Slashdot Mirror
A New 'Linux-Based' OS?
nick++ writes "I was browsing iwin's site (iwin is a German company who is supposedly making some formerly-slashdot-mentioned Amiga-compatible machines), and found Xetos. According to iwin, 'Xetos is an operating system based on a Linux kernel which was extended by many components and features.' For example, '...there is a special Amiga mode included which allows you to use most of your older Amiga software.' I wonder if any of these "extensions" are GPLed?" Also, does "based on" mean we're looking at a kernel fork? Or is this just another new Linux distro? If anybody out there has tried Xetos, please let us know what it's like. Thanks.
That and it has a very suspect item at the bottom of the page:
Xetos WSS: Single CPU Version for Workstations
Xetos WSD: Double CPU Version for Workstations
Xetos SVS: Single CPU Version for Server
Xetos SVD: Double CPU Version for Server
Xetos SVQ: Quad CPU Version for Server
Xetos Phantom: Special version for iPhantom workstations
I hate to remind anyone but Linux is scalable, automatically, to any of those configurations. It is automatically a workstation and a server, depending what daemons you have running, and by recompiling the kernel you get SMP support. Why would this OS be splitting itself into all these different versions...
unless...
they were planning to close-source major portions of it and sell it..?
I'd keep an eye on this pile of embers.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
"In a world without walls, who needs Windows" - Someone from LinuxToday
make world, not war
The terminology doesn't match up with real technology. If this thing really existed, it would be very popular. Oh yeah, and the HTML was done by the "CEO" of the company. What it seems to me they're doing is taking the rumours flying around (Linux Kernels, New Boxes) and creating a hoax. Turning it into the iMac of Amigas. And if you send money? theyWin.
And then, of course, you have to wonder about the "new" distro they're creating. What would the point be? RedHat's Rough Cuts CD has had a fully fuctional Amiga distro for quite a while. It would be stupid to create another distro to do the exact same job of another one already much more accepted.
Don't tell me someone is taking this seriously.
aÍÍ©ÍÌÍ£Ì'̽ͩÌÍzÍYÌÍÌY
*groan* How many "linux-based" products can we have that have little to do with linux but are, infact riding the "open source / free software paradigm"(tm)(c)(r)??
--
iWin shot its credibility down the craphole when it started making grandiose claims about creating a next generation Amiga computer. As the Amiga market, desperate for any kind of light at end of this long dark (and exceedingly depressing) tunnel, began to examine their product specifications... they began to realize that they were being fed a load of bullshit. I think some of this was thrown on up on Slashdot way back when.
iWin was creating an nextgen Amiga system, and yet their sales did not include either Kickstart hardware ROMS (standard Amiga equipment), or a copy of the operating system. Amiga Inc. was never contacted, and as such could not (and did not) officially lisence their tech. iWin continued to plead it's legitimacy, but (I'm not going to cite specifics, I'm just writing quick) more and more holes began to appear in their story.
I think it's fair to say that anyone who has followed the iWin story is convinced that they're full of shit. This feels like the "company" is just taking their hoaxing of the Amiga Market and throwing it in the face the larger Linux community.
Don't believe the hype.
-DrPsycho - Coping with reality since 1975
Clearly it's "cheetos".
One of the first things that came up when searching for the iWin CEO name on the net was this: http://kleinbus.org/~zza/iwin/iwin-eng. html It's an interesting list of strange facts about iWin.
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You may like my a cappella music
...seems to have replaced ``Amiga Persecution Complex'' as their affliction of the day. Has there been a single example of an Amiga-related announcement actually having been followed up by something more substantial than, say, more announcements? Any time in the last eight years? Just wondering...
(Oh, and how's that Amiga Mozilla port coming along? No, not that one, the other one.)
In a recent survey, 2 of 3 dining philosophers said we need more forks.
Seriously, whence all the furor about forking with the kernel?
a) The GPL gives you the right to fork it up however you want.
b) In some cases a bit of forking around might be desirable.
