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AtheOS 348

Posted by Hemos from the lotsa-submission dept.
garethwi writes "A new OS has been released, called AtheOS. It has been designed from the ground up for Intel architecture, and already has a lot of software for it. The screenshots aren't too bad either. " Quite a lot of people have been submitting this over the last few days - what does everyone think about it?
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AttheOS More

AttheOS

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  • You installed QuickTime. It took over your system. It installed itself as the handler for all kinds of media without asking. Oh, it'll even pop up a nag screen now and then. Oh and it installs itself in C:\Windows\system (last I checked, even if your system dir is something else) as hidden system files, and it has no uninstaller. Honestly, I've never seen a worse citizen in my life. I've seen viruses easier to remove.
  • I've been following this project for quite a while, and I can tell you a bit about the GUI. First of all, it is designed from the ground up for this project. The API is very object oriented, and if anything, resembles the BeOS API. There is absolutly no connection to BeOS or Amiga (except for the look - which will change soon), just as [the API] bears no resemblance to the Mac APIs, Windows, PM, XWindows, Motif, Qt, Gtk+, etc.

    Those screenshots are quite confusing because it looks quite a bit like Qt ported to the Amiga, but I can assure you that neither of the previous products/user interfaces are involved (except for inspiration of course).

  • Try reading at threshold 2 sometime. Only bash against it I've seen at that level before I got to your post was that it was Intel-only, and it was reasonably well-stated. Any trolling AC can get an account and post at threshold 1 in minutes.

    And if you indeed were replying to one of the threshold 2 posts, I sincerely believe you need to get a sense of perspective and accept honest criticism for what it is. It's nothing compared to what scientific publications go through.

  • And as the curtain closes:

    We'll meet again
    Don't know where
    Don't know when
    But I know we'll meet again
    Some sunny day

    Keep smiling through
    Just like you
    Always do
    Till the blue skies
    Wipe the dark clouds away

    So will you please say "Hello"
    To the folks that I know
    Tell them
    I won't be long
    They'll be happy to know
    That as you saw me go
    I was singing
    This song

    We'll meet again
    Don't know where
    Don't know when
    But I know we'll meet again
    Some sunny day

    Your fan, WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net

  • Take a look at the operating system and OS-related project list at http://www.tunes.org/Review/OSes.html

    AtheOS looks like yet another C/C++-based, Windows-desktop-like operating system and GUI. Do we really need any more of those? Do we really need any more operating systems in C/C++ at all given that we already have dozens, with just about all permutations of the different GUI, API, extensibility, real-time, and kernel designs you can imagine?

    Even if someone wants to "implement an operating system", it seems like there are a lot more useful and innovative directions to go into. There are a bunch of kernels that already take care of all the drivers and hardware interfaces, including Linux, *BSD, Fluke OS, Mach, etc. On top of those, people can build just about any OS they might want to. Build an open source Java-based OS, contribute to the Express SML-based OS, help create a standalone system based on the Linux kernel and CMU Lisp or Squeak, help create a free version of Plan 9, etc.

  • They did not and cannot remove it from the actual implementations of FreeBSD, NetBSD, etc.

    Just one more reason to use FreeBSD [freebsd.org] instead of NetBSD [netbsd.org] (click to read the licenses) because FreeBSD got rid of the ad clause in its license.

  • These are the things we need to look for. Instead of continuing to expand Linux or BeOS or xOS, we need to work toward the universal OS.

    Some of the posts, are too reactive to anything other than Linux. Instead we need to look at each new OS as an opportunity to determine what features are better in some than others.

    Is it a better idea to split off X and create an independent display layer? Hard to argue with that. Is this a better GUI than GNOME or KDE? Time will tell, but anything of benefit should be looked at against the current mainstream and if it flies, integrate it.

    Linux does not suffer from much bloat because of its age, we really need to ensure we do not create another does everything OS that needs a 1 ghz processor to run. That should mean leveraging the best in practices and functions from all the other OS (yes including MS)
  • I realized about 2ns after posting this how much flack I'd get for omitting the even more obvious choice. So, obligatorily, here goes:

    Wouldn't it now? [be.com]

    :)

    --

  • Whassa matter, the new kid scare you? (Score:4)

    by doublem ( 118724 ) on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @04:16PM (#1051630) Homepage Journal
    You know, there was a time when I would have laughed at anyone who suggested a Linux user would bash a new operating system just because it's a new operating system. Now I see that the depths of human hypocrisy extend even to the supposedly "Open-Sourced" Linux community.

    It's sad really. Someone comes along and builds something new, and people start tearing it apart just because it's new. Why are so many people afraid of change? For all we know, this OS could eventually whip Linux's A** in more ways than we can count, and leave us all with better operating systems as a result.

    Competition is good. It forces everyone to produce better software, unless you're a small minded, frightened little child who's afraid of someone who can out code them.

    Diversity is good. If there are 10 different operating systems with their own rules and procedures, then a virus or crack that kills one will leave the others untouched.

    Change is good. I've heard a little about the BE API being the easiest to program, and bringing that flexibility to Open Source is a Good Thing(tm)

    I remember when I was in high school, a MAC user and I would get into endless debates over which was the better system: MAC or Microsoft. (Back then they were called IBM Compatibles and not WinTel architecture)

    "When I became a man I put away childish things," and when I met Linux, I put away my debates of which OS was better than the other. I started focusing on learning which OS was better for what uses.

    Novell is my choice for a file server, Windows is what I throw at Newbies, Linux is my primary OS at home, and I'll be using Windows for games until that Open Source DirectX implementation comes along. I keep BE 5.0 around for those times when I manage to hose both Windows and Linux.

    I want to try this new OS. It may be good for something that the others aren't. It may not. Whatever the case is, it's small, petty and childish to complain about someone creating a new operating system. They can do whatever the heck they want, it's their computer.

    Stop bashing things just because they are new. If everyone attached everything that was new we'd all be sitting in caves eating grass and berries, and I don't like grass all that much.


    Matthew Miller, [50megs.com]
  • I'm always excited to see new OSes. Maybe this is another OS to add to my quad boot machine!
  • Maybe the guys at slashdot should use all their new server power to take all of the sites they link to and mirror them first. I'd really like to see that. I know I'm offtopic (so sue me) but it's a good idea. Woulnd't everyone else agree? I think it's kind of slashdot's responsability these days as they slashdot more and more sites to hell, sometimes causing tons of problems for the people who run those sites. One of these days, slashdot is going to get sued (or andover or whoever) and I am going to laugh.

  • Re:"Designed from the ground up for..." (Score:5)

    by randombit ( 87792 ) on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @05:59PM (#1051646) Homepage
    But what *IS* it with this idea that designing for a specific platform is anything but a short-sighted, ill-considered, idea?

    You've surely got a point there. However, AtheOS seems to have a POSIX/Unix style API (at least the lower-level stuff). So applications are portable, even if the OS is not. It's one of the arguments Linus made back in the Minix vs Linux flamewars. I can't agree with it entirley (I like portability too), but there is, IMHO, some value to it.

    If the GUI library were ported onto Xlib or something, developers would have few problems porting stuff to/from Unix. And keep in mind that even if a complete kernel rewrite were necessary to port to Alpha or PPC, applications should be totally portable. Consider Linux. Which would be harder to completely reimplement: the kernel and associated device drivers, or all of the applications living on top of it?

  • Alright, so it was funny when a friend came over, popped open his laptop, and we discovered that we were using the same background. But when I start seeing screenshots using my background, I get irritated.

    If I wanted to be like everyone else, I'd run Windows.

  • Actually, "Atheos" in Greek *does* mean "atheist"... I dunno if it's on purpose or not though...


    engineers never lie; we just approximate the truth.

  • Re:Toasted (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I'd offer my opinion if it weren't for the fact that all of us scrambling to click over to their site /.ed them. :)


    That never stopped anyone on /. before.
  • Now, I've looked at the screenshots, heard the complaints about reinventing to wheel, and I've used BeOS (which this is claiming some similar design) and I have to ask, is there more to it than just an improved GUI?

    Truth be known, I look forward for the day that I'll have a real OS (probably something unix derived) that has a polished and attractive look and a more attractive graphics API. (Which could be why Mac OS X is looking so appealing to me right now...) It might just be because I'm a media fan and appreciate a little visual stimulation, but these days, these processors/video cards have the processor power to deliver visual quality beyond what we're currently seeing.

    Antialiased truetype fonts, alpha channel compositing, fast, clean, and virtually always double buffered: BeOS is a pretty good looking UI and (even better) it's graphics API is clean and simple! (I was able to write a decent application in about two hours thanks to the BeBook) It's the BeOS-like ui that catches my eye more than particular lower level os trait. Is there any reason why one could not just create/port the application server/gui to Linux? Are there in fact features that linux lacks that prevent such an X-killer to be written?

    I'd be sad to loose all of my X apps, but with GTK+ and QT, it should be possible to someday replace our toolkit of choice and move on from X.

    Coincidentally, I'm keeping my eye on the berlin project [sourceforge.net] in the hopes that they'll bring everythign that I desire in an advanced display layer to linux.
  • Thanks very much for the mirror!
  • Having new desktop OSes popping up all the time cancels out the "mature" requirement. If you want a mature desktop OS go to town with OS/2 or MacOS. Of course OS/2 is a moot point these days it does fill your requirement. With Linux many distros exist SOLEY for the purpose of making the user experience with Linux an easy one. Pop a SuSE, Corel, or Redhat CD into the drive and it'll walk you through installation and configuration. They all have system config programs that abstract the user from having to know a bunch of arcane scripting commands and config files.
  • Linux was initially designed solely for Intel. Linus made it perfectly clear that Linux was dependant on certain features of the i386 architecture, and would not work on anything else. Download an older (1.0) kernel and see it for yourself.

    Before it was ported the first few times, Linux was hideously non-portable. The first few porting efforts made the core kernel itself more portable, by separating the i386-specific code from the cross-platform code, which in turn encouraged the next set of ports.

    So if you want Atheos on [platform of choice], then do what the PowerPC / Sparc / Alpha / MIPS / 68k owners did when they wanted to run Linux:

    Port it.

    Charles Miller
    --
  • What have I done to deserve this? :)

    Typical to my luck to be "slashdotted" from both the real thing, and another large news-site simultanously :(

    A little update on the server:
    It is very overloaded by now, but it is alive :)
    It seems to be quite stable, since the only problem so far is that it is overloaded. It has not crashed or misbehaved in any other way.
    (Ohh, and yes, the server do run AtheOS)

  • Thanks! Just because someone mentioned it above: the fonts do seem to be antialiased; open up the tabview one (which contains the font prefs), and zoom. Nice.
  • That's probably the only reason I still program in windows, BECAUSE I CAN CUT AND PASTE FROM MY WEB BROWSER AND TEXT EDITOR! Yay, programs can talk to each other. Now, wouldn't that be nice?

    You say that as if Cut & Paste are the sole province of MS Windows. You know, you can do that under half a dozen other OSes as well... including MacOS, BeOS, Linux, Solaris, *BSD, etc. etc. etc.... (In fact, it's easier on the X based systems as you don't need ANY keypresses on the keyboard. Left mouse button to highlight, middle mouse button to paste. You do have a three button mouse, right? ;-)

    --Joe
    --
  • I covered AtheOS on ANN [www.ann.lu] two and a half weeks ago. Here [www.ann.lu] is a direct link to the original article, 37 comments [www.ann.lu] were added to it. The author, Kurt Skauen, actively participated in the discussion. It was predictable that Slashdot would bring his server and/or network connection down, since my site with about 2500 daily visitors already made him rip the network-cable off the server before it run out of memory.

  • I noticed the Atheos site is a little slow, so I posted a mirror of the screenshots if anyone's interested. Here's the link:

    http://atheos-mirror.tripod.com/ [tripod.com]

  • I wonder what would happen (Score:3)

    by extagboy ( 60672 ) on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @06:56PM (#1051686) Homepage
    if I dual booted with the Jesux distro... I could have my very own holy war on my computer.
  • It's strange, but this almost makes me want to run the damn thing.

    Hm. The good old days. SLS was the quantum leap over all the previous nastiness that convinced me to give up my 3b1 in favor of Linux.

    Right now, I feel like buying 50 floppies and doing it all over again.

  • AtheOS and components (Score:3)

    by Jage ( 164751 ) on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @04:51PM (#1051692)

    I agree. It's also interesting to see multiple paths being taken in OS design. Some might be processor specific, some not, some might be more modular, some less. Effectively we're enumerating many possible OS solutions; remember, when there are million monkeys all writing their own OS, some of those might be a true pearl! And maybe the design decisions UNIX-like system designers have done aren't the only right ones.

