Operating Systems

Operating Systems


Hello, and welcome to my Main OS area. There are many options you have when choosing the operating system(s) for your computer. I hope that this page will give you some insight into how each operating system behaves and is constructed. Click on any mini screenshot to see a larger version. Click on any OS's title to go to the homepage of its vendor. I also have OS pages focusing on dead and special-purpose OS's.This list isn't anywhere close to complete. But that's to be expected -- There are hundreds of dead OS's out there. I'll eventually list more..

Unix

Unix is a family of operating systems made by several different vendors. All members of the Unix family share certain traits, and porting software between the different Unixes is usually fairly simple. The Unix family is subdivided into 2 major families, each representing a different development path. The BSD family has its origin in the academic roots of Unix, having descended from source that AT&T made available to Universities during Unix's formative years. The SysV family is the other main branch of Unix, descended from the Unix that remained under AT&T's control for a longer period of time. The X Window system is the GUI that is on most Unix systems today. X has the benefit of being extremely configurable, and can look and act like almost anything, due to the magic of window managers. Additionally, it has network transparency, allowing programs running on one system to have their interface running elsewhere, connected by a network pipe. The downside of X is that it is extremely configurable (i.e. lacks a standard look to train for), can be clumsy, and has a complex API.

Linux - A freely-distributed Unix for PCs, SPARCs, Alphas, and many other platforms
FreeBSD - Another freely-distributed Unix, for PCs
NetBSD - Another freely-distributed Unix, for a wide range of systems
OpenBSD - Another freely-distributed Unix, for a wide range of systems. Focuses on security
Irix - SGI's Unix for SGI Graphics workstations
Unicos - Cray's Unix for their supercomputