back on its 300 baud modem cradle.

Ahhh. Brings back memories. Razz the old local bulletin boards until I would finally see crawl across the bottom of the display.

Sysop entering...

You mean the Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Where the editors 'rediscover' OSNews, CNN, NYTimes, and Toms Hardware. Hell might as well be really lazy ass editors and throw in some Paul Thurot. Stick it up your poop dyke fuckface. Who's clever now?

I don't know why so many of you are down on this.

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, if someone has a good time writing his own OS, that's reason enough to do it.

Second, the more free operating systems there are, the harder it will be for assholes like the SCO scum to stomp them all out.

Thirdly, more operating systems can mean more cross-fertilization, as different groups steal cool ideas from each other.

Fourth, more operating systems makes it harder for virus writers to infect everyone, as long as these systems are sufficiently different.

Fifth, this means more competition spurring os developers on to greater accomplishments.

So I say good luck and best wishes to these SkyOS guys.

Why?

[CyNRG]

Why?
Hobbyist!
No SCO Risk

Why Not?
I don't have the time...
Just another GUI, nothing revolutionary

I still miss OS/2!!

Free operating system

[Anonymous Coward]

Another misuse of the word free.

False alarm... nothing of interest here for the open source or free software communities.

Re:Free operating system

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I had my moderator points right now so I could mod you down as a troll where you belong.

A quote of interest from the article...

[Xaroth]

"Installing SkyOS seems painless enough, assuming you already have experience with Linux or another Unix-type platform."

Heck... having your teeth pulled without anesthesia seems painless enough, assuming you already have experience with Linux or another Unix-type platform.

Oh, wait. This is a pro-*nix forum.

How 'bout:
"Having your teeth pulled without anestheisia seems painless enough, assuming you already have experience with or another -type platform."

WHY NOT OPEN-SOURCE IT ?????

[popo]

Jesus. I can't think for the life of me why someone would invest such a large amount of time and effort into a project which can never hope to offer true comprehensive hardware support, available applications, or sustain any meaningful user-base. (unless some insanely risk-loving VC doles out large sums of cash).

The question about SkyOS isn't really "what's the point" as much as it is "what's the point if you're not going to open-source it?"

OS/2 and BeOS should provide shining examples of what not to do.

Getting OT: Re:Bad press

[Student_Tech]

In a Nintendo Power they mentioned it was still illegal(2-3 years ago IIRC). However just for fun lets look at this block of legal text from a Gamecube game manual I have(last page)(3 games, exact some block in all 3 of the manuals)(This one from Smash Brothers Melee):

WARNING: Copying of any Nintendo game is illegal and is strictly prohibited by domestic and international intellectual property laws. "Back-up" or "archival" copies are not authorized and are not necessary to protect your software. Violators will be prosecuted.

Now they are calling it software I think (what I think don't mean squat though) in most cases you are allowed to make backup/archival copies of software.
I think the ROM images were in limbo because technially software but almost considered hardware (plug in, it works. Newer games using optical media, need to read the data into memory(hardware) to use it)

On a side "not necessary to protect your software", does this mean that A) Discs don't scratch, B) Incredible error recovery so scratches don't matter, or C) The discs aren't actually used for data at all, just to prove you purchased the game and the data magically gets into the Gamecube. or I guess another option: D) They will replace the disc at a significantly lower cost than you buying the game again @ retail (i.e. just shipping and handling).
Any body got any thoughts on this?

Re:Getting OT: Re:Bad press

[TrancePhreak]

My guess is on replacement. They'll replace just about anything else if you send it to them.

Always good to have more options

[ReyTFox]

Even if right now SkyOS is a "maybe we'll open the source...later" project, I really like seeing new desktop options.

Part of that is because I'm sick of the same old discussion: "Is Linux ready for the desktop yet?" "No." "Yes." "NO!" "YES!" "Use OS X if you want a good desktop." "But Apple is as evil as MS!" etc.

The thing is, although the wide range of choices and features that Linux(as a whole) has steadily gained in are nice etc., they don't always help to advance it onto the desktop. An OS that is designed "light" and with the specific task of desktop use in mind from the beginning might be a more successful strategy than "Linux Distro X" vs. "Linux Distro Y," where both X and Y are doing a lot of the same things, and usually make stabs at trying to do everything, but neither are really good at one or two SPECIFIC things.

Of course, only time will tell whether a complementary solution is needed. Linux is already poised for dominance in a number of fields, but that doesn't make it the best choice in all of them. It may well only be "good enough" or "better than the others" until a more specialized solution comes along.

MOD PARENT UP +5 NO SHIT SHERLOCK

[squiggleslash]

Why is it that any time someone comes up with either a new operating system or a new webserver, the invariable refrain is, "But we already have Linux," or "We already have Apache"?

Because some people can't dream. That may sound like an over-statement as far as this particular example goes, but I think some people just cannot understand the concept of creation for creation's sake, and interest in a creation because of that.