    I'd like to see a component interface in AtheOS like COM/CORBA, so that you can use components from dynamically loadable libraries, other systems in network and local servers with minimum overhead. Make it fast, something like 100 - 10,000 requests per second when on network, 1,000 - 100,000 rps when on local server and 10,000 - 1 000,000+ rps when component is being used as a dll. And support for some exotic SANs (system area network) with a *fast* request marshalling system would be pretty sweet for some fancy clustering solutions. :)

    Oh and please create it so I can just throw some component binary at it, I can find out the interfaces, methods and properties of modules easily and dynamically, without having any IDLs or such beforehand.

    Some day AtheOS might be really stable, fast and enjoyable to use. Or maybe not. We'll see. Anyways I'm truly happy to see a newcomer in this field.

    Disclaimer: My knowledge about component object systems is still fairly superficial, feel free to point out my errors... :)

  • The 'Root' icon is the one used by the BeOS to represent a BeBox; the BeOS supports all the software shown running in the screenshots; the name can be parsed as 'A the OS'.
  • I had a look on every screenshot. But I can't seem to find anything that looks like a Apple menu, start menu, task bar, etc...

    I'm sure there must be some sort of main nav to use. But I would really liked to have seen it. After all, it's one of the most important part or the UI.

    Are there any other more detailed screenshots around?

    Also, who is this OS aimed for. If it's a new OS, and as he mentioned, it's difficult to port stuff to his OS. I can't see it being a replacement for windoze.
    Still, only time will tell...

  • IANA computer engineer, so I was wondering how much of a performance hit this system will take on something like an ATHLON. I know the Athlon supports everything Intel does and all that, but since this was written from the ground up as an Intel architecture OS I wasn't sure what the effect will be since an AMD is an exact copy of the Intel. Just wondering.
  • Who wouldn't copy BSD and/or linux components...when writing a new OS?

    People who want to learn the process of OS design and implentation, also people who don't simply want to create another *BSD/Linux clone. Honestly, there are a lot of them out there (I know of at least two other OS projects, and one i'm working on in my own time).

    If all you want is an OS, yes you can copy the code without really understanding it. But if you want to understand the low level hardware design and the way the OS interacts with it, writing from scratch is the only way to go.
  • I seem to recall that Linux wasn't initially designed to be portable either. Although it might be a royal pain doing the first port it's still infinitely better than trying to design the "perfect" portable OS and never getting it out of the door.

    It's almost a fact of program design that you'll go through at least one major reworking during the lifecycle anyway, where you throw out the old cruft and do it properly. I think it's better to get code out of the door to start with, on the platform you're most comfortable with, and then if someone really wants to port it they'll contribute later on.

  • Yeah, and the AmigaOS had 256 independent clipboards units... in 1986... (what's a big new feature in Office2000?)

    I particularly like the ClipHistory patch for the amiga, which unifies the clipboards into a history buffer, by shifting clipunit 0->1, 1->2 etc each time you cut and paste to clipunit 0. Very useful, and I wish someone would implement it as part of KDE or something...

    Oh, and the clipboard appeared on the filesystem - you could "cd CLIPS:"
  • It exists. It' called COM.
  • any monopoly is bad monopoly,

    Not true. A free market monopoly that is earned by merit is good. It's good because some monopolies are economically efficient, and because the inferior products have been driven out of the market. And because it's a free market monopoly, it's subject to failure, like certain Bellevue behemoths, when it ceases to provide the best solution.
    -russ
  • My understanding is that Linux based its TCP/IP stack off of a BSD, so this sort of "bolting on" has happened before.

    This is a very popular piece of information but it's simply not true. The Linux TCP/IP stack has one or two snippets of BSD code in it (like the VJ Header compression for CSLIP) but was basically written from the ground up. This is why it's exposed many bugs in other operating systems - most OSes have stacks which *are* based off the BSD stack and thus places where it differed from the RFCs were never found.

  • Re:Where's the nav? (Score:3)

    by Vanders ( 110092 ) on Wednesday May 24, 2000 @05:24AM (#1051708) Homepage
    Although i've not had a chance to try AltheOS yet (I've had the binaries for weeks, but can't get it to boot), there probably is no start menu/task launcher etc.

    This is a guess, but as the UI is very obviously Amiga influenced, it may be that the high level navigation is achieved in an Amiga-like way, where your desktop is essentially a file manager, and you navigate through the actual directory structure to get to an executable. If you want, you can drag an executable's icon onto the desktop to create a shortcut.

    It's not an ideal way of doing things, but it's one of the more inovative aspects of the Amiga desktop.

  • Its proponents would of course be called... (Score:4)

    by The Wookie ( 31006 ) on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @02:25PM (#1051720)
    Atheists

  • Cool... is this the modernized Amiga? (Score:4)

    by jsight ( 8987 ) on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @02:26PM (#1051726) Homepage
    It appears that the webserver is suffering heavily from the /. effect, so I will comment briefly on what I saw before the system went down.

    Essentially the GUI looks to be something modelled very heavily after the Amiga's Intuition UI. It is not immediately apparant to me what type of Video System abstraction they are using, but it does not appear to be X-Windows are a derivative.

    As to software, they have ported XEmacs so it already supports the virtualization of at least one other OS (wink). Beyond that, it appears that they QT as well as some basic UI sys-admin tools (ps, top, etc).

    They've also brought over some really nice software such as Apache, QMail, wu-ftpd, etc and claim that most of those came over with only minor alterations. This implies that they are either using a Unix like kernel or some Libc-based POSIX emulation layer.

    Anyway, I'm sure that we'll hear tons more as soon as the webserver recovers, but overall it looks like it could be a promising project. A UNIX-like OS designed from the ground up around a solid GUI could be really nice.

    -----
    Jess

  • I don't think there is an open implementation yet, though KDE did something called KOM. Yes, it does have 10 MS latency when doing local calls. For local calls, it is simple a pointer deference, as fast as a C++ virtual function call. Using DCOM (Distributed COM) you get all the cool network features you are talking about, (though I'm not sure if it does anything with clustering.) I have know clue where the Linux/*BSD/BeOS/AtheOS port is, but COM is fairly well documented, and it should be more or less trivial (for easier than the bloated Bonobo/Cobra crap GNOME is doing) to write an implementation for other OSs.
  • I'm not sure this is the standard png (but then again, I dont know much about png)- when i look at those shots in IE5, a quicktime logo briefly appears, and then the screenshot fills the window. It resizes with the window as well- pretty neat, but that quicktime logo bodes for bad things... is IE not displaying png natively?
  • I think i get your intention, but you should do some more reasearch on OS design first. Some of the things you mention have been tried in the past (Such as no directory structure), and have been discounted as either unworkable, or damn horrible.

