Submitted by “This [release] is a true gem for developers. SkyOS got a lot of under-the-hood work, the Integrated Streaming System and the networking stack have been reworked, the API has been standardised, missing libraries and functions have been added and a lot of bugs have been resolved. I think what we’re seeing is a quasi-feature freeze. This actually serves its purpose, SkyOS is now much more stable, reliable and responsive than before.”
This is a *quality* release by Robert. Props to him for a wonderful job.
I think SkyOS has rounded the corner, we finally have some good API documentation, the API has stablized, and the Code Ransom brought in a lot of new contributers.
Looking good all around.
im sorry, Xi Chen likes Women and not men, please take the commen
Hi. This is not a review per se. It’s too short as you see, it’s just a preview, an overview on what’s new, what changed between 8.5 and 8.6.
Also, some previous entries contain more information (about what changed between alpha1->alpha2 for example).
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Tomasz
It’s both impressive and disapointing at the same time. Robert is doing a good job, SkyOS is moving forward at a nice speed. Each beta release with new features.
But keeping it at version 5.0 and having BETA 7.x, 8.x… And never releasing it…?!
I know that you can PAY to be a Beta tester and get the final release for free. But when? It’s been Over a year since 5.0 was announced.
Allso, at one point in time, Robert will have to stop adding features to SkyOS and finalise it in order to develop more drivers. Support for SATA, PCI-E, more network cards, more video card (with 3D). SkyOS is not big enough to have support from ATI or nVidia. They have to do better (or as good as) Zeta if they want people to buy it.
All in all, it’s good… But the wait time is long.
Then I remember, it’s a hobby OS. So mabe none of this is relevant.
I agree with all your points. Absolutely, it is taking ages; but today I learned SkyOS is actually a complete rewrite of the OS from the ground up, with little but a few APIs left over from the previous versions. Now that I know this, the beta cycle makes more sense.
And underneath SkyOS it is coming together but boy it seems slow.
Well, like most hobby developers he probably wants to make sure it is as complete as he can get it before releasing it to the world, and as perfect as possible; couple that with only a one (maybe more?) developers, I think the concerntration should be the quality not how fast it is pumped out.
If it comes out as a very stable piece of software and gains some traction, hopefully then Robert might be able to employ some people to help develop it – considering that the costs would be small, on the basis that all developers would be working from home, and most would simply be earning a meger income that would simply pay for a few things and maybe the weekly beer, I’d say the future is looking pretty good.
With that being said, however, I would personally would love to see the core; kernel and lower layers opensourced under something like CDDL as to allow cross pollination between the projects.
An alpha of a closed source, closed development minor OS?
Something which not even the paying beta testers can download?
this is OS news, and this is an OS. who cares if its closed source? who cares if its closed development? who cares if it is minor?
OS news is news about operating systems, all of them, it isnt news about free OS’s only.
Beta 8.6 Alpha 2?
Haha, what? An second alpha of a beta with a version number of 8.6?
Seriously?
To be honest I don’t see your points..
Microsoft and IBM take years to ship new releases out the door for their OS’s, and they have huge budgets and huge resources.. Take that in to consideration and I don’t think the SkyOS team ( or any other OS dev team, e.g FreeBSD, Linux kernel ) do that bad at all for time restraints.
After all, an OS isn’t born overnight
You know, before releasing Windows XP, Microsoft did come out with Windows 1.0! It did take them 20 years to get to XP-Sp2. But the “world” got onboard with Windows 3.1 – Same thing with IBM and OS/2.
I know that SkyOS 5.0 is a complete rewrite. But someday you have to get out with something. Previous version of SkyOS where realy “hobby OS”. Like I said, if they want to be taken seriously, they (Robert) have to ship something as good or better than Zeta. SkyOS need real drivers for at least the most common hardware.
Or else why pay 30$ for a simple novelty that “barely” works with semi-old hardware? It’s fun for a couple of hours but then, when real works has to be done, you need to reboot to Windows or a flavor of Linux. Developers need something stable to work with in order to come out with a better choice of software for SkyOS (OpenOffice mabe?)
