A serious-looking (German Language) article examines a rather preposterous claim: that a group of young hackers has produced “the first operating system that allows problems to run programs from Windows, Mac, [iOS] and Linux with only one system.” Their outlandish claims (“every known program runs under UNIOS without driver issues!”) drew interest from the local press, then skepticism. I wasn’t able to find much information in the English language. So stay tuned here at OSNews, which will no doubt be covering ongoing industry-changing UniOS news as it breaks. Or not.
Ubuntu + Mac OS X theme + WINE = profit.
Not even a Mac OS X theme. I haven’t used KDE in a while, but this looks like vanilla KDE with a dock. The Windows parts are obviously running using WINE. The “Mac apps” also run through WINE. iTunes is the real iTunes for Windows. Finder and Photo Booth are rather bad copies of the real apps, with Photo Booth using Flash, of all things.
Looked to me more like KDE4’s default theme (albeit with a dock instead of a taskbar) and VirtualBox in seamless mode.
Either way, it’s pretty obvious that he didn’t code a single line of that set up.
Edited 2011-08-23 12:18 UTC
Reminds me of when YOPER Linux was released. I can’t find any of the initial press about it, but I remember they made the same claim at first and it caused a lot of hubbub. (Either it was that, or that they managed to integrate “all” of the Linux package managers into one system.) Last I remember, they were using Slackware tgz but with RPM as the backend (?????)
They’ve now been all but forgotten, though they’re still apparently around: http://www.yoper-linux.org
Although I never used YOPER as my main OS, I actually liked the distro–it really was fast, and I really liked their 2.x version. It really was fast and lightweight. Then Andreas left and joined openSUSE, KDE4 was swallowed up (so long for speed and light-weight…), and version 3.x of the distro was released, seemingly without the charm that its predecessor had. No idea what 2010 is like, but I recall being quite impressed at YOPER several versions ago…
The mythological operating system.
If it’s free, open source, stable and aims to be compatible with Windows I’m willing to give it a shot.
I can’t help but think of FutureAlpha: The proprietary Chinese made operating system that’s compatible with Linux and Windows.
http://www.woos.cn/
Meh
The interviewer in the article says that Maik Mixdorf (the OS’s creator) was shady and evasive. And his demonstration appeared to be using Linux with Wine. The mac apps he’s shown seem to be Windows clones running under Wine. Can’t say I’m terribly surprised.
He’s an impostor kid running andLinux + KDE on Windows.
You can read clearly “andlinux-beta2-kde.exe” on the screenshot:
http://scr3.golem.de/screenshots/1108/unios/thumb620/unios_09.png
http://www.andlinux.org
The Mac app is Karthik’s Picturebooth, a flash based Photo Booth clone running on Windows.
He’s telling the press that he and his friends have written 52 millionen lines of code in three years, but he won’t show it. And the press praises him as the next Bill Gates.
Bill Gates was more a businessman than a software developer. I know he has written software (though I’m sure we’d all like to forget about QBasic), but the majority of stuff in the early days was bought.
I used to think that way. I have a lot more of respect for the guy as a programmer since I read this Joel Spolsky’s little story:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html
To be honest I was expecting something more impressive than that. That link doesn’t really boast about Bill’s history as a programmer.
I know the guy is intelligent and understands technology exceedingly well. I also know (and did even highlight this) that he used to get his hands dirty with code, however that doesn’t mean that he was one of the key developers for any of their flagship products, let alone an OS developer. Which is why I raised the point about other OS “developers” being compared against him.
I do have a lot of respect for Bill. I may not like many of his business decisions nor personally a fan of Windows, but I’ve always had a great deal of respect for him because he had vision and was exceedingly good at what he did.
Edited 2011-08-24 09:47 UTC
I don’t think that’s right. It is just what Linus and GNU folks claim. It’s not like you can’t be both and I never found any evidence for this.
Bill Gates wouldn’t be the only one who changes from being a compsci geek to a business geek. It is what happens if you have a lot of financial success.
I am not a big Bill Gates fan though, so I don’t know too much about it. Maybe someone could write something to substantiate this allegation.
My comment was more in reference to the comment about how OS developers are compared to Gates despite the fact that, aside Microsoft Basic (which technically is an interpreter and not an OS), he hasn’t really had had a major development roll. DOS and Xenix were bought and all of their later developments Gates was too immersed in the business side of things to do line-by-line revision (let alone development) like he had done in the early days.
