One interesting thing about the software world, I find, is that there is a trickle-up system for innovation. Things like live searches, better task bars, and the much-debated widget/gadget/dashboard idea often have had their seeds in smaller OSes or pieces of software. Designers will find a way to work something in their program that others may be able to adapt to something bigger, and thus the snowball begins to grow.
Some of the OSes (perhaps more accurately called Desktop Environments, says a commenter at the link below) on this interesting list may be familiar to you, some not, but doubtless all are interesting and relatively unique in their strengths. I’m far from an expert in this field (in fact, it would be a stretch to call me a dabbler), but I think I have the appreciation for usability and good design that comes from a lifetime of using computers and technology of all kinds.
This list at Royal Pingdom is an interesting one, but I think it focuses on actual alternatives to Windows and OS X — as in, things that do what they do, but in a slightly different way. The word you see repeated often is “lightweight,” and indeed, placed next to either XP, Vista, or OS X, nearly any operating system is lightweight. The idea behind many alternative OSes is trimming the fat, or more accurately never accumulating fat in the first place, unlike the industry leaders. If you don’t game or work with high-requirement media like video, RAW photos, or 3D models, there are many ways to satisfy your needs without spending a dime or installing more than you need. I had hopes that Windows 7 might have this virtue (per rumors that it was to be a very modular OS) but those hopes have been squashed.
Minix
Menuet
Menuet and MINIX3 provide extreme examples of this, attempting to trim all the way down to the bone. Menuet will fit on a 1.44MB floppy, and while MINIX isn’t nearly so frugal in its distro size, its kernel is extremely compact and reliable and the system is spec’ed to run all the way down to 386s and super-limited embedded systems. Apple is cutting down on bloat with Snow Leopard, but how amazing would it be if OS X were fundamentally small — to say nothing of Vista.
SkyOS
Syllable
ReactOS
Ubuntu
Setups for really basic computing like Syllable and SkyOS are probably Davids to Ubuntu’s Goliath at this point, but if the basic organization of *nix systems isn’t agreeable to you (or your Mom), maybe an Amiga-based or from-scratch OS is another way to go. And if you like Windows but don’t want to give your cash to Microsoft? Try out ReactOS and donate a few bucks for a bunch of guys trying to do everything Windows does right and (I assume) none of the things it does wrong.
Plan 9
But these changes might not be drastic enough for you. A commenter at the list points out (perhaps rightly) that the “OSes” mentioned are really just replacement desktop environments, that change nothing about the way the system really works. I would counter that that’s because the system they use does work, but it’s worth keeping an eye on some of the more drastically different OSes currently in use. Plan 9, for example, has a fundamentally different approach (if I understand it correctly, and I doubt I do) in not having a separation between applications and files. Files interact with one another through shared commands and there is no “application” layer to deal only with one type of file or another. I’m not sure I’m getting it right, and if it sounds strange, that’s because it is. It’s a totally different way of computing and it should seem strange. but so many of the things we use today without thinking about them were pure fantasy a few years ago.
It’s an exciting, ever-changing world, this one of niche OSes and freaky desktop replacements. Maybe in one of them will we find the features we all yearn to be integrated with our more traditional desktops: centralized application distribution, low-level file interoperability, a UI designed from the ground up to be customizable, and so on. If something like Ubuntu can throw sand in the face of both Apple and Microsoft, who’s to say who the next little guy will be who grows up and takes on the industry?
a lot of OS!
I have a hard time believing that someone will buy a close-sourced OS that is not 100% compatible with open-source software, that is not OSX or Windows.
This is the premise behind SkyOS and it seems to me that they will need to strike a VERY big deal with a manufacturer to include their OS with the hardware, otherwise I would say they are f***ed.
So you also think, by a very simple extension, that nobody will ever buy a PDA or a cellphone, then? Nor an MP3 player, a GPS unit, or any other item of consumer electronics with an embedded microprocessor in it?
I don’t think SkyOS will succeed either, but the reasons are to do with what it is and does, not to do with whether it’s closed or not. That is irrelevant to 99.999% of the world.
I guess my point was that most people only uses OSX or Windows because they come pre-installed in the computers they buy or get from their companies. The remaining % of people use Linux or and open-source OS because they are somewhat technology savvy and they can install it in their machines, tweak them and get a whole bunch of software from the open-source community.
SkyOS does not fall into any of this categories, because it’s not compatible with proprietary software and I doubt that it will get much support from the open-source community.
So as an end-user buying SkyOS would be pretty much pointless.
The white knight on F3 can just take the black pawn. Not a wise move. Just saying…
…QA5+ loses white knight…just saying…8-)
frist spot to the domain name!
I find it hard to believe that you can replace Windows / Linux. There is a lot more that goes into an OS. I can take the argument of usability but that’s not all. With this world of unparalleled interaction, there are things like security, reliability and support that run supreme.
In the meantime, I like the post in the way you cover some of these lesser known OSes but the title(on techcrunch) is kind of misleading to me.
Then you’re either very young or very naïve, or both.
The world of 2 main OSs - Windows versus Unix, where Mac OS X and Linux and everything else from Solaris to QNX are all flavours of Unix - is a modern phenomenon, unique to the last decade or so. In the 1980s and 1990s there were dozens of successful, commercial, closed-source OSs for all sorts of roles. What’s been lost is innovation; what we have today is a virtual monoculture.
Aside, that is, from the few mentioned here, and the ones they didn’t, from RISC OS 6 through Haiku to AmigaOS 4.1.
Thanks for the perspective. I understand what you say. Having said that, my main contention was that for any of the above OSes to be main stream a lot more is needed. Having a title that suggests otherwise is probably not in the best interest of anyone.
The title of this article is very misleading. There is no mention of any “innovations” that these alternative OS’s provide. It’s simply a list. Yawn.
You don’t know much about them, you can’t be bothered to find out and you want it all spoon-fed to you from a plate, then?
Go stick their names into Google. Read a bit. Learn.
If the article detailed how and why they were different, then [1] most people - probably including you - would not understand it and [2] it would be very long and very techie and most people - probably including you - wouldn’t bother to read it.
Go do some work, rather than just whinging.
gOS is a good example of people buying a PC with a free OS.
You can run many Windows apps on Linux with Wine (Microsoft Office 2003 and 2007, MS Messenger 7.5, Photoshop CS, Dreamweaver CS3, Flash 8, Lightroom 1.4 plus a plethora of other).
I think I agree with Dvorak (and i think i have said this somewhere else already) that if Adobe decided to make available their apps for Linux (or bundled with a distro that had the elements to run it already) it would be a game changer…
I can’t seem to find the comment claiming these are Desktop Environments rather than Operating Systems. But they are OS’s. A Desktop Environment is something like GNOME or KDE for linux. They run on top of the OS.
“…in not having a separation between applications and files.”
Didn’t the Apple Lisa do this from the user’s perspective? There was stationary and documents, and when you wanted to create a new document you tore off a new piece of stationary. IIRC, documents could be saved as stationary (what we consider to be templates today).
OpenDoc was another system where the lines blurred between documents and “parts” of documents, each of which could be anything from a chart to a spreadsheet to a photo to text to… whatever.
The more things change…
Lisa did away with applications, largely.
The OS that removed the distinction between apps and files was Unix. In Unix, everything is a file, contained within a single unified filesystem.
However, Unix was designed for single, stand-alone multi-user computers. Networking was bolted on later.
Plan 9 is what succeeded Unix. It is Unix-like but it removes the distinction between different machines on a network; anything on any machine is accessible to anyone on any machine (subject to authentication, obviously). A program running on someone else’s CPU can display on your screen, you can read and write Bob’s files from down the hall and Bob can run a program on Alice’s fast computer, working on files from Charlie’s machine in Sri Lanka and display them on Dave’s screen in Canada, with the sound processed on Evgeny’s box in Ukraine.
I’ll have to try some of these. It is very refreshing to see that there are more alternatives out there other than Windows/Mac/Linux. Some of them sound really useful.
Boring list…
“…if Adobe decided to make available their apps for Linux (or bundled with a distro that had the elements to run it already) it would be a game changer…”
Yes, I’ve been waiting for Dreamweaver for Linux and Photoshop for Linux for years - I mean native Linux versions that don’t require Wine. That would be really great!
Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Flash for Linux …. good idea.
Is there any article/post like “….10+ alternatives to Macromedia/Adobe that may provide next year’s innovations…”
Oh my! I didn’t even heard about anyone of them!
@Rahul Das: “It is very refreshing to see that there are more alternatives out there other than Windows/Mac/Linux” - i thought Ubuntu is a flavor of Linux :)
Hi, great post topic. There is much going on in this alternate OS / cloud computing space. We are seeing the majors committing big money to this and Google’s offering moving at enterprise level - but that isn’t an alternate OS. It is an alternative way of doing things (which is part of the point of your post).
At gopc.net we are using a number of the toolsets mentioned above - and the proposition is a hosted desktop accessible anywhere. You can call it an alternative OS, or cloud computing or thin client. But really it is about alternative ways of working…
Looking forward to more on this topic….
I really dislike the way SkyOS has been presented in this article. After watching the embedded video I thought SkyOS provides only media-based features. According to SkyOS website, this is just a new feature called “cossbar”.