I’m NOT saying that writing an OS is easy. But I do think that having a product named SkyOS 5.0 Beta 8.6 Alpha 2 is pushing the limit. More so when you know that their was Beta 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 before 8.x
So, are we still talking about a Future real OS? Or just a better “hobby” OS that nobody will realy use?
Well, I think SkyOS is still a hobby OS, albeit one with the potential for actual day-to-day use… I think they have Firefox running on it, not that Firefox is any benchmark of usability. At the very least it’s looking more and more like a ‘real’ OS. I like checking up on it here at OSNews… it seems to have potential, like Syllable and Haiku.
I have been threatening to give SkyOS a go for a while now… And this release may just tip me over the edge. I have always been impressed by the SkyOS team, in being able to ‘drop in’ so many nifty features. As far as I knew they were still working on 5.x? “SkyOS Beta 8.6” – is that version 8.6 of 5?
yes, I believe so.
The speed at which this OS is developed astounds me. Robert really programs quickly, and is constantly adding really neat applications and options to the OS. I can’t wait till the point when he puts out a live CD and something stable to try out and maybe even use. The community is also really great: about a year ago on OS News, someone saw a story OS News had done about then, and began posting in the comments, looking for suggestions on the OS from people who weren’t in the normal channels they’d hear, and listened to anything constructive anyone had to say. Great OS, great community, hopefully this will eventually become at least a nice niche OS.
(And as to the naming scheme, it is the 8.6 beta of Sky OS 5.0. Sky OS 5.0 is approximately equal to, say, Windows 98 as far as the numbers go, with there being betas before the actual release of the final version. This is not to in any way compare actual OS’s. Every time a few new things are implemented, the OS bumps a beta point number, and usually there is a focus on each point release (if I recall, the focus for 8.6 was a working network stack, on top of all the other cool implemented things).)
With so many people up in arms about OSnews.com’s practice of linking articles, it’s worth mentioning that this article is quouted properly.
Nice!
This is of course SkyOS 5.0 beta8.6-alpha2, not SkyOS 8.6 alpha2
An alpha of a closed source, closed development minor OS?
While you are posting the above as flamebait, you do have a point. A point well illustrated by the fact that the rtl driver, rather crucial I must say, still hasn’t been fixed– it has been flaky from day one, if it even worked at all.
I think that that is a result of the fact that only one person is working on the crucial code. Of course it’s nice to have some people writing tictactoe and porting some libraries, but there is, besides Robert, no one to check, double-check, the more crucial parts of the system.
Is open-sourcing the answer? No, I do not think so. While that could potentially increase developer participation, it would also introduce a whole plethora of new problems.
I personally wouldn’t recommend an OS to any of my computer illiterate friends, knowing it was written by one man only, without any form of peer code review. I’d love to see more core developers join SkyOS.
Thom Holwerda, while you are posting the above as a flamebait, you do have a point. You do know that development snapshots (aka alpha versions) are being made and the select team of alpha testers has been established just for the very purpose of quality assurance. This mechanism has proven itself to work quite good. You do have a point, because this rtl issue should have been fixed a long time ago, but obviously has been overlooked. The recent improvements in the network stack are a beginning to fixing all the relevant issues – including network driver bugs.
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Tomasz Dominikowski, posting anonymously for security reasons from university.
while you are posting the above as a flamebait
How is it flamebait? Explain, please. Could be of course that your personal problems with me are to blame, but I await your explanation.
You do know that development snapshots (aka alpha versions) are being made and the select team of alpha testers has been established just for the very purpose of quality assurance.
All mighty fine, but do you and the other few alpha team members have the possibility to fix things? Or can you only report them? Can you look at the code to spot obvious errors that Robert’s missed (much like we at OSNews review eachother’s articles?). Are you all experienced enough coders to help Robert with fixing bugs, if you actually *could* look at the code? Or can you only say “xyz doesn’t work, here’s a debug log, have fun Robert”?