    I agree that, yes, you should try to always think "outside the box", but low level design of an OS has been researched very heavily in the past, by a lot of people who are much, much more clever than you or i. We know that users are comfortable with certain things, i.e the desktop on the screen euthenism, "files" in a "drawer". We know it works too.

    Theres nothing wrong with trying something new, but if you see something that works, theres no shame in taking the idea and using it yourself.
  • To say they are doing it for the challenge is not enough; people who don't do things for the challenge don't create their very own operating systems.

    Asking "why create a new operating system" doesn't mean skepticism about the motivation, or wishing somebody ill, or saying somebody shouldn't do something for the hack value. The answer to the question "why" tells us whether we need to sit up and pay attention now.

    So far, what I can glean from his site he is targeting the desktop. So far so good, but what does he see that's needed on the desktop that current generation OS's cannot provide?

    I see a lot of good things here: GPL, standard IPC for GUI apps, A streamlined multithreaded GUI architecture, Posix, SMP etc. What I'm interested in is how Kurt sees them coming together to accomplish something original. The server is slashdotted now, so I can't get the FAQ.

  • So what's your suggestion, then? You sound like you want DoorstopOS, the OS that makes your computer become a doorstop! (it has been argued that such an OS is already shipping, but I leave that discussion to the philosophers.)

    Seriously, tho, most of those things you mentioned above as questionable are mandatory for me... because if I can't use the keyboard to do it (ie, enter text, commands), it isn't useful for ME.

    (ObAtheOS: I shouted "AMIGA!" as soon as the screenshot was displayed... even down to the command window.)

    --

  • we need to work toward the universal OS.

    Nooo! That's the worst thing we could do. What do you think Microsoft would like everyone to believe? That Windows is "the universal OS".

    If it ever looks as though OS'es are gravitating to much towards "one true way" of doing things, i shall quickly write my own Operating System that does it a diferent way.

    Choice is good, "one true way" is bad.
  • The /. effect isn't necessarily about the os -- bandwidth is a big factor.

    --

  • 'Atheos' in Greek means 'someone who does not believe in any God'. who needs a religious OS anyway?

    Accept this sacrifice of great Lord of BSOD

  • Re:Toasted (Score:5)

    by wulffi ( 176311 ) on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @02:28PM (#1051746) Homepage
    Yeah, I write code for this thing.

    Kurt has done an amazing job writing a new OS.

    The Atheos is a free GPL'ed operating system, using many of the popular GNU tools, and some opensource programs have been ported (Apache for instance).

    The system still suffers from a lack of drivers, but those will get there eventually.

    One of the major differences between Atheos and Linux is that Atheos does not use an X server to do graphics. The graphics is handled by an application server, that also handles IPC. This is a BeOS like approach to doing things.

    This system is still in the early stages, but it works really well and rarely crashes.

    The installation procedure is horrible, but it is manageble.

    So I can only encourage you to try it out

  • Re:Hardware specs... (Score:4)

    by jsight ( 8987 ) on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @02:29PM (#1051754) Homepage
    Hate to reply to my own post... but here are the hardware requirements for those not yet able to get to the site...

    CPU:
    Pentium or betther (Yes AtheOS use Pentium only instructions and will
    crash and burn on a 486)

    Chipset
    I have tested AtheOS on a few machines, and seems to run vel on everyone.

    Video adapters
    S3 Virge and Matrox Mill1/Mill2/g200 have native drivers and are hardware
    accelerated. AtheOS can also use any video card that support Vesa 2.0.
    This will ofcourse be un-accelerated and dog slow!! The matrox driver is
    pritty generic and may work for other Matrox cards aswell. The cards
    listed is the one it is tested on and found to work with. I also tested
    it on a G400, and it kind-of worked but I had to install a Vesa extention
    and the blitter could not blitt backwards so I could only move windows
    in one direction :)

    Mouse:
    Standard serial and PS2 mices should be ok.

    Network:
    NE2000 PCI or EISA.

    Disk
    There is an IDE driver on it's way (Only tested on one machine, and not
    part of the current distro). But generally all disk access is done
    through the BIOS, so most IDE and SCSSI disks should work. I even
    boot AtheOS from my panic ZIP disk every now and then.
  • This looks like an interesting project. I'm a little disturbed that an OS is being judged by so many on the basis of a few screenshots, or whether or not it supports anti-aliasing of truetype fonts.

    As far as I'm aware, even in OS's such as Windows, the GUI is layered on top of lower level services. Something that WINE shows is that you can take a tightly bonded GUI and run it ontop of another OS.

    So, when I get the chance to download and install AtheOS I'll be looking at the relationship between the GUI and the rest of the OS.

    What does the kernel provide that makes the GUI better?

    Can this be fed back into [insert OS of your choice]?

    Surely one of the features that Linux has is that it has support for lots of hardware. Can this be fed into AtheOS?

    My thinking for the last few weeks has been that UN*X isn't necessarily the be-all and end-all of OS design -- especially if you're aiming for a desktop OS. The very features that make UN*X great for servers can provide the problems that make it unsuitable for a desktop OS.

    Since I consider myself a user, I have to ask what features I'm actually directly using of the OS and what have been abstracted away for me. Once everything is configured, I only use the shell and associated utilities for messing around with files and netscape, xemacs, java, gcc, licq, mesa etc for getting my `work' done. `work' == scratching my itches.

    Beyond that, I don't care what OS I'm running. If I had a similar environment under W2K (with a decent WM) then I'd probably be just as happy, although a bit poorer and some of my value systems would have to be chucked out the window.

    In short, I have to agree with the person who said that having many OS's available is a good thing, if only to provide research into different design methodoligies.

  • I see nothing in the Atheos code that is non portable.

    Of course one would have to rewrite portions of the kernel, but that can be managed.

    I think it is just as portable as the next os. Excluding products from a certain company

  • Well in the early days Atheos gui was modelled a bit like the Amiga gui. But this is being changed now to give the Atheos a better look and feel!

    And yes you can write addons for the application server that changes the look and feel of the OS!

  • This doesn't surprise me. In fact, the Minix true probably out performs a lot of other systems. Remember how little the OS is going to do to get in the way here. It must out perform Linux since the GNU implementation of true is a shell script. This is just one of many stupid things GNU programmers due. :(
  • Well, if they ripped off FreeBSD, NetBSD, or OpenBSD, it can't be GPL'd. They'd have to rip off one of the 4BSD releases and they didn't run on Intel. They could steal code from Mach for the x86 support, but, one again, then they can't GPL it.