Unfortunately, it is not the OS or Office ware that we can be comfortable with, but what our clients use in their offices. When they send us XLS or docx, we are forced to use MS Office, other alternate office ware are not quite upto the mark. For example, our asp code works fine with MS XLS, but fails with any other spreadsheet software.
Are you aware of cross-platform Office-compatible apps like Abiword and Gnumeric?
As the saying goes, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem…
Cool Os’
osnews.com is really good for news about alternate os’es.
Also I thin beos/haiku deserves a mention. Apple offered 400 million usd for it. It could have been the next mac os.
I don’t find innovations in your article. May be the author must go back to a modern operating system class.
Define “innovation”.
This was a good, quick sampling of some of the best modern FOSS OSs for the x86 PC, with a fair smattering of variety.
Yes, there are more original OSs out there, but most are so primitive and so rudimenary that there is nothing to show screenshots of, and readers would need a decent understanding of computer science and OS design to even grasp what was different about an 80*25 text screen showing a few lines of bootup messages.
Do not criticise unless you can suggest something better or some way to fix the fault you wish to attack.
It’s time for google to launch an OS
No !..A big NO
11. PCBSD
12. FreeBSD
13. OpenBSD
No, for several reasons.
[1] PC-BSD is a flavour of FreeBSD.
[2] FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD are so alike, one needs to be an expert to understand the differences.
[3] For non-experts, they are all just Linux but less friendly and with fewer drivers and fewer apps.
And to experts who see the bigger picture, *all* the even marginally-successful rivals to Windows today are Unix: Linux, Mac OS X, *BSD, Solaris/AIX/HPUX etc., they are all Unix.
This list contained a bunch of things people will never have heard of which are not even slightly related to Unix. Sure, Minix is, and Plan 9 is distantly, but even they are less like traditional Unix than Linux is.
Umm.. no. FreeBSD is Unix compliant. Linux is Unix-Like.
That’s like saying OS X is like Windows but prettier!?!
FreeBSD is an awsome OS, it just doesn’t have a GUI.. deal with it?! ;-)
Ok, ok.. it can have a GUI, but if you are using GNOME or KDE, you might as-well be using Linux..!
The way I think of it, they all have their place..
1. OS X for the end-users, mobiles developers (Android or iPhone), design teams etc..
2. FreeBSD (and such-like) servers for large scale solutions (or for web sites with high throughput)
3. Windows - in the toilet
I’m really, truly searching for anything remotely cool or exciting about any of the OSs mentioned in this article. I can’t find anything. They’re all ugly as sin, none appear to offer anything at all above what I already have in Mac OSX, and probably Windows as well.
I spent about 3 months working heavily with Inferno about 2 years ago. Inferno is closely related to Plan 9 and maintained by the same company. You’ve got the basic idea behind the system, everything is a file, but it’s not really that novel. All it really does is complete what the developers started with Unix.
What I really found interesting about the OS was how easy it was to distribute tasks. With all the hype with cloud computing at the moment I’m surprised you didn’t focus on this. In Inferno, and I assume in Plan 9, it’s trivial to call up resources on a different computer
That’s interesting. Although it is I feel a fundamental difference in the way the filesystem works, I think it would be nice to integrate somehow… more interoperability, more transparency.
Just in case you want more info: http://www.vitanuova.com/products.html
Its good for people to know that there are other OS’s out there as this may be inspire people to try them, this in turn inspires new ideas which is what makes the software industry so interesting.
http://www.whaturunning.com/The-Best-Operating-System-Software.htm
Of these, I’m only at all familiar with Ubuntu, and that fairly recently. I switched to it as Linspire started imploding about a year ago. I’m very much in favor of the ideal of an open-source OS, and am perfectly happy to put a few dollars into supporting such. However, I’ve never found them able to match Windows for ease of operation (note: I still use XP. Vista scares me to death) or (even more importantly) availability of useful and well-written programs.
Netware is the most innovative lightweight OS ever created. It makes *nix, OSX, and windows all look like the identical bloated virtual memory using managed process space juggling memory mapped messes that they truely are. Plus, netware ushered in the era of pervasive networking which exists today. Unbeatable.
I’m sorry I missed it! You guys should include links!
i think 2 important operating systems that could also impact operating system market are :
1)haiku(former beos)
2)pc bsd
it can be argued it is very unlikely for them to be as sucessful as linux but if, minix is on the list i feel these are also worth a mention
but there is no way any OS can change things as long as hardware vendors are not considering open source operating systems.
remember 90% of computer users use windows and just 1% linux ,not because it not easy but why would someone try a new OS when he already has got one on his PC. only OS that could create a change in coming years is linux (thankfully ubuntu is working on usability now )
Many were omitted, mainly for reasons of space.