You do have a point, because this rtl issue should have been fixed a long time ago, but obviously has been overlooked.
Even though numerous debug logs were sent, information was provided– months and months ago. Apparantly, OR Robert doesn’t have the time to fix a pressing issue like this one, OR he is simply unsable to. In both cases, having more than one core developer would help.
So, I do not see how this could be perceived as flamebait. Aside from any personal souer, of course.
“While you are posting the above as flamebait”
Nobody will believe me, but that wasn’t my intention.
What really bothers me is that a SkyOS alpha isn’t even available to paying beta testers. I might have missed something, but I haven’t seen anything like that happening for any OS.
The only logical conclusion I can reach is that the paying beta testers aren’t really seen as “testers”
I don’t understand why anyone would pay for a beta-quality OS with virtually no hardware OR software support. Robert is a great coder, but his business skills are somewhat lacking. There IS money in open source. SkyOS will go nowhere if it remains closed source.
This is a hobby OS. Robert enjoys coding it himself. The $30 fee is to make sure that 1) those beta testing are invested in the OS, and that 2) Robert gets some kick-back for his work. He isn’t in this (yet?) to make loads of money, he just doesn’t want to go broke. If he open sourced his OS, the community of which I spoke in my earlier post would be lost, not everyone testing and using the OS would be a worthwhile contributer to the cause, and Robert would lose control of his own OS, something he doesn’t want to do and has the right not to have happen.
It isn’t always about the money, and the is fun in closed-source too.
You’re wrong. The community would be lost if it went open source? Quite the contrary. And don’t tell me this is still a hobby OS. If it is, why do they charge for it and why does Kelly have the title of “Business Manager?” SkyOS has become a closed source commercial operating system, which is a huge mistake both in terms of community support and financial gain. It has potential to become a viable alternative desktop OS, but certainly not in its current form.
The biggest bugs that I saw with the previous Alpha are still present and, in at least the case of audio playback, have gotten worse:
For all the work done on ISS, there’s massive stuttering still with my Live! and Audigy cards. There’s brand new stuttering with my es1371 card (but less than with the emu10k cards).
The nasty problem with the radeon driver causing lockups still persist… Networking issues that Robert said should be resolved with this alpha still persist. I’m still unable to boot up unless I turn on debugging.
Oh well… Maybe next time.
Adam
It’s just great to hear that SkyOS is continually moving forward.
So many projects like this just never go the distance.
It’s good to see that the development pace of SkyOS is keeping pretty steady and high..
I think there is no room for closed source OS anymore. See what happened to beos. With so many open source and trusted and more supported sollutions why to bother to go to an OS that is closed source, with no drivers and with the attitude to ask you for money to get a beta?
And how is stating a fact:
“An alpha of a closed source, closed development minor OS?”
a flamebait? Oh and of course this is personal
And how is stating a fact:
“An alpha of a closed source, closed development minor OS?”
I was obviously referring to the post as a whole (“Why is this news”), but your apparant lack of a decent explanation/counterargument speaks volumes.
I think the whole issue of criticizing SkyOS because it is closed-source is very ideological. I personally don’t expect to be modifying the SkyOS kernel or filesystem any time soon 😎
I can say that I am disappointed that there are no development tools released. I requested an API some time ago so I could compile a little “hello world” app just to say that I could do it. My request for the API was ignored. To my knowledge, there are no 3rd party applications for SkyOS.
I can say that I am disappointed that there are no development tools released. I requested an API some time ago so I could compile a little “hello world” app just to say that I could do it. My request for the API was ignored. To my knowledge, there are no 3rd party applications for SkyOS.
there are development tools, like a crosscompiler. The API has been made available in the helpsection and if you check the front page of skyos, you will see that there really is such a thing as 3rd party software.
You say it was some time ago, this might have been the time when the api was undergoing some big changes.
Ha, Thom, please. You shouldn’t take all I write so personally. I really do have a real life and I won’t waste time arguing with you about simply nothing in comments section of a website. Have fun with another witty answer