Zombie OSes – OSes that aren’t dead, but they aren’t the most alive, either

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I’m probably going to piss a few people off with this, but it’s something that’s been rattling around in my head for a while, and I wanted to get it posted somewhere. This might not even make much sense. 😉 Also, please note that I’m not knocking your favorite OS when I classify it as a zombie OS.

So, what is a zombie OS? A zombie OS is an OS that “should have” died, but has been kept alive and at least somewhat up to date by its community. Or, maybe it really did die, but its community has brought it back. (By “should have” died, I don’t mean that the OS deserved to die, just that the situation that it was in meant that it would have died if it weren’t for the community.) Either way, it’s now “undead,” if you will.

Most zombie OSes are now considered hobby OSes – OSes that most people play with for fun, and then reboot into a more mainstream OS (or switch to a more mainstream computer) for daily work. That said, there are often many die-hard users that use such an OS as their primary OS. At one time, most of these OSes were commercially sold, but their developer has abandoned the OS, or has gone out of business. That doesn’t mean that there’s not a new owner commercially selling it to the hobby market – in fact, in many cases, that is the case.

Why use a zombie OS? Quite a few reasons. For starters, nostalgia – you may have used the OS before, you liked it, so why not play around with it nowadays? That happens with a lot of dead OSes, too – OSes that have truly been abandoned, and the community around it exists solely to have fun with stuff they used years ago. Alternately, maybe you’ve always been using it, it fits your needs the best, or it has some features that you really like, so why stop now? Or, maybe you’re interested in using alternatives to the mainstream OSes, and as zombie OSes were usually well supported in their past, there’s usually more support available for them than for OSes that began as hobby OSes.

So, what is there to know about them? Continue reading “Zombie OSes – OSes that aren’t dead, but they aren’t the most alive, either”

HP t5325 thin client, RISC OS, and maybe combining the two. Or just running Linux on it. Either way.

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If you follow this blog, you may remember that I’ve mentioned RISC OS, the OS used on ARM-based computers made by Acorn Computers. The OS has a very loyal following, and as an “outsider,” I found it (and the hardware, for that matter) interesting.

However, as Acorn pulled out of the personal computer market in 1998, the community has had trouble obtaining hardware since. Many users still use circa 1997 RiscPCs with 200 or 233 MHz StrongARM CPUs, which just don’t cut it today. While there were a few clones made after the fall of Acorn, most notably the Iyonix (with a 600 MHz XScale,) and the A9home (with a 400 MHz Samsung ARM9-based system on chip,) these machines are expensive for what they are, and the Iyonix is no longer in production. It’s proven to be difficult to make custom hardware specifically for this market, as the RISC OS community can’t afford custom chips designed for RISC OS machines, so they’re required to use embedded chips that provide suboptimal performance, and the low volume causes extremely high hardware prices to make up for development and tooling costs.

But, ARM is now pushing their architecture into the netbook and nettop spaces, countering Intel’s attempt to move into ARM’s traditional smartphone and embedded spaces. This means that there’s now PC-class ARM hardware. And, the best part is, someone else is paying for the development, and ARM wants the volume to be huge.

Not only that, but Castle Technology, the company that makes the Iyonix, has released their version of RISC OS under a shared source license, to RISC OS Open. This has allowed developers to take advantage of the new ARM platforms. Right now, there’s a port to the Beagle Board, although it’s arguably not well suited towards desktop applications, due to its lack of any form of ATA support, and poor 2D graphics capabilities – the OMAP3530 chip that it’s based on is essentially a cell phone chip. Also, it’s a developer board, so there’s no good case for it. But, there’s an ARM platform that’s low-cost, commercially available, and does offer SATA, good 2D graphics, and a case. Continue reading “HP t5325 thin client, RISC OS, and maybe combining the two. Or just running Linux on it. Either way.”

Oh noes, moar computers, and amateur radio!

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So, let’s start with the computer stuff…

I managed to get an Acorn RiscPC. For those not familiar with the machine, it’s an ARM-based machine running RISC OS (a cooperative multitasking ROM-based GUI OS originally developed by Acorn.) My particular machine has a 233 MHz DEC StrongARM, 96 MiB of EDO RAM, 2 MiB of VRAM, an ethernet card, and a DMA IDE card (faster than the on-board IDE, and more compatible.) I’m currently running it with a 4 GiB CompactFlash card for storage.

It’s amazingly useful, despite the fact that this CPU came out in 1997. Word processing, e-mail, all that. Hell, even web browsing – it’s not great, but it works, with NetSurf. There’s also a Firefox port, but it’s uselessly slow, unfortunately – Firefox bloat plus a twelve year old processor equals dog slow.

Oh, and with a program called Murnong, it’s actually possible to watch YouTube videos. Of course, it takes almost half an hour to convert a 5 minute video to be playable.  😆

But, it’s still a quite interesting platform to use… best bet is to read the Wakefield RISC OS Computer Club’s introduction to RISC OS.

Now, what else is there to talk about… oh, yeah, amateur radio. So, I was at Notacon 6, and they had amateur radio exams. Decided to go for my license, and now have a Technician class license. (Next year, I’ll probably go for General, but I hadn’t studied for it this year.) KD8KXK is on the air.  😀

I think that’s all for now…