QNX is also interesting and different, as is Hurd, especially L4 Hurd.
VisOpSys is worthy of mention, too.
Singularity shows some interesting new directions.
GoboLinux might have been a better Linux, as it is far and away the most “different” Linux out there, completely discarding the traditional Unix directory layout, which even Mac OS X keeps (but hides).
None of these OS’s are innovative in nature! It’s a highly misleading to rate an OS as innovative simply due to the integration of a fancy GUI! It is an existing technology to visually view applets etc. All they did is add cosmetics to the GUI. There is no mention about any innovative breakthroughs regarding the kernel, security, etc.
Furthermore, if they think they have a chance in striking a deal with any manufacturer, let alone a large one, then, I hate to be the reality check, they are day dreaming big time!
Perhaps a credit for graphics design, more of an art form than software innovation!
From your loyal reader, Frank DiDonato :)
What sort of innovation are you looking for?
Of the OSs listed, several started from a blank slate and contain unique, ground-up kernels and userlands that are more or less totally unlike anything else. This includes SkyOS, Syllable and Menuet.
Others of which the same could be said are Haiku, RISC OS (on ARM) and MorphOS (on PowerPC). AROS is a new PC OS, but is an open-source re-implementation of AmigaOS, as ReactOS is an open-source reimplementation of Windows.
If you want exciting new kernels or security systems, then you have to look to things like Singularity (MS Research) or Coyotos/KeyOS/EROS, which are academic research OSs. The thing is, they are tiny and incomplete, have no GUId and nothing to show screengrabs of. This makes them very dull to most readers.
I don’t think your objection is a fair one.
Ubuntu is based on Debian Linux, so it is Linux. I was very surprised to Minix on the list, didn’t know it was still around. The only decent mention on the list(other than Ubuntu) was ReactOS, I believe it has real potential to be a free alternative to those who can’t afford Windows.
It’s getting more and more distant from Debian with every release. Complete replacements for init are not trivial changes.
I think if the list was going to include Linux, something really different like Gobo would have been a better one. Makes for a dull screenshot, though.
I can’t see ReactOS ever being significant. As a Windows clone, [1] MS could kill it easily and [2] it can never really exceed Windows’ capabilities. I suspect you are showing your bias here. Haiku has a lot more of to offer than ReactOS, I reckon.
An interesting piece and a good list there. A little more detail would have been good, as several commenters observe, but enjoyable nonetheless.
I think you’d have been better off giving some family tree type groupings - Minix, Plan 9 and Linux all belong together as Unix spinoffs, and Gobo would have been a better Linux, because it’s weirder, but it doesn’t *look* special.
As others have said, Haiku deserved a mention, and therefore probably Zeta as well.
And if you go beyond x86, there’s MorphOS and AmigaOS 4.1 and RISC OS.
But to echo and amplify what some grumbled about innovation, apart from the nutters trying to build a GUI OS in assembler, these are all monolithic multitaskers built in C or C++ taking inspiration from existing products.
For my money, there was some really interesting stuff back in the 1970s, in the form of Lisp machines, for instance, and in the 1980s, in the form of Taos, that never even gets remembered today. Things that throw out assumptions about writing in C and compiling for a particular processor, stuff that is just taken for granted now.
Why should we compile? Why should we target a native CPU? Why should there be “binaries” that are tied to one system? Why should we have static code that cannot change or be changed? Why are there build processes? Are C-family programming languages actually an outdated legacy technology that is tying us down?
These are the areas where /real/ innovation could come from, I think…
Thank you for your thoughtful comments (they were stuck in “moderation” for a while”)
I would have liked to get further into it, but I had to decide between being more thorough and getting the freakin article up before I went home! Also, I’m not familiar with a lot of these so I would be out of my depth. I was going to include Haiku… and I believe Syllable is Amiga-based? And I listed Plan 9 separately because it is pretty different, UI and otherwise.
I fully agree with you that major changes aren’t really going to be found in just people tweaking the usual formula - but I don’t know enough about the history you mentioned to include what might be scraped from those options. But you raise good points about the nature of static code… I think the “why” ends up being pretty much that it’s “good enough.”
Anyway, thanks for your insightful comments.
In the it world lot O/S come with different version. At lat it will be not compatible with so many apps .But this concept not bad if computer use will like mobile user then it will be useful .so many O/S Company will come lot of concept but at last some many things will not be compatible with so many application.
For PDA use it will be useful..
Man, some of them need UI designers :)
Plan 9 seems to be interesting Operating System :p