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ok ran it and looks better than the others BUT there is no mnt dir 
? I was going to use a console and mount but have no idea how to 
mount a device the os does not see ?does Syllable not have that option 
yet or am I missing some thing :(

There is no /mnt dir as such. But Linux often uses a /media directory 
as well, for the actual mount points, although they could also be 
anywhere else. Like Unix, mountpoints in Syllable can be made anywhere 
you want them. But the mount utility of the desktop (click right 
in the Media folder) just mounts disks in the root /

We do have a special VMWare video driver

re:drag and drop, yes that is what I meant, ie drag from a host partition 
to a "virtual" Syllable dir   guess the easiest way to get graphics/sounds 
to Syllable is via email or a web page.The reason for this is to 
test the graphics/sound apps in Syllable but since it comes with 
no sound/video files is the only way to test

The live CD is now available - that would also be a better environment 
for your testing:

Is there a reason for the syllable group not to be [web-public]?
If it were [web-public], then non-Altme users could read it here:

http://www.rebol.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/rebol/aga-groups-index.r?world=r3wp

And you (or anyone) could refer to a previous post via a persistent 
URL.

At the time when I made this group, I didn't want to impose too much 
on the REBOL community here. Do other people think it's a good idea?

Is there a way to link to a group so that you always go to the latest 
post?

I don't think it's an imposition! It'd be a service.
It's my script

Latest post......

The format of the URL is: .....posts=worldnameNNNxMMM  NNN=group-id, 
MMM=post-id. 
Use MMM=0 to mean latest *page* of posts for that group, eg:

http://www.rebol.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/rebol/aga-display-posts.r?post=r3wp152x0

Or, from the index page, click the date column [far right] for a 
group -- that takes you to the end too.

Thanks  -- it'll be a couple of hours -- some automated jobs will 
spot the title change and schedule an upload.

Thanks! I'll propose a link from our own front page

This thing must really be a time killer... a nice one of course.

Thanks. It sure is. On the other hand, around the time we started, 
five years ago, I and others spent so much time fixing Linux that 
we independently sort of decided that it wouldn't really take more 
time to spend it on developing  our own operating system. It certainly 
leaves us with a lot more to show for all that time

Well, both Linux and Windows, really. The Windows situation is still 
roughly the same. Linux has improved a lot over that time, but only 
to reach about the same levels as Windows

well, it could have been a guru meditation

I might also mention that, a few days ago, I also ran AROS on Syllable 
Server. On Bochs, similar to how I did on Syllable Desktop a few 
weeks ago

Unless I'm a fairy, that is...

I hope this time, once R3 beta is out, they will not hesitate to 
post about it. And I also think, that Syllable helped REBOL on osnews 
a bit. Because if OS designers decided to use such language, it ought 
to be rather good :-)

I suspect Thom's objection was mainly that you wanted him to publish 
it a year before there was any new product :-)

Dunno, we were just contacted by the Python crew about Syllable support 
in P3. It's for real. You can never know that with a closed-source 
company - especially not one from the Amiga scene...

Kaj, can you give me a management summary about the differences Syllable 
Server / Desktop?

I mean, what's the benefit of getting a server based on the linux 
kernel? Than I can use Linux right from the start.

Because they were designed for desktop services. Linux is continuously 
optimized as a server

Also, Linux is stable now, not a few years from now

Of course you can use Linux, but what is Linux? We are providing 
a Linux, and we think it will be a damn fine one

what I would like to see is a server linux that runs vmware out of 
the box

I saw a how to on that somewhere

We're on OSNews again (well, we haven't been off the front page for 
a few weeks), this time with our new Syllable Newsletter:

It's a development release. A lot of work remains to be done in the 
time to come, but I made sure it's usable for several things already

The system is very small, so it's suitable both as a virtualisation 
host and as a virtualisation guest

I'm fairly sure I'm the first person in the world to build a Linux 
without caring much for it :-)

a html version of the readme would be nice :)

Yeah, but that belongs in a somewhat long-term grand plan to design 
our documentation framework

use a wiki

I've actually had a REBOL HTML generator for years, I just need to 
wrap it up and it wasn't worth postponing Server for

reading txt files in a browser is very tricky

It can easily be downloaded into a line-wrapping viewer

That's a problem of a different order: learn Dutch :-)

I'd consider using it as a virtualisation platform, but I guess I'd 
wait till a GUI was wrapped around at least the installation

QEmu has a built-in VNC server, so if you run virtualised systems 
on Server, you should be able to VNC into them; but I haven't tried 
it yet

Ehm, that's a secret plan...

A basic installer is one of the next projects, but it's one of those 
things that I don't know when I will get to

a movie will do :)

But I could do a slideshow when I prepare an emulator image]

Only hard core users will do a console install .. so need to bridge 
to those others

If you're installing on a stand-alone machine, you could get away 
without configuring anything, and with a different partition setup 
you only have to modify the filesystem table, which is standard practice 
for Unix types

and there doesn't appear to be a fix for windows 2000

I think it's just a very finicky imap server .. dovecut .. that I 
picked

How about a vmware image ??