    They must have stolen from GNUMach, Linux, Flux, Fiasco, or a related system.

  • Re:Toasted (Score:3)

    by Chris Siegler ( 3170 ) on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @02:40PM (#1051774)

    The installation procedure is horrible, but it is manageble.

    It's strange, but this almost makes me want to run the damn thing. I started with Linux at Red Hat v3.0.3 (about three years back), and the installation was already pretty solid at that point. But I've heard all the hairy tales of installation in the pre v1.0 days. I guess it resonates with me the same way camping does.

    The previous poster mentioned that it was /.ed, but you can still read it off the cache at Google [google.com].

    It has support for most Matrox cards, including my MGA. So I'm going to give it a try. Other than Matrox, they only have support for the S3 Virge and Vesa2.0--bummer. At least they will be able to profit from the release of specs for X, so the going won't be quite as hard as Linux.

  • Re:Cool... is this the modernized Amiga? (Score:5)

    by wulffi ( 176311 ) on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @02:43PM (#1051777) Homepage
    The bandwith is being eaten up. The server can cope. (I have this from the guy who wrote Atheos).

    The gui can be replaced in no time as it is loaded as an addon to the application server. And please notice that the application server is not anything like X-Windows. It is more like the appserver found in BeOS.

    As for the software ports, I think Kurt modified XEmacs quite heavily before it compiled. And QT is not available, even though there are some similarities between QT and the Atheos API.

    The kernel implements some of the LibC functionality to allow easy porting of some Linux applications!

  • Excluding products from a certain company

    If, by this, you mean Microsoft, NT is portable (has run on Alpha, MIPS, and PowerPC). Windows is an extension to DOS which was a straight-on port of CP/M from the 8080.

  • Re:Amiga OS comparisons not a good thing (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Amiga OS was mediocre at best.

    Bah. The Amiga's desktop environment was mediocre (which is why so many Amigans replace it with stuff like Directory Opus Magellan). Saying Amiga OS itself was mediocre, is a sign of cluelessness. Amiga OS kicked ass, and is probably the most elegant OS ever sold to the public.

  • I know DCOM isn't that great. I, personally, think distributed interfaces are retarded in this day and age of huge bandwidth networks and massive local storage, but hey, to each his own, right? I do concede that COBRA is better for distributed objects, but I dislike that fact that it has so much bloody overhead.
  • Tracker is Open Source is under a BSD-style license. Go write a FM for that!
  • The whole "it's OpenSource it can be anything" spiel is a little trite. You can really change Linux to be a new type of OS without having to start from scratch. Linux is a UNIX and always will be, no matter how much jiggering people do with it. At best, the OSS license will allow people to cannibalize parts of it for the new OS.
  • Here are the screen shots in JPEG format for people with PNG impared browsers: shot 1 [outofdarkness.com] shot 2 [outofdarkness.com] shot 3 [outofdarkness.com] shot 4 [outofdarkness.com]
  • I meant "can't" and I know it!

  • Interesting info about Atheos (Score:4)

    by Chairboy ( 88841 ) on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @02:46PM (#1051797) Homepage
    The Atheos kernel is written from scratch and supports SMP, loadable device drivers and file systems, and provides threads and processes with the means to communicate amonst themselves with ease. From a cached Atheos site: "Threads can communicate through message ports, shared memory, posix signals, sempaphores, ppes, pty's, TCP/IP, and more".

    The GUI isn't repackaged X. It's a native GUI that is more integrated with the OS that has a multithreaded GUI system that is more high-level. More things in the GUI are defined by the OS than the apps, leading to more consistency (ala Mac & Windows).

    Here's a link to a couple Atheos related software pages:
    http://www.latech.edu/~jta001/AtheOS/
    http://www.coolcateditor.dk/Download.asp

  • Re:Cool... is this the modernized Amiga? (Score:4)

    by drix ( 4602 ) on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @02:47PM (#1051802) Homepage
    A UNIX-like OS designed from the ground up around a solid GUI could be really nice.

    Wouldn't it now? [apple.com]

    --
  • Who says you have to have a Start button or Apple or anything else visible on the screen at all times?

    I run fvwm2 on Slackware because I can customize it my way. I have no borders, no title bars. To get menus, I click on the root window, or I use keys combined with that extra "Windows" MENU key.

    When I have dozens of xterms scattered around my windows and desktops, I am working, and don't want to waste precious screen space on decorations and sillybuttons. Need a new xterm? MENU + KP-INSERT, up it comes. Want a new browser window? MENU + 'w'. And so on.

    Maybe this guy set his up the same. Maybe he waits until the mouse is near the edge before he shows the home menu. Maybe he double clicks two buttons together. Maybe it's voice activated!

    Ya gots to think outside da box.

    --

  • More OSes = More standards = Good (Score:4)

    by GrouchoMarx ( 153170 ) on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @10:13PM (#1051807) Homepage
    I support the introduction of more OSes into the marketplace, GPLed or not. In fact, I would like to see them compete with each other head one. Yes, I could insert the normal "competition is good and leads to improvement" rhetoric here, but I'm more interested in the effect it has on the rest of the industry.

    If no OS has a definitive hold on the market (like Windows does now), then for any of them to survive they will need to have some sort of standardized, interchangeable file formats. You know how annoying it is to deal with the CR/LF difference between Windows Notepad and the rest of the known universe. It's even worse for binary files. For any of them to be really sellable, they will have to be compatable with each other. That means open or at least non-proprietary standards, which is Good Stuff(tm).

    The same extends to applications, as well. For instance, most of the Adobe product line is completely compatable between the Mac and Windows versions. They use the exact same file format. That makes my life a lot easier, since I regularly have to futz with Photoshop files on both PC and Mac.

    Now, if Photoshop, and The Gimp, and whatever image editor is common on BeOS or AtheOS all used the same file format, then my life would be easier still. I could futz with the file in whichever program and OS is best suited for that task, then combine it with another file created using a different program on another OS, and dump the whole thing into another file/program/whatever on yet another OS. The best tool for the job, whatever platform that may be.

    Even if you choose to stay to one OS, the impact of standardized file formats will be good. Those who use Windows will know what I'm talking about when I point out that the translators between even basic MS Word and WordPerfect files are lame at best. When you're dealing with something more complicated, like a presentation file or vector-based image file, you pretty much have to pick a program for the file and stick with it. That's Bad Stuff(tm). If diversity in the OS market forces non-proprietary standards, that will be a boon even for the mono-OS market.

    I routinely use two or three HTML editors plus raw code when designing a web page, all intermingled. Why shouldn't I be able to do the same thing for the graphics I use?

    --GrouchoMarx

  • Atheos does not use an X server to do graphics

    I just want to be the first to say:

    THANK YOU! and GIMME!


  • EXCEPT that in this case, the server is completely unreachable, and hence this is the only way for people to get *any* information at all about the project. Therefore it's the most useful comment in the list as far as I'm concerned.

  • Why designed for one platform (Score:4)

    by Phallus ( 54388 ) on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @02:50PM (#1051811) Homepage
    Is it really a good thing that AtheOS is only designed for Intel? There is only two good reasons for doing this - to gain performance, and to make the design and implementation easier.

    As far as performance goes, in this era of high powered chips, is it really worth tying yourself to one platform and sacrificing a significant group of potential users, in return for gaining an extra 1% of CPU time for SETI@home.

    And if it's for expediency, I think it's very short sighted not to put the extra effort into making a potentially portable OS (even if you do no porting).

    Overall, the Intel-only thing makes me a bit wary.

    tangent - art and creation are a higher purpose
  • >Anybody else noticed that all the titles in the shots say "AltOS"? :)

    Ups.. :)
    Some of the screenshots is very old. From when AtheOS indead was named AltOS. The reason for the name-change is that AltOS is tradmarked. I spent a lot of time renaming stuff, but I totally forgot the screenshots :(

  • A wake-up call for Linux zealots (Score:3)

    by Junks Jerzey ( 54586 ) on Wednesday May 24, 2000 @07:27AM (#1051820)
    Linux is not, nor has ever been, the epitome of operating system design. It's a reworking of UNIX, the same operating system that could have used by the fathers of Slashdotters twenty or more years ago. Linux is a good UNIX-like system, and it is free. There's no argument there.

    The modern OS philosophy is beoming more and more that "operating system" is an outdated term. Does anyone care what OS makes a Palm run? Or what the low-level features of the Mac OS X kernel are? No. If you do, then you're fixating on the wrong part of the computer.

    Smaller, cleaner alternatives are certainly a good thing. Don't bash them because they conflict with your zealotry.
  • Comments 45 and 46 say pretty much the same thing, so I will answer both at once.

    The GPL prevents you. You cannot remove any of the of licensing restrictions in the BSD license and one of them is the advertising clause. You can add restrictions to the BSD license though. You cannot GPL BSD code because the GPL forbids it (no additional restrictions). This is why you can take a BSD program commerical but never GPL one.

    I have heard that Stallman did this to intentionally screw over the BSD developers. I don't know if this is true, but if it is, it had the opposite effect. Mach had to be rewritten from scratch to get around this problem for use in the HURD.
  • That's a rather simplistic definition of gnosis. Like defining hubris (deific presumption? it's a hard one to translate) as pride, or logos (thought made into reality) as word; they are a bit more complicated than that. Remember we are talking about a people that had four different words for love each with it's own implications. Gnosis is usually defined, at least in this context, as 'personal knowledge of god' implying an experience in which one feels himself to be part of the godhead. Gnostics believed that, through various means, one could experience godhood oneself and that true knowledge of god could only come through this personal experience. Agnostic then would translate as 'lacking personal knowledge of god', and of course claiming otherwise would be an act of monumental hubris (I might not know how to define it, but I know how to use it ;^)). So you are both right, gnosis has to do with higher powers and knowledge.

    That said, my gnosis weighs a ton!... and AtheOS (I'd translate it as No God)looks allright but what does it offer that Be doesn't?

  • Amiga-Like systems (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @02:53PM (#1051832)
    Hmm... that means there are 4 Amiga-Like systems available today - two closed source and 2 open source:

    Closed source:

    AmigaOS [amiga.com] itself: closed source operating system, now severely outdated, but groundbreaking for its time - soon to be replaced by a completely different OS from Tao [tao-group.com], which is rather cool in itself, being a VM a bit like a Java VM, but without the language dependency (it includes a gcc/g++ port...)

    BeOS [be.com] - what most people think of as the AmigaOS done right. While it has been market mostly to Mac-like media people, in fact it attracted a load of ex-amiga people, particularly developers too. It's OS structure is undeniably similar to a refined AmigaOS.

    Open Source:

    AROS [aros.org], the Amiga Research OS. An Open-source clone of Amiga OS 3.x, ported to architectures including x86. Many Amiga os-legal apps work with just a recompile. Not finished. Work progressing slowly due to legal complications - the OS depends on Amiga-copyrighted system include files and infringes on several Amiga patents. However, the current amiga intellectual property owners seem to look quite favourably upon AROS, and it looks increasingly likely it will get their blessing, since the Amiga is now going to be based on a completely different OS from Tao, and does not use any old AmigaOS code, so AROS is a good option for keeping the "classic" amiga alive and up-to-date. There's already Quake and Doom ports, so they've got the important stuff going. :-)

    Atheos [atheos.cx] The new kid, the subject of this discussion. People have noted its UI similarity to the AmigaOS UI already on this thread, but architecturally it is also very similar to AmigaOS and BeOS. But it's open source, unlike AmigaOS and BeOS.

  • Waitaminute! (Score:3)

    by Chainsaw ( 2302 ) <jens...backman@@@gmail...com> on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @02:53PM (#1051833) Homepage
    An monolithic-kernel-based minix/unix-like OS that can barely run emacs, only works on the x86 processor family, is still being modified to use GNU tools, and has virtually no driver support?

    This sounds like... Yes, it must be Linux a few years back!
  • howardjp@dragon:~$ uname
    Linux
    howardjp@dragon:~$ file `which true`
    /bin/true: Bourne shell script text
  • Er. Sorry about that. :-)

    Curiosity: How many hits, or what percentage, roughly, seemed to come from kuro5hin? I have no idea if we're even capable of slashdotting someone yet-- the readership is not all *that* big. I'd be interested to hear numbers from your side, if you've got 'em.

    Good luck with AtheOS. It sounds like fun. :-)

    --

  • As this comment [slashdot.org] states, the problems are with the bandwidth they have, not the server load.

    tangent - art and creation are a higher purpose
  • The list of software seems to be hosed, so I thought I'd ask.

    It's nice that they're planning a remote-able GUI, but until it gets an X server (presumably as an app - as opposed to merging the X server with the main GUI) for all my existing X clients to talk to, it's not going to do me much good. If there isn't an X server, perhaps writing one might ease the transition for a lot of people who want to try something new.

  • That middle paragraph doesn't make any sense. Let me try again.

    The GPL will not let you link against BSD code because the GPL mandates no additional restrictions in the license over what is required by the GPL proper. The BSD license requires acknowledgement of use which counts as an additional restriction.
  • The Amiga was a machine before it's time; everyone will admit that. The hardware was brilliant (RIP Jay Miner) and the tiny multitasking kernel was very nice. But you have to stop there. The desktop environment of the Amiga was generally poor, even when compared to a Macintosh from the same era. It improved somewhat later, but it was still nothing that should be raved about. The Amiga was a brilliant graphics and sound box, but that doesn't mean that everything with the Amiga name on it was brilliant. Amiga OS was mediocre at best.

  • correction... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Atheos has been in the works for four years. It's not something that has been hidden, if you've ever done a two bit search for operating systems you could have easily stumbled upon it. It's quite an interesting project. I hate to plug another os, but i find it ironic that all these comments attack new os's. V2os (which i have been working on recently) [at http://www.v2os.cx ] was only out for a couple days when slashdot first presented it, but atheos has been out for quite some time. i just think its funny how most of you readers respond to new os's. v2 got attacked like wild-fire and with the exception of only a couple people, all of us working on it are under 20, and it's quite impressive and becoming more innovative. -brecasx
  • I phrased it poorly. I should have used the word clone somewhere. However you can find that in a number of books on the history of Microsoft. But, let's say that it is not false. Look at the CP/M API and compare it to the DOS API. You'll find almost no differences.
  • To correct the original point, BeOS was designed with the intention to make it a multiuser operating system (in the same vein as UNIX, not the 'multiprofile, one-user-at-a-time' method that NT follows).

    To that end, BeOS mimics some of the traditional UNIX-isms. For instance, the file system supports the same RWX attributes and ownership details that are present in, for instance, ext2. The user's main starting directory, as well, is called 'home.' Currently, the operating system does not enforce file ownership nor read/write/execute, but those features are already present in the OS.

    In the future, because of the fact that BeOS already includes a large number of multiuser-oriented designs, turning BeOS into a multiuser OS will be *relatively* easy (that is to say, the foundation is already there, and the OS won't require a massive overhaul to add those things).

  • Developers are free to believe what they want to believe, but if they're hoping to get widespread acceptance for their projects, they should be wary of adopting names that are likely to offend sizable segments of the population, even if they don't mean to cause offense. By these lights, "atheOS" is as poorly chosen a name as "ChristIsKingOS" (or whatever) would be. Donald Knuth and Larry Wall are two practicing Christians who have made indisputably enormous contributions to open source software. Is the pun so irresistible that it is worth causing offense to these people?

    Moreover, even if individuals can overlook such things, businesses can't, or won't. By way of example, if you want to convince a business it should abandon Photoshop in favor of the open source alternative, first try to explain how the business will go about telling an employee in a wheelchair that the employee needs to be trained on a program called "the GIMP."

  • Most new code. And there is so little of it, there is not enough to get a working OS out of it. A number of authors have come up with licenses which are not BSD, but are completely free and still are incompatible with the GPL. The beer-ware license is my favorite among them.
  • This is an open source, GPL type OS, right? Well then, this means that one can grab whatever is good in there and stuff it into a more mature system. You say it has a good X alternative? Well, then, what would prevent someone from porting that to Linux or BSD? Why fragment the OS world further when you can assimilate it?

  • AtheOS FAQ and mirrored screenshots (Score:5)

    by Jage ( 164751 ) on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @03:39PM (#1051908)

    From Atheos page (http://www.atheos.cx [atheos.cx])

    Mirrored screenshots:

    Shot 1 [geocities.com], Shot 2 [geocities.com], Shot 3 [geocities.com] and Shot 4 [geocities.com]

    What is AtheOS?

    AtheOS is a free operating system for the Intel architecture released under the GPL license. I have seen quite a few anouncements of "promising" OSes with "great potential" during the development of AtheOS. The problem is that when I follow the links I normally find a description of the concept, a floppy-bootloader written in assembly, and not much else. AtheOS is a bit more mature, and is already running quite a lot of software. As a "proof" I can tell that the server you currently are browsing is running the AtheOS operating system. AtheOS is not ment to be a new Unix clone (like Linux and *BSD) but a new clean desktop OS. It does not run X-windows, but has it's own heavy multithreaded GUI system. Not using X has its ups and downs. The big down is ofcourse the lack of application's that can be easily ported to the OS. Another down is that the current GUI does not support remote display, even though implementing it should not be hard at all. The up's is that the GUI interface is much more high-level, and is much better at defining how a GUI should work. This leads to better consistency between applications. Drag and drop, clippboard, and other forms of high-level communucation between apps are defined by the OS. This will hopefully lead to applications that work well together and that give the user an impression of a compleat system with consistency between applications. I belive this consistency is important so the user dosen't have to start from scratch each time she learns a new program to know.

    The AtheOS GUI consists of two main components: An application server and a dll providing a C++ interface between the server and the application. The GUI is therfore programmed through a C++ API providing windows containing a hierarchy of widgets that all have their own graphical environment.

    The kernel was written from scratch. It supports SMP (Symmetric Multi Processing), has a built-in network TCP/IP stack. It supports loadable device-drivers and file-systems. It provides threads and processes with several powerful communication systems that makes it easy, efficient and safe to create server/client implementations where both the server and the client run on the same machine. Threads can communicate through message ports (most common), shared memory, posix signals, semaphores, pipes, pty's, TCP/IP, and propably a few other method's as well.

    If you have any questions or comments you can reach me at kurt@atheos.cx

    Frequently Asked Questions

    Q: When trying to boot AtheOS the screen flicker for a while and then everything is dead. Why?

    A: It might be due to missing fonts in the atheos/sys/fonts directory (see INSTALL). If that is not the case check the boot.ini. Make sure the memory and boot-device settings ar ok. You might also try to disable some features by uncommenting any of the DISABLE_* entries in boot.ini If possible, taking a look at the kernel output from the seraial port as configured in boot.ini can often geve a clue to what when wrong.

    Q: Why does my serial-mouse dont work?

    A: Propably cause it is in COM2, currently only COM1 is scanned for a mouse. If you use a serial-mouse you MUST set the DEBUG_PORT to 2 (in boot.ini) even if you dont have a serial cable attached for the kernel-debugger.

    Q: I have run AtheOS from the native FS for a while, and now I installed a new kernel, but it seems like it still boot with the old one. Why?

    A: Since the bootloader don't know how to load the kernel from AFS you must also install it on your FAT partition (in atheos/sys).

    Q: AtheOS boots, and the GUI seems to be working, but there is a problem with the mouse-pointer, it leaves a trail of pixels when moved, what's up?

    A: The problem is most likely that you have selected a 15-bit screen-mode. Both the Matrox driver and the Vesa20 driver is broken in that they list's more screen-modes than the render-module supports. Only 16 and 32 bit are fully supported by now.

    Q: What kind of architecture is the kernel built around? Monolitic, micro-kernel, nano-kernel?

    A: I often ask myself that question to :) The kernel is very modular and the it have a well defined interface between the kernel and it's device-drivers and file-systems. So given that each component comunicate through a thin defined interface, and don't know much else about each other, it ressembles a micro-kernel. I am not sure if this is the right term though, since all kernel-components lives in kernel-space and is not protected from each other, this is all properties from a monolitic-kernel. I am a bit confused :)

    Q: The GUI look very Amigaish, is it an AmigaOS clone?

    A: No. In the beginning it was actualy ment to be one, but this days there is nothing resembling the AmigaOS in AtheOS other than the window-borders. This seems to be rather hard for the Amiga-community to grasp though. They still think AtheOS is an Amiga clone :) Hey the Window borders look like on my Amiga! It must be an Amiga clone Right? I find it rather amusing to see that the Amiga-hord think that the single-most important property of an OS is the window-borders :) BTW: You can replace the border-look by writing a plugin to the appserver so I guess the Amiga look will go away quite soon.

    Q: Is it a BeOS clone?

    A: No, AtheOS is not meant to be a BeOS clone. I have never run BeOS myself, but I have read a lot about it, and I realy like the high-level API's and the GUI. The AtheOS GUI is very inspired by BeOS, but it is not meant to be a clone. Even though many of the general concepts is similar, there is also many differences in the API details.

  • How can it possibly compete with Linux in terms of stability/driver support?

    Windows can compete in driver support. NT can in both. The BSDs can in stability. Solaris can in stability. So can Tru64 and SCO.

  • Re:um... (Score:3)

    by howardjp ( 5458 ) on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @03:19PM (#1051927) Homepage
    They removed the advertising clause from the Berkeley distributions. They did not and cannot remove it from the actual implementations of FreeBSD, NetBSD, etc.

  • "Designed from the ground up for..." (Score:5)

    by seebs ( 15766 ) on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @03:23PM (#1051933) Homepage
    That's the kind of thing that terrifies me. I already have Windows. Why would I want another system that wants to devote its existance to a single platform?

    Now, this system is probably better than Windows. Hell, I can't *imagine* how it could be worse.

    But what *IS* it with this idea that designing for a specific platform is anything but a short-sighted, ill-considered, idea? Do you remember the amount of trouble Linux/alpha was? The amount of effort that the *BSD's had to put into getting the early Alpha and PPC ports? It's a *HUGE* amount of work to redesign. Design from the ground up for *generic computers*, and let the individual machines cope. You'll end up better off.

    (Remember the Apple ads based on using 486-optimized Bytemark code on PC's? Same problem. If you tie yourself down, well, you're tied down.)
  • Right. Linus said when he originally started Linux that it would only run in i386. As of 2.3.99pre6, though, there were 11 directories in arch/. I'd say Linux has evolved quite well, and it should be possible for this OS to do the same.
  • Cool. Feel free to email me @ rusty@kuro5hin.org when things cool off. :-)

    --
  • the list does go on... [qnx.com]

    -james

  • Re:Whassa matter, the new kid scare you? (Score:5)

    by kevin805 ( 84623 ) on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @05:18PM (#1051954) Homepage
    Once upon a time, all the linux users were hard core hackers. Then it became easier, got a larger following, and that necessarily brought down the curve. There's a great quote from Bjarne Stroustrup about this phenomenon in C++:

    When C++ was new, one of the things that pleased me most was that discussions about C++ were so much better informed than discussions about most other languages, that the understanding of key concepts were so much better in C++ groups than in, say, C and Pascal groups, and that groups such as comp.lang.c++ were so much more polite and supportive than that of other groups.


    Clearly, I thought naively, C++ attracts a much better class of programmers, learning C++ helps people to absorb the key concepts of good programming/design, and the resulting success makes people more tolerant and helpful.

    I was wrong. The phenomenon was real, but it had little to do with C++. In a small dedicated community, life is relatively easy. people do their homework, people have access to reasonable sources of information, gross errors and misconceptions are corrected before they can cause significant harm, compilers and teaching materials are up-to-date, etc.


    Now, not all of this translates directly to Linux: there's a big difference between a programming language and an OS. But the phenomenon is the same. Right now, the average Linux user is much more computer savvy than the average windows or mac user. The "average" EROS, AtheOS, JavaOS, or even OpenBSD user is probably significantly more computer savvy than the average Linux user. Just as you aren't going to adopt an emerging language as your first programming language, you aren't going to start with a fringe operating system. But using these systems doesn't necessarily make you better at anything.

    The moral: expect Linux users to become as irrational and fanatical as users of any other operating system. If you don't like it, the only real solution is to stop thinking of "the linux community" and find some other way to define the people you want to identify with.

    --Kevin
  • Amen to that brother. People don't always have to be a part of some holy war. At the very least, it's just a cool thing to do. Whether it actually plays any role in the OS world at large is antoher issue, but it's not like this dude is forcing anyone to start using it.

  • I know why they did it! (Score:5)

    by doublem ( 118724 ) on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @03:53PM (#1051957) Homepage Journal
    Why challenge the urge to create a new operating system? What if Linus had said, "Oh, MINIX is just fine for what it does. Why bother changing it?"

    You forget the simple fact that human beings are creative and need a challenge. Perhaps the developers think Linux is too krufty? Perhaps they wanted a GOOD API for a change? What if they just wanted an open source achievement like that of BE?

    When confronted with the prospect of an unknown ocean, did Columbus shrug and say, "I already have a country to live in, why would I need to visit another?" What if Ford had said, "We already have horses, why would we need something different?" What if ID's developers has collectively decided "We already have Wolfenstein 3D, what more could we do?"

    I will close with a quote from the first posting Linus made to Usenet about his then nameless OS: Do you yearn for the days when men were men and wrote their own device drivers?"

    By God, some of us do.


    Matthew Miller, [50megs.com]

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