Adam Scheinberg Archive

Timothy R. Butler writes "Former Red Hat employee Bernhard "Bero" Rosenkraenzer has resurfaced, after leaving Red Hat last fall, with a brand new GNU/Linux distribution meant for the average user. According to the distribution's web site, "The Ark Linux distribution is based primarily upon a Red Hat Linux 7.3 / 8.0 foundation. On top of this, we have added a new easy-to-use installer (an Ark Linux installation is only four mouse clicks away!) and extensively tailored the software applications and utilities included - all in an effort to ensure that Ark Linux provides superior ease-of-use and the features and functionality end users have told us they want." Read more here." The ArkLinux home page.

zhopon writes "DesktopLinux.com speaks with Andreas Girardet, Founder of Yoper, a New Zealand-based Linux distribution...Girardet relates the goals of the new company, explains what makes Yoper unique, and his philosophy about the emerging desktop market" You can read the rest at desktoplinux.com.

The last few years have seen a rise in "skinability" of applications and even operating systems as a whole. Stardock has taken a look back and reviewed the year in skinning. "2002 was a turning point for skinning. It was the year where millions of people started using skins without even knowing what the heck skinning is." writes author Brad Wardell. Read the rest at stardock.com.

Jim wrote in to tell us about Sun posting the latest update of their Solaris/SPARC OS. The update, dated 12/02, is downloadable from the sun website here.

Gil Bates wrote "SPIN is an operating system that blurs the distinction between kernels and applications. Applications traditionally live in user-level address spaces, separated from kernel resources and services by an expensive protection boundary. With SPIN, applications can specialize the kernel by dynamically linking new code into the running system. Kernel extensions can add new kernel services, replace default policies, or simply migrate application functionality into the kernel address space. Sensitive kernel interfaces are secured via a restricted linker and the type-safe properties of the Modula-3 programming language. The result is a flexible operating system that helps applications run fast but doesn't crash." More can be found on the SPIN homepage. More on Modula-3 can be found here.

Need a job? This classified posting appears to confirm that Microsoft is developing a new, original "next generation" shell to take advantage of the .NET framework for its next version of Windows. The ad says experience with "shell languages like PERL, Python and Bash" are a plus - interesting, I'd bet most of the experts in these areas are UNIX users.

A new version of popular server-side scripting lanaguage PHP was released today. Stephen Smith writes "PHP 4.3 includes bug fixes from PHP 4.2.3, as well as enhanced command line mode for non-web scripting, a better GD library, and more." Changelog can be found at php.net.

dave_sn alerted us to the news first reported by Distrowatch, "Just in time to interfere with our last-minute Christmas shopping - an unexpected new beta release from Red Hat, code-named "Phoebe" and numbered as 8.0.92 has hit the mirrors." Release notes can be found here.

Adek wrote in to tell us about the leaked Windows 2000 SP4. The file weighs in at a about 136 MB. The preview release of the SP4 beta will run for approximately 1 month, according to WinBeta, who first reported on the release. More, including the download, can be found at techconnect.com.

Jackson was one of many who wrote to tell us about an e-mail from MandrakeSoft, makers of the popular Linux-Mandrake desktop Linux distribution. The press release can be read online or here at OSNews.com. Update: An interview with Gael Duval at ofb.biz.

Timothy R. Butler writes "The goal is tough, the reviewers tougher, and while the lineup of contenders are all worthy the award, only one will receive it. In this report, Open for Business' Timothy R. Butler grills Xandros in the first of a multi-part series to find out which vendor has created the best GNU/Linux distribution in town. Read the full story at ofb.biz."

SkeeterMac was the first to report that Apple released OS X version 10.2.3 today. According to the spec page, this Jaguar update includes OpenGL 1.4 and a whole slew of other enhancements. Details available in this Apple KB article.

dave linenberg wrote "Troll Tech last night released a beta of QSA, which stands for QT Scripting Language for Applications (download here). As a business apps developer for a major financial institution's trading floor, I know the traders will love this. Hopefully, with QSA, I can get rid of Excel, and give the traders Spreadsheet widgets, with the flexibility of "VBA-like" scriptability to boot!"

An anonymous reader wrote in to tell us, "DesktopLinux.com caught up with Colin Walters of the Debian Desktop subproject. Launched in late October, the project aims to simplify Desktop Linux. Walters discusses the project goal to offer "Software which Just Works" for home and office, new user and expert." The rest can be found at DesktopLinux.com.