Linux is evolving into the Swiss army knife of operating systems. Not only does it run on a large number of distinct microcomputer types, it also runs in everything from telephones to desktops to datacenters to supercomputers. Yes, it's a nice ideal to have a customizable kernel that will let you put in or leave out various types of support, but there seems to be a danger of attempting a too ambitious Windows Everywhere (TM) approach, and doing many things poorly rather than a few things well.
So let it get forked.
The important thing, IMO, is to maintain support for a well-defined "frontier" in the code base, so that your kernel variant replaces some well-defined "kernel of the kernel", and is therefore transparent to the rest of the OS.
Most important, IMO, is that some API be maintained so that I can move my GNU apps over to your new Linux-derived OS and compile them without any need for hackage.
Of course there will undoubtedly be those who will introduce deliberate inconsistencies in hopes of cornering market share, but I'm optimistic that the market will either route around them or else invoke the GPL and absorb them.
--
It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Evidence: Xetos is apparently only mentioned at http://www.iwin-corp.de/enmain/Products/products.h tml This is gotten to by clicking on the 'Products' page. Xetos does not right now appear on a Yahoo! search. Conclusion: I believe that Xetos is laying low right now, and that they may not have requested the kind of attention that slashdot has now given them. I think they would rather have remained quiet and gotten closer to a finished product. I am deeply interested in their licensing issues, as their multiple releases indicate a Windows NT/2000 scheme, but looking at their screenshots and judging them by that is not wise considering the evidence says they aren't even pushing the product for inspection by the mainstream yet.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Speaking of former employees, Martin Steinbach's former employer (whose company appears on the "business partners" section of the Iwin site) was contacted - he said he had dealings with MS, and recommended nobody else do the same.
Finally, if you're not convinced, here's a post from Matthias Ettrich on comp.sys.amiga.misc describing the Iwin press conference held to announce their Amiga product line:
This morning, I attended the Iwin press conference in Unterhaching.
Although in theory, 23 people should have come (there was room for 30, and according to [1], "7 places are still available"), there were only *three* guests (and I hadn't even bothered to apply for an invitation), the other two being from http://www.amiga-news.de/ (a more detailed report should appear there tonight).
Martin Steinbach arrived with nothing but ten copies of the Iwin "press kit", consisting of printouts of the PDF files we already know (product specs and the five-year roadmap), plus two sample ads ("Would you like this to be your new girlfriend? - Everything you were dreaming fo for such a long time" and "High end computing for game-console prices! Las amigas vuelven en casa..."). There was no video (as promised on [1]: "Iwin - an introduction") and no "Iwin Insurance 1.0" or "Iwin VideoStore" presentations.
We had a three-hour talk with Martin. Unfortunately, he failed to give a single convincing answer during that time. He claimed that the Iwin custom chips were basically UAE source code cast in silicon and that the sample chip design and production was done mostly for free by their hardware partners. He tried to explain the fact that he is a Merant employee with tax reasons (about the photos posted at compcity.nl, he claimed that some of them showed the Merant office, while the others showed the actual Iwin office, and the Merant pictures "should not have been published"). Regarding Tulip and the "Commodore" name, he stated that the price doubled from 18 to 36 million (he didn't specify a currency - I believe he meant Austrian Schillings, as he is from Austria) after an interview was published early. He said that "black boxes" will be shown during the Indianapolis show on the upcoming weekend, but made conflicting statements about the meaning of "black box" (just empty boxes vs. working beta hardware) and that they would not attend HEW due to problems with AInc. Germany. Regarding the fake files in the download section, he refused to give an answer and told me to ask Rue Ann instead.
The Holiday Inn lunch buffet was okay. Of course, most of the seats remained unused. :-)
I left with lots of promises (he wants to send me the missing video, a *working* PowerSE demo CD and tons of info material) and the uneasy feeling of having been lied to for three hours in a row.
It basically looks like he's an attention starved underachiever trying to get as much attention on his hoax as he can. In that sense, it looks like he's succeeded.
Daniel.