I’m not trying to take anything away from Gates – he knew his stuff (and still does). But he’s just not the best example of an OS developer in my opinion.
Edited 2011-08-24 18:32 UTC
Looks like a hoax to me. The boy tried to trick the reporter with a photobooth clone and I think the windows software is emulated with wine.
… is that it’s a FreeBSD distro.
For those not able to read German:
It’s a Ubuntu and KDE-based operating system. The interviewer couldn’t see any wine processes (but they might have been hidden) but it does not really run OSX applications: The Photobooth that was shown is a Flash-based lookalike.
The whole thing is a scam.
You could not see the Wine process because it is not Wine. He uses WinXP(Look at the screenshots, it is obvious) Additionally he installed a mac like toolbar, a flash copy of a mac tool, kde for windows and “andlinux”(you can see the exe on one of the sceenshots) as a desktop replacement he uses the plasma desktop(you can see that in the autostart screenshot)
So in the end it is a fake.
… perhaps, rather than UniversalOS?
been a member here since 05. This is the shittest article i’ve seen given the light of day on osnews. seriously, never again, please!
Ok, so a Mac-themed Windows machine running a bunch of Windows software? That is it?
On a side note, I used to run andLinux back in the day. I was sad to see this morning that it has not been updated since 2009. That shows you how unexciting and non-notable this story is though. It is just using simple tools that have been around so long that some of us have started to forget about them already.
This is obviously a hoax.
So why do people do this? Do scammers often enough get away with things like this that it makes it worth while? What does he have to gain by this charade?
All that’s going to happen is this guy is going to get a bad reputation for being a lunatic. I don’t get it.
Don’t know what compelled them to truncate the name from UnicornOS to UniOS. The claims seem pretty resonable for an OS powered by magical creatures.
Perhaps he had some help from his dad, our old friend Bernard or ZetaMan. Whatever happened to him anyway?
Bernd did an interview with him
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaT_-RHh5u4
(Be aware that it is in german)
Bernd Korz was working with the Zubuntu / ZevenOS team for a while when the goal was to run the BeOS App Server on Linux. He no longer has ties to that project. There was talk at the last Be Geistert that Yellow Tab was making some sort of comeback but I have yet to hear anything since then.
It’s pretty hilarious that his son is following in his sheister footsteps. The first demo video in that article could not have been more obvious. The first thing you see is a freaking Andlinux KDE istaller, followed by “Photo Booth” with the Flash camera access dialog. Worst. Hoax. Ever.
Also, when is someone going to follow up on Window 9, that Korean Windows clone? They did a big press demo ages ago and then nothing.
Of course I was only jesting about the father son thing, but they do make a good match anyway.
Was a bit surprised to see the Korz interview though, not that I understand the chatter.
I always thought that running the BeOS/Haiku appserver on either Linux or Windows was a fair enough idea for an interim project, but moot now.
I did write an article about that for OS News but it was never published
Oh my god, seriously? It’s Bernd’s son? That’s so awesome it hurts. The Apple truly does not fall far from the tree.
Nachtrag vom 23. August 2011, 17:40 Uhr:
Am Dienstag hatte Maik Mixdorf einigen seiner Kritiker das System vorgeführt. Dabei hat sich bestätigt, was einige Anhand unseres Artikels bereits vermutet hatten: Es handelt sich bei UniOS um ein angepasstes Windows XP, auf dem andLinux läuft. Bei dem verwendeten Theme könnte es sich um GSM VS handeln, wie uns ein Leser per E-Mail mitgeteilt hatte.
humble Translation:
Addendum , August, 23. 2011, 17:40:
Today Maik Mixdorf showed the system to his castigators. Due to this, everything, we presumed in our Article was proven. UniOS is a customized Windows XP, running andLinux. The Theme maybe could be GSM VS, as told by an Reader via e-mail.
Actually i just look like this: -________-”
Honestly, why there has been such a mini hype about this? No, i don’t mean osnews.
Here in Germany we call it “summer hole”(Sommerloch). It is a time when not so many interessting things happening in the world. So in the end you try and make a news out off everything. So First hype it a little bit so that you can destroy it a bit later.
In Britain it’s called the ‘silly season’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silly_season
Although this summer, it seems they had a serious story or two to write about…
Edited 2011-08-23 21:03 UTC
He installed andLinux. That’s it.
Edited 2011-08-24 12:14 UTC