My project leader is working on it, but we're going to release images 
a few days later

Normally we ship those in middleware collections of packages, but 
that's a size consideration

We created a bunch of virtual machine images, so you can try Syllable 
Server easily in an emulator without installing it:

That was a short experiment.   I tried to open up the file in Ubuntu, 
and it said it was an unrecognized file type ( .7z ).

Wouldn't it be simpler to just provide the file in a format that 
most systems understand without having download another piece of 
software just for this purpose .. which then ruins the advantage 
of using an obscure compression system because you save a few bytes?

me .. just a user

Well, you questioned our downloading infrastructure. 7-Zip compression 
is a part of that. Without it, our system packages are about 50% 
bigger. When we get hit by a large publication, that will make a 
serious difference in our costs

With the download being a few MB, you save download costs right with 
our first large package. Especially on dial-up, which is also a large 
part of the world. And of course, the next time you already have 
it installed

You know what the first comment on OSNews was when I released Syllable 
Server, after half a decade of work? I was congratulated on packing 
it with LZMA...

If I see a download that offers various compression schemes, I go 
for the one that is easiest for me.

It's like rar .. not exactly obscure but a pain

Me too.  But I did try the Live CD just now.  Nice.  All the problems 
were minor.  I didn't spend a whole lot of time 'in system' but I'll 
try and takes some notes next time I boot it up.

provide .zip as a torrent to save bandwidth ;)

They are offered as torrents. But it saves only maybe a quarter of 
the costs, because more than half the people download the regular 
files - and that only if the audience is good

People who refuse to do a simple automatic installation of an extra 
package to get at our products are clearly not in our target audience

This is a set of operating systems. It's not a can of coke with an 
open-here sign

I did download as a torrent.  I think Kaj is storing stuff on S3 
which has a torrent feature.

I'm saying that you need to lower the barriers to entry until you 
have a large enough user base that you don't have to care anymore.

Also, we've been offering some 7-zipped downloads for a few years 
now. As I said, when I released server, the first comment was a compliment 
on my using 7-Zip. People here are the only ones to ever complain

the point of having a vmware image is so that noob users can get 
up and running immediately

I disagree, there's really no point in offering a text mode Linux 
to anyone who doesn't want to install one extra package fully automated 
in Ubuntu

I guess it's now a religious discussion.

No, it's a money discussion. You pay for our costs, we'll gladly 
offer other options

How much extra would a zip file cost?  .001 cents ?

But I do think it's incredibly superficial that I release half a 
decade worth of work, and the discussion on OSNews is entirely about 
how well I compressed it, and the discussion here is entirely about 
how bad I compressed it

Also, I have the file being served as a torrent on my PC .. I've 
not seen a single torrent client access it.

I don't have statistics yet, but Server must have been downloaded 
a number of hundred times now. Desktop has had up to ten thousand 
downloads per version, of the installation CD. Plus a similar number 
for the live CDs, plus about half that for the VMware images. Server 
is twice as big, and will have far more downloads when we get the 
graphical environment on it

Coming year will be our breakthrough year. At some point, we will 
be published in a big place, and the downloads will boom. And they're 
directly linked to my credit card, not yours

Giving away each Desktop costs us about a dollarcent now, Server 
is closer to two cents. This will only grow in the future

If you have a livePC as you did before, moka5 will host it for free.

We've gone through a series of hosters, and it's a pain. We're consolidating 
on S3 now

Do you have the BitTorrent ports on your firewall forwarded to that 
appliance? If not, you'll get a much smaller share of downloaders

If download violume is a problem for Syllable, could you find some 
people to mirror?

The second Syllable newsletter has interviews with me about Syllable 
Server and our new website, so you can read a bit about our platform 
strategy and how we use REBOL in it:

The porting API of R3 isn't quite settled yet, and the library would 
have to be compiled for Syllable. Not a big problem.

There is a chance that we could even use the Linux library to begin 
with. Syllable is that compatible

As I understand it the library is a sort of a "VM" and you need to 
write an interpeter for the platform.

Nope. The library is a shared library like a .so or .dll, and later 
statically linked like a .o or .lib.

It is not a VM.

A native Syllable library would be better public relations :)

It will take us another decade to get there, but we are serious about 
producing a system with a significant potential

Linux is mostly failing on the desktop. Syllable Desktop is a system 
based on many of the same open-source components to correct that

What, do you want me to give a definite world domination release 
date? :)

I use linux but I'm always hitting a wall and going back to windows 
for some tasks. Plus it seems too big and bloated.

If you have experienced Amiga, you know why Linux is failing, and 
you should have some idea why Syllable has a much better chance

The people in Syllable have also gone through this process. Eventually 
we each decided that instead of spending all our time getting Linux 
to work, we could also spend it building a complete new system

I gave up on Amiga a few years ago. maybe its back in new form. I'm 
off to try the live cd.

Although Linux is relatively successful on servers (just not as successful 
as its proponents want to believe), we have also introduced Syllable 
Server this year, a Linux built in the same way as Syllable Desktop 
to offer a complete network platform

Contrary to popular opinion I've been a bit careful to hold back 
on promotion, because Syllable is just a guest here

Syllable started out as a plan for an Amiga clone halfway the nineties. 
Not much code had been written yet when it changed into a unique 
OS. After a few rewrites, large parts of it were modeled on BeOS