Double Kill W00T

[genner]

n/t

GPL violations?

[strider_starslayer]

Wow, I've been seeing a lot of posts relating to SkyOS and possible GPL violations, so I thought I'd check there website and see if the source is avalible, this is directly from there website:

GPL Sources of applications/libraries which are distributed under the GPL or modified LGPL sources are available by CD order. This CD will ship for 12 (including shipping cost) to the entire world. Small sources (

Now nowhere dose it say in the GPL that you have to provide the sources for free, just that they have to be avalible; though 12 pounds is quite a bit for a CD shipping, it's not outragoues either.

So do they follow the GPL, evidently yes, do there changes actually contribute anything, as they themselves have said- not really; there just ports of the allready existing programs for there OS.

Sources for my info:
http://www.skyos.org/board/viewtopic.php?t=17223
http://www.skyos.org/board/viewtopic.php?t=16917


Side note; anyone know how to get out of italics mode- /i dosen't seem to work for me, nor /I, or for that matter \i, or \I; works for bold though...

Re:GPL violations?

[Anonymous Coward]

I asked for the code (I offered to pay the 12 bucks) for the programs covered under the GPL in SkyOS version 3.XX and 4.X that are in the .iso's (still) available on their site.

They told me that the code doesn't exist anymore they are violating the GPL by continuing to distribute the binaries while refusing to send the source code when requested.

Looks like....

[NoMercy]

Every other windows clone Ive seen in the past 10 years, how come open source is totally in-capable of inovation, every single feature seems to be lifted off of Unix, Windows, MacOS, AmigaOS/Workbench, RISC OS, DOS....

Inovate damnit, don't just do the same old thing, copying someone else leaves you in #2 spot, only once youre doing new things do you get to #1.

Open Source?

[robd003]

So is it open source?

You are, of course, correct regarding the 286!

[ScrappyLaptop]

Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa. The 80386 was the first of the line to be 32-bit.

Gotta disagree with you on the PPro's 16-bit performance, though. Back in the day (1996? 1998?), a 200Mhz Pentium with 256k cache would consistantly outperform a PPro-200 / 256k on 16-bit applications, and the benchmarks confirmed this. The problem was compounded by anyone using Win 9.x which was partly still 16-bit. I always assumed that it was due to the CISC-to-RISC translation being optimized for 32-bit, as per Intel's official statements, but I believe there is another posting in this thread that points to an actual bug in the prediction algorithms that was fixed along with the "reoptimization".

Curiosity question for slashdotters: Have the compromises in optimization for 16-bit performance ever been dropped from the Pentium line, now that 16-bit is rarely seen? Or was the slowdown completely due to the bug?

The Pentium Pro line was abandoned in a sense, but you are correct that the lineage and the CPU core lived on in the PII, etc. The CPU+L2 on the same die format was dropped due to high losses -they couldn't be tested until they were completed and at that point it was too late. That was solved by the SEC and a whole new name. Smart move on Intel's part, in hindsight.

Re:You are, of course, correct regarding the 286!

[drsmithy]

Gotta disagree with you on the PPro's 16-bit performance, though. Back in the day (1996? 1998?), a 200Mhz Pentium with 256k cache would consistantly outperform a PPro-200 / 256k on 16-bit applications, and the benchmarks confirmed this.

As *I* recall [0], the Pentium Pro was the same speed (not slower) as a regular Pentium "Classic" at 16 bit code, however, I can't find any decent (ie: convincingly sourced) benchmarks to support my memory. Some things you should keep in mind are:

The PPro was at 200Mhz for nearly a year before the Pentium got there (PPro released late 1995, Pentium 200 released mid 1996).

A 1998 "Pentium" was almost certainly a Pentium MMX, which benefitted from bigger & better caches, plus some other tweaks. A Pentium MMX may well be faster than a PPro at 16 bit code, but a Pentium MMX != a Pentium.

Windows 95, while containing 16 bit code, is really mostly 32 bit (unless forced to run more 16 bit code by legacy software_. Even if a PPro is slower at 16 bot code, it will run Win95 faster than a Pentium - the small amount of 16 bit code typically running (assuming, of course, there isn't a significant amount of "legacy supporting" 16 bit stuff being run, like applications, DOS driver thunking and the like) would not slow down the PPro enough for the Pentium to overcome the *massive* advantage the PPro has with 32 bit code.

FWIW, here's something I found while having a quick look for benchmarks, the basically agrees with how I remember PPros.

I ran the Winstone 96 (16 bit apps under Win95) benchmark on a PPro 200 system out of the box. It got 87.5, barely beating the highest P200 score reported by PC Magazine (86) in their latest issue covering 5 of the first P200 systems. I suspect for 16 bit code, the PPro 200 is about equal to a P200. For 32 bit code, it will probably offer a 50% - 75% performance increase.

[0] Usual caveats about memory.