SkyOS Inside

SkyOSInside Moved

2006-01-14T17:25:00.000+01:00

I've decided to move the blog to SkyOS.org now that such a possibility appeared.

HERE. So see the light and break free there from now on ;)

Polish Article about SkyOS

2006-01-12T13:00:00.000+01:00

There's a Polish article about SkyOS on Dziennik Internautów. I took part in making it, might be an interesting read for Polish SkyOSInside readers. Enjoy.

SkyOS.org Design Chosen.

2006-01-06T17:49:00.000+01:00

Karol "hexplor" Orzeł did an amazing job, this is how SkyOS.org is going to look like. Now we're just waiting for Tom to implement it using Drupal.

New Development Snapshot Due Today/Tomorrow

2006-01-06T17:44:00.000+01:00

Visit SkyOS.org for the usual portion of news and look at the Official ChangeLog. A development snapshot with all the new goodies will be released either tomorrow or today. Pretty sweet if you ask me. It's been only just over a month since beta9 release, seems things are picking up pace. Of course this one will be available only for the Alpha Team.

Progress Report #3

2005-12-22T19:09:00.000+01:00

Another exclusive sneak peak at the changelog:

21th, dec 2005:
Fixed GCC installation prefix. Sometimes gcc was not able to load the specs file and used only the internal one. (Which could cause problems when building shared dlls)
Implemented runtime pseudo relocation to workaround missing PE data import/export capability. (Required for auto-data-import of complex variables)
Updated crt0_pe.o, crt1_dll.o and crt1_dll_noentry.o. Added crt1_pe.o and crt_common.o
Optimized DLL linking. Don't try to find the DLL for each import entry, it's enough to find it for each import block per DLL
Added MemUserMapClone to easier clone user memory maps when forking
Fixed memory map cloning, uiVirtualImageBase and file offset were not cloned correctly (no stack backtrace in forked applications)
Fixed critical error when forking. Read-only pages which were accessed while relocating or runtime linking a non-prebased dynamic link library were not copied. (Which resulted in unrelocated DLL's for forked applications)

SkyOS.org Website Mockup

2005-12-22T16:45:00.000+01:00

Is this how SkyOS.org will look like in the future? Time will show. Courtesy of Soligraf.com. Comments welcome.

Progress Report #2

2005-12-20T18:58:00.000+01:00

Exclusive sneak peak at the changelog:

SkyOS Beta 10
===========================
20th, dec 2005:
Added symbolic link support to SkyFS (required for perl tests).
(hard)link syscall now returns ENOSYS instead of 0.
Added support to disable name<-->vnode cache for individual vnodes (required for /pty/tty)
Huge fixes to pgid and session id handling.
Implemented /dev/tty device (symlinks to /pty/tty which hard links to /pty/slave/)

19th, dec 2005:
Reactivated MTRR support for vesa, radeon, nvidia, ati mach, i855 and i815 graphic driver
Benchmarks Quake I (timedemo1 )
VESA 31fps
VESA+MTRR 55fps
Radeon(SW) 31fps
Radeon(SW+MTRR) 31fps

16th, dec 2005:
Added better CPU/Architecture abstraction
Added X86Generic CPU specific driver

14th, dec 2005:
Implemented generic widget parent background draw
Implemented parent background draw for WidgetButton
Implemented parent background draw for WidgetRadio
Implemented parent background draw for WidgetStatic
Implemented new software store
Updated package install.sif format
Updated server side software store package file
Support for web links in wgstyle
WidgetRadioGroup disables now all RadioButtons before enabling the selected one
WidgetCategory can sort by headers now
Implemented libsoftware for software management, package handling and SIF parsing
Fixed path normalize function to recursively upstep root directory on .. instead of error
(e.g: /../../../../../../.. will now return / instead of -ENOENT)

Progress Report #1

2005-12-16T19:40:00.000+01:00

I bet you want to know what is currently going on at Djinnworks. Robert is working on the following:
- the new Software Store
- Software Management in general
- VESA speed improvements
- a full PERL port
- fixing compile problems with some open-source packages

Dieter Dannerbeck has ported Ruby 1.8.4 to SkyOS.

Additionally, Peter "Darkness" Speybrouck is working on a Weather Service and also a Software Store front/back-end.

SkyOS Beta9 Review

2005-12-04T16:05:00.000+01:00

This is a review of SkyOS Beta9, a commercial operating system for x86 personal computers.
REMEMBER: this is beta quality software, far from being a finished product.

Test computer:
* Monitor: Belinea 171050 (@DVI)
* Processor: Athlon XP 2000+ (@2140MHz)
* Memory: 1GB RAM DDR400 (2x512MB DualChannel)
* Mainboard: Abit NF7-S 2.0
* HDD: Seagate ST360021A
* DVDRW: Liteon SOHW-1693S
* Graphics: Radeon 9600XT
* Sound: Creative Audigy2
* Network/Internet: Realtek 8139C
* PSU: Chieftec 420W
* Keyboard: Logitech Deluxe Access Keyboard
* Mouse: A4Tech OPTO 518

This system is in development since 1996. Robert Szeleney is the only developer, with Chris Marshall helping out when it comes to native applications (SkyPaint, Personal Organizer - these will come later though). Let's get this fresh release for a test drive. As you may have noticed, the test computer is quite a modern one and all the hardware I use is fully supported. Well, only 2D accelaration when it comes to ATI, but that I think is obvious. However, as with all such projects, SkyOS' hardware support is limited. Here's a list of supported hardware:

- Network Cards
RTL8129/8139-based cards
AMD PcNet32 (VMware)
Intel EtherExpress 10/100
Via Rhine II
- Sound Cards
Creative Sound Blaster Live!
Creative Audigy/Audigy2
All cards based on via82xx, es1371 (VMware) and emu1k
- Graphics Cards
ATI cards (up to 9800 Pro)
NVIDIA cards (up to GeForce 4 Ti 4600)
Intel i815, i830, i845, i855
Dedicated VMware graphics driver
VESA driver for other cards

It is worth at this point to add that SkyOS does not, as of yet, support:

- SATA drives
- Wireless Networking
- USB Devices/Hosts
- Printers, Scanners, Webcams

OK, now that we have this out of the way it's time for some action. As usual, I've burnt the ISO on a blank CDR, rebooted the computer, entered BIOS to set boot priority to CDROM and saved settings. In a few seconds I saw the usual GRUB boot screen. I chose the first option (Install). Prior to all this I have prepared a blank FAT partition with Gparted, as SkyOS' DiskManager isn't to be trusted yet. I just used it to convert the FAT partition to SkyFS. After that everything went smoothly as it normally does. The installation took approximately 12 minutes (GRUB installed on the MBR). There's not much to write when it comes to the installation procedure, it's easy and user-friendly as always. After installation I was sent to the SkyOS login screen without rebooting (that took about four seconds after clicking OK at the last installation screen). I clicked on the admin icon, clicked "Log in" and I was almost instantly presented with a fully responsive desktop.

First thing I usually do after installing a new SkyOS version is setting up my graphics card and networking. Click on SystemManager -> Network -> Realtek 8139C -> Enable -> Tick DHCP -> OK. After a few seconds networking was enabled. Mind you, it works flawlessly now, it hasn't died on me once. Moving on to graphics. Click on Display -> ATI Radeon 9600 AR -> 1280x1024 32bpp -> Apply -> OK. Full 2D accelaration operational. That is all when it comes to hardware configuration, because my sound card (Audigy2) has been detected and enabled by default. Easy enough, isn't it.

The general feeling that SkyOS gives after all this is... simply great! A lot of work done under the hood seems to be paying back with a solid, responsive operating system. It scales very nicely, opening up a lot of OpenGL demos and other applications at once doesn't seem to affect stability, however it is currently very resource hungry (600MB RAM usage and up isn't anything strange while using Firefox, Gaim and having a few more apps open). Let us not forget that this is a debug build. It is completely usable and boots blazingly fast (~15 seconds from GRUB to desktop) though.

You can access all the applications via the SkyOS Panel Menu, which is similar to any other dropdown menu, you get a list of options in the main menu: programs, settings, help. You can also spawn the "Run..." dialog, search for files or log out/reboot/shut down. Programs are divided into different categories, which makes it really obvious what a specific application is used for.

Mozilla Firefox is the application I start up first after setting hardware up. The "web experience" is good, however it obviously lacks Flash, Java and an embedded media player. It's suitable for simple browsing for now, but it is worth noting that there are no rendering issues at all.

Mozilla Thunderbird is not actually of any use to me (GMail), but it seems to be working correctly.

Nvu - the web authoring suite - isn't working at all currently, but it might soon be fixed with a service pack.

Gaim, just like all non-native GTK ports (GIMP and AbiWord for example) isn't working very well. Very slow redrawing with many issues, slow general operation, but other than that, it works quite OK. GIMP however, does not. You will know what I mean when you try drawing something. That is why we have another application for this purpose...

...and that is Pixel for SkyOS. Works very well, there's even a SkyOS theme. It is an impressive application, with functionality close to Photoshop. Shame that it is a demo version, however none of the functionality has been removed. If you remember one of my earlier blog entries, then you already know that watermarks are being embedded to the created images. You can buy the full version for $32, which isn't exactly a lot (the cost of SkyOS itself isn't high either - $30).

SkyPad - the only native text editor - supports tabs and syntax highlighting. That's about it. It works fine. There's also the editor in DevStudio, but I can't say anything about it as I'm not a developer.

MediaCenter - a native jukebox application - is serving its purpose very nicely. It supports all formats that ffmpeg supports, including MP3 and WMV. There's a playlist and a wide range of visualisations for sound files.

Now onto killer features. System-wide mouse gestures support. This is something I've been waiting for. It works extremely well and setting your own custom gestures is a breeze. Once you get used to them you simply can't go back.

Next killer feature: real-time file content query search with multiple keyword search support. This is something like Beagle in Linux, but it's tightly integrated into the UI and easily accessible from quite a few places - the Panel Menu, the Storage Viewer and you can even perform a query from every "Open File", "Save File" and "Run..." dialog. It used to be a resource hog in the earlier beta, but it works smoothly now. What are those keywords, you may ask yourself. You can add a keyword to a file of your choice, then you can easily find it using the keyword as query. Simple and effective. All main applications will have their keywords as default (for example Gaim - "instant messenger") to make searching for specific applications easier for those who don't know their names.

Let me present you once again with a short list of changes that SkyOS has undergone during three months of development (beta8.5->beta9):

Hardware:
- Radeon 9550 support
- more Intel EtherExpress Pro100 variants supported
- Improved ES1371 Sound Card driver
- Improved vt82xx Sound Card driver
- Fixed Realtek 8139 NIC driver

Under the Hood:
- Improved TCP/IP stack
- Improved Integrated Streaming System
- Improved ATAPI support
- IndexFeeder enabled by default
- New Font System and Font API
- New Default Font (DejaVu 2.0)
- Kernel Debugger (CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE)
- Improved FAT support
- SkyFS stability improvements

User-noticable changes:
- Mouse Gestures support
- Real-time file content query search with multiple keyword search support
- Icons in application buttons in Panel
- Window icon support
- "About" System Manager plugin
- Shutdown button at logon screen
- Improved Firefox/Thunderbird ports
- Improved SkyPad
- Improved MediaCenter
- Improved DevStudio
- Improved QuakeI/II
- over 200 bug reports marked as fixed

This may seem like not a lot, but in reality the overall difference between beta8.6 and beta9 is like night and day. While we're at version numbers, take note that there will be no more betaX.X versions and the "5.0" badge has been removed. What once was planned to be SkyOS 5.0 beta8.6 is now just SkyOS Beta9. Maybe now *some* people won't discredit SkyOS by making fun of its version number (it's not like MPlayer 1.0pre7try2 has a funny ring to it).

It's hard to say anything that's totally bad about this OS, especially when you realise we're talking about beta software. I'm sure all the issues with GTK will eventually be sorted out or all the GTK apps will be replaced with native equivalents. When it comes to printing I can give you first-hand information (well, come to think of it, all insider information posted here is actually first-hand and most of the time - exclusive). CUPS has been ported months ago, but Robert Szeleney says it is so bloated that he will write a native interface to CUPS drivers.

This wraps it up. SkyOS still has a long way to go, but I'm confident it will eventually get there.

UPDATE: Here are some screenshots: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

UPDATE 2: Robert Szeleney writes: "(...)the RAM usage is not correct. 600MB used RAM means that actually maybe 100MB is used and the rest is used for disc cache. (...) When RAM gets low, disc cache gets flushed and apps can make use of it."

SkyOS beta9 Released

2005-11-27T22:34:00.000+01:00

SkyOS beta9 is available for download for betatesters. With over 200 bugs fixed and Pixel included. You have the detailed changelog on the right and the less informative, but much more to-the-point one below.

SkyOS beta9 Delayed #2

2005-11-23T22:17:00.000+01:00

SkyOS Beta9 will be released *this* weekend (26-27th November).

PS We all learn on our mistakes. I'm not going to present you with any concrete release dates from now on, it's just no use. I will be operating with a lot more vague wording, including the famous "when it's done" :)

Beta8.5 -> Beta9 Changelog

2005-11-18T20:22:00.000+01:00

SkyOS Beta9 is officially feature-freezed, so I'm presenting you the End-User Changelog (not much will change before the release, hopefully in two days). Consider this as an in-a-pill version of the official one (which is very long, detailed and technical) that can also be viewed by clicking the link on the right. So, here it goes, over three months of work:

Hardware:
- Radeon 9550 support
- more Intel EtherExpress Pro100 variants supported
- Improved ES1371 Sound Card driver
- Improved vt82xx Sound Card driver
- Fixed Realtek 8139 NIC driver

Under the Hood:
- Improved TCP/IP stack
- Improved Integrated Streaming System
- Improved ATAPI support
- IndexFeeder enabled by default
- New Font System and Font API
- New Default Font (DejaVu 2.0)
- Kernel Debugger (CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE)
- Improved FAT support
- SkyFS stability improvements

User-noticable changes:
- Mouse Gestures support
- Real-time file content query search with multiple keyword search support
- Icons in application buttons in Panel
- Window icon support
- "About" System Manager plugin
- Shutdown button at logon screen
- Improved Firefox/Thunderbird ports
- Improved SkyPad
- Improved MediaCenter
- Improved DevStudio
- Improved QuakeI/II
- Many, *many* bugs have been fixed

Update: Chances for Beta9 being released this weekend are 60%.

SkyOS Beta9 Delayed

2005-11-13T18:50:00.000+01:00

Unfortunately SkyOS beta9 will not be released today. The Team decided to delay the release to finally get rid of booting issues. This week-long delay will help us pinpoint the exact problems causing the system to fail to boot for some people. I'm currently testing the latest alpha3 build with already two updates applied and I must say that the Realtek8139 problems are pretty much gone. The login screen now has a new feature - a shutdown button (one doesn't need to log in in order to shut down now). There are still some jagged edges that need to be sorted out before the release, though.

Naming Convention Changed

2005-11-11T16:20:00.000+01:00

A new test image is being prepared. This will become SkyOS beta9 if it successfully passes through our thorough alphatesting phase (which might finish on Sunday). Yes, as the version number is getting too complex, the team has decided to change it. From what I understood, there will be no more beta x.x versions, just beta x. Also, the "5.0" version number will be dropped, but that I cannot confirm yet. So the former SkyOS 5.0 beta8.6 will now become SkyOS beta9. Also, stay tuned for an easily-comprehensible beta8.5->beta9 changelog for end-users (most probably on Sunday).

Update: Dropping the "5.0" version number has been confirmed.

Realtek 8139 NIC Driver Fixed

2005-11-09T18:36:00.000+01:00

Just for those who didn't take a look at the recent changelog update. The Realtek 8139 NIC driver has been finally fixed.

(...)
Robert: I was debugging the RTL driver from 10am yesterday till 5pm today without sleeping :)
Robert: and this all for one, OOOOOOONE single bit
(...)

I personally am very grateful that Robert took the time to fix this outstanding issue, after being "poked" by me and other community members (this fix was not on the schedule at all, drivers issue fixing will come when all "hardware-independent" bugs are solved). This really was a show-stopper for many betatesters, including me. Two thumbs up for the coming beta8.6 release.

Alpha3 = Beta8.6 Release

2005-11-08T18:39:00.000+01:00

Alpha3, which has been delayed due to fixing the Realtek and ATAPI issues, will become the next official beta release if the boot problems are solved. This weekend people. It's coming.

Pixel for SkyOS

2005-11-06T17:01:00.000+01:00

The plans have slightly changed, Pixel (a Photoshop-like image manipulation program that alone costs $32) will not be time-limited nor crippled feature-wise, but it will be adding watermarks to images. Pixel will be bundled with the release of beta8.6.

New Test Image Available to Alphatesters.

2005-11-05T17:53:00.000+01:00

This development snapshot has been available since 03/11, it has been released mainly to test the new ATAPI detection routines, which are supposed to fix the infamous "blinking clock hang" issue. So far we've had some success, SkyOS boots on machines that weren't co-operating previously, but there are still some computer configurations that mesmerise the installation procedure and as a result reboot occurs during the setup boot process. More information to come once I have the alpha3 release in my hands.

Alpha3 This Weekend.

2005-10-31T18:18:00.000+01:00

Alpha3 is scheduled for this weekend. It's going to be the last alpha release before beta8.6 final. Binary compatibility has been broken, so don't expect third party applications built on any previous release to work correctly.

Now that we have Pixel ported, there is no more need to keep GIMP, it will be removed.

You can see the alpha2 -> alpha3 changes in the previous entry.

Exclusive Changelog Preview

2005-10-31T17:48:00.000+01:00

Here's the most recent list of changes that is not included in the changelog (yet):

Moved getaddrinfo, freeaddrinfo, gethostbyname, getprotobyname from libnet to libsky
Fixed SDL 3rd moust button and mouse wheel support
Implemented missing libm functions ldexp, frexp and gai_strerror
Heavy changes to SkyGI Mouse subsystem
Implemented SDL hardware cursor support and custom mouse images
Added missing exports to freetype
Added support for user customizable cursors
Wrote new scripts for easier building of firefox, thunderbird and nvu

More to come very soon.

New Screenshots (8.6a2-update#3)

2005-10-27T23:33:00.000+02:00

This is the latest and greatest SkyOS 5.0 beta8.6 alpha2 update #3 (yes, names for these alpha releases are getting ridiculously long, but I want to avoid the recent OSNews confusion). New Credits plugin and a separate Software plugin (System Manager is plugin-based). The first one is a scrolling .hlp file (simplified HTML) with all sorts of information you could find in a true honest-to-God credits list. The "Software" plugin obviously lists all the installed software and links to the Software Store. Enjoy.

PS The last entry has been featured on OSNews! This is quite motivating, to say the least.

SkyOS beta8.6-alpha2 Preview

2005-10-23T19:21:00.000+02:00

Alpha2 has been released today, I've prepared a short overview. I'll concentrate mainly on new features and advancements 8.5 -> 8.6.
(remember that this is a developement snapshot and not the final beta, let alone a final product)

Testbed:

Monitor: Belinea 171050 (@DVI)
Processor: Athlon XP Thoroughbred B0 2000+ @ 2140MHz
Memory: 1GB RAM DDR400 (DualChannel)
Mainboard: Abit NF7-S 2.0 - no sound nor networking supported (used additional Realtek 8139C card)
Graphics: GeCube Radeon 9550 Extreme - 2D fully supported
HDD: Samsung 200GB SATA-II - not supported (used Seagate ST340810A 40GB PATA)
DVDRW: Liteon SOHW-1693S
PSU: Chieftec 420W
Keyboard: Logitech Deluxe Access Keyboard
Mouse: A4Tech OPTO 518

Full installation took 14 minutes. Boot time is approximately 13 seconds from GRUB menu to a working desktop. Impressive. The whole system is very responsive and feels fast. It properly detected both my graphics card and network card. Unfortunately I don't have a supported sound card yet, so I couldn't test the multimedia capabilities. What I find best from the new features department is Mouse Gestures. To my surprise they work extremely well! Also, the new and improved query engine gets my vote - it does what it's supposed to quickly and efficiently, though still needs a bit of polish here and there.

The Realtek driver, responsible for my network card, is known to be problematic and I did get a few problems (fails sending http requests from time to time), but webpages in Firefox load faster than in the previous alpha. This driver definitely needs to be fixed.

The Radeon 9550 Extreme (which in reality is an underclocked 9600XT) gets detected as 9600 AR, no problems there, full 2D acceleration, changing resolutions works without fail.

When it comes to improvements, the MediaCenter has been greatly improved, new look, new features, less bugs.

There isn't really anything new when it comes to features besides Mouse Gestures and bettered MediaCenter when you compare 8.5 to 8.6. This is a true gem for developers though. 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. Keeps getting better and better.

All in all, I find this development snapshot the best SkyOS release so far.

PS I've just received some information from Matt Turner, our main porting guy. He ported glib-1.2.10 and pkg-config on this alpha, both of significant importance.

8.6-alpha2 New Facts.

2005-10-20T21:45:00.000+02:00

(...)
[21:42:38] Robert Szeleney: busy fixing bugs for alpha2
[21:43:04] Tomasz: oh
[21:43:18] Tomasz: I thought you had the build ready
[21:44:22] Robert Szeleney: yes, but there were critical bugs in it. and it's just an alpha, so the build should be as uptodate as possible. I doesn't really make sense releasing an "old" alpha
[21:44:35] Tomasz: yes I thought so too.
(...)

Edit: Matt Turner told me that this entry seems to contradict the previous one. So to clear things up I'd just like to add that alpha2 will be released this weekend, the plan didn't change.

8.6-alpha2 Next Weekend

2005-10-16T22:58:00.000+02:00

8.6-alpha2 has already been built, but will be released to alpha testers next weekend. This release has been slightly delayed due to the recent FreePascal port. Robert will be working on the code during the week as usual though. The official changelog has been updated.

SkyOS beta8.6-alpha2 Nearing Completion.

2005-10-08T20:14:00.000+02:00

SkyOS beta8.6-alpha2 is almost ready and will *probably* be released to alpha testers next weekend.

Most notable changes alpha1 -> alpha2:

Mouse Gestures support
reworked Integrated Streaming System
updated MediaCenter, ffmpeg, added new visualisations, etc.
Application Icons support for panel and windows
some temporary API functions renamed
added missing libm functions and function prototypes
57 bug reports marked as fixed

SkyOS Review and Interview with Robert Szeleney

2005-10-05T14:06:00.000+02:00

The 8th edition of a free German computer magazine Technoids features an interview with SkyOS' Chief Software Architect Robert Szeleney and also contains a review of the latest SkyOS beta version. Both in German, a good read.

SkyOS Personal Organizer and Card Games

2005-10-04T19:51:00.000+02:00

Good news everyone. Chris Marshall, our Lead Software Designer has just updated the SkyOS Personal Organizer to the new API and started working on that application again.

Moreover, he updated the earlier card games and made some more:

Cribbage
Solitaire
Spider Solitaire
FreeCell
Hearts

There you have it, stay tuned for more! :)

ISS, MediaCentre and Scheduling Parameters

2005-09-28T23:20:00.000+02:00

Robert Szeleney writes:

"I'm still working on ISS on which I worked the last two weeks more than 8 hours a day. As soon as this is working and mediacenter has been updated, and reported alpha1 bugs are fixed, alpha2 will be released."

That about explains the recent lack of "spectacular" blog entries. The ISS (Integrated Streaming System) required a lot of work and now there should be no more synchronisation problems. MediaCenter got a draggable progress bar and many other nice improvements (for example building playlists from queries for multimedia files). SkyGI and libsky got minor new functions as requested by developers.

I will not write about the recent fallout of third party applications, as most (if not all) of them got front page coverage on SkyOS.org. Check and see what I mean :)

PS Soon there will be a link on the right to the always up-to-date SkyOS Changelog. Remember to hit F5 while viewing as you might still be getting an old version cached by your browser.

Mouse Gestures and More.

2005-09-15T20:12:00.000+02:00

As you probably already know, SkyOS got mouse gestures support (as a system service, with a configuration plugin), a feature that some of you might find very useful. Whaddya know, positive feedback on OSNews. I find this really great.

Also, SkyOS 8.6-alpha1 has been released to the alpha team, which consists of select (<10) active community members. I will post my experiences soon.

Since the release of alpha1 ~30 bugs have been fixed, no more new exciting changes since then. At least, none that I know about.

Matt Turner has released a cross-compiler. You can find a link to his page on the right.

Translators can now start translating the Developer Studio Help System, as I have brought the initial files to a usable state.

Of course you could have found out about all that from other sources, but not about the fact that Robert started working on updating the Firefox/Thunderbird ports to the latest (probably 1.0.7) versions. He's recently fixed some issues with the current ports, for example we now can bookmark pages. Stay tuned for this weekend's 8.6-alpha1 report.

SkyOS and Mimetypes.

2005-09-07T21:37:00.000+02:00

Yes, we now have native mimetypes query search support on SkyFS volumes and a nice interface for this, which enables us to easily construct queries from within any query-supporting application. Saving and loading user queries is also possible.

The IndexFeeder service, responsible for the Query Engine, is now enabled by default. Right on!

Moreover, I've finalised (rewritten basing on Lukas Linemayr not-so-very-good version) the initial English SkyOS User Guide help system. Available in the CVS as usual.

Screenshots

2005-09-02T18:22:00.000+02:00

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Recent Performance Improvements

2005-09-02T17:30:00.000+02:00

Seriously, great changes in SkyOS today. Dramatically improved sound latency and system response time. Lots of memory usage improvements. The Developer Studio got a new autocomplete feature. Also, the QuakeI/II ports have been finally brought to a usable state.

The best change, however, is the new kernel low-level debugger, finally we won't need to have a null-modem cable to catch debug output while using SkyOS natively. Really looking forward to beta8.6. Did I mention the new Font Subsystem? No? :)

SkyOS Inside Blog

2005-09-01T20:13:00.000+02:00

(If you don't know what is SkyOS, please check the SkyOS Wikipedia page.)

This will be a totally unofficial and informal source of information for all you SkyOS beta testers and wannabe beta testers.

My name is Tomasz Dominikowski and I'm with the SkyOS Core Team. I'm the Quality Assurance and Translation Team Leader. I'm Polish. That's all you need to know at this stage.

So far there are two rules for comments in this blog, if you don't accept them then simply don't read this blog:

1) Those who have a problem with shelling out 30 USD or 25 EUR for this OS (which is the cost of pre-ordering the final version and a beta account with which you get all beta versions as they come out) must not say this in the comments. Why? It makes them look really silly. I mean, how did they afford a computer anyway? SkyOS must be the cheapest commercial OS out there. Beta versions might not be suitable for production work, but the final will. If you don't want to buy it, then don't. And cut the "OSS it!" crap. This mustn't be said as well.

2) Those who are pissed because they cannot accept the fact that SkyOS is being developed so briskly and because of that they say that SkyOS must be using some sort of GPL'd code must not say this in the comments. It's not about not accepting other people's "opinion", it's about denying those people yet another chance for spreading what is widely known as FUD.

Other comments, suggestions, etc are very welcome.

This blog is purely my initiative and is not supported by SkyOS team. They, at this point, don't even know about it.

I'm planning to make this blog a source of information about SkyOS development. I'm not tied to an NDA or anything like that, then again, don't expect me to report every time a non-public SkyOS development snapshot crashes on me :)