Monthly Archive:: January 2006

"This page is a place to keep track of all those things that we need to improve in GNU Mach, so that it is a reliable microkernel for The Hurd, both in terms of stability and performance. If you find anything missing here, please feel free to add a entry with a short description."

"Is Unix dead? My answer is no, it's not dead. As a matter of fact, I think I hear it laughing on its way to the bank. Fewer Unix systems are being shipped, but they're commanding a higher premium than ever. Unix still represents a $2 billion market, the largest operating-system market by far. Despite Windows Server recent gains, it still represents about $1.6 billion , when you're looking at operating system-only revenues. And Linux in terms of revenues represents one-tenth of what the good, gray Unixes combined represent. Granted the future belongs to Linux, but as a $2 billion market, is Unix dead?"

"The GRand Unified Boot loader, or GRUB, has all but replaced the default boot loader on many GNU/Linux distributions. It includes some conveniences over LILO, the LInux LOader. One advantage is not having to remember to run /sbin/lilo every time you make a configuration change. It also can function as a boot loader for removable media such as floppies, CD-R/W and USB flash memory keys. It is short-sided to view GRUB only as a boot loader to be installed on a hard drive of a GNU/Linux system. Combined with a few other utilities, GRUB can be a powerful and good-looking tool for your home, organization or workplace."

"Apple became a household name in the third quarter of SuperBowl XVIII when it aired the enormously popular 1984 ad promoting the upcoming release of the Macintosh. Apple's PR firm, Chiat/Day, had pitched a similar ad in 1982 to promote the Apple II. The basic premise was that the Apple II would only enable people, and not hinder them with inane commands and hard to understand interfaces. No executives were particularly enamored with the spot, and it was filed away for possible later use."

In an interesting turn of events, Microsoft has said that the current Aero interface in the latest Vista build (the December CTP) is not the final UI, saying: "There are going to be GUI changes in Vista by the time the final release comes." However, not too long ago they claimed the current Aero UI was final. Will the real Microsoft developer please stand up?

The second beta of OpenSUSE Linux 10.1 has been released today. Main changes: "Fixes for a number of bugs - but note that most of the bugs reported against beta1 are not fixed yet; further integration and fixing of NetworkManager; SUSE Linux 10.1 Beta1 comes with the Intrusion Prevention framework; AppArmor 2.0 which is started by default in beta2; updated to KDE 3.5.1 release packages." Downloads locations are in the release announcement.

Imagine a world where you could run both Linux and Apple operating systems on the same high-performance Mac laptop. That day may be coming sooner than Mac fans think. Red Hat has confirmed it is pursuing the development of a Linux distribution for the new Intel-based Macs. Red Hat is no stranger to Macintosh - Fedora and other Linux distributions support the PowerPC architecture once used by Apple - but there are challenges to bringing Linux to the MacBook Pro. It appears the opportunities outweigh the challenges, though, with potential repercussions for Microsoft if the market clamors for Red Hat Linux-enabled MacBook Pros.

"In the 1990s, world chess champion Gary Kasparov played two historic matches against IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer. He won the first match but lost the second by just a single point. As a graduate student at Stanford writing a thesis on artificial intelligence at that time, I was fascinated by the match. I'd been a computer hobbyist since the 1980s as well as a chess buff. Over the years I've tried practically every commercially available chess program on every platform, including Sargon, Socrates, Chessmaster, and others. I used TRS 80 and Apple II computers, and then IBM PCs running DOS, followed by Macintosh and Windows systems. Since that time I've wanted a chess computer as powerful as Deep Blue - my own world-champion-level sparring partner."

People visiting the ReactOS website today were in for a shock. "Accusations have been made by some of ReactOS' own developers about certain parts of ReactOS code. The project is suspending development pending legal council. The project will resume once the issue has been rectified." I could not find any more information, as the links to the mailinglist archives are dead.

Some more news on Apple's Intel Macs. First off, contrary to what OSNews reported on yesterday, a research and investment firm says that sales of the Intel iMac and MacBook Pro are good. Secondly, a contest has been set up to get Windows XP to boot on the Intel Macs.

Times change. If Internet was the main tech revolution of 1990's, mobile communications is the revolution of our time. The next step will be to fully merge these two concepts and allow users to browse the web via their phone at very cheap rates. Today, we look at the various offerings found on most phones. Our hope is that we will familiarize you with some of these solutions and so the next time you buy a phone, you actually also check what browser it's using. That will be a good step towards making carriers and phone manufacturers aware that the mobile web users exist!

"I've been gathering information from a variety of knowledgeable sources on the critical issues and milestones affecting the continuing implementation by the Massachusetts IT Division of its OpenDocument Format policy. Here are the issues and milestones that I'll be watching, the state of play of each on as I understand it, and the approximate date to look for an announcement on each."

Linus posted on the Linux Kernel Mailing List today and said that the kernel will not be moving to GPLv3. "The Linux kernel is under the GPL version 2. Not anything else. Some individual files are licenceable under v3, but not the kernel in general. And quite frankly, I don't see that changing."

Sun Microsystems later this year will introduce virtualization technology to let its newest Sparc-based servers run multiple operating systems simultaneously, catching up to a feature already built into Unix machines from rivals IBM and Hewlett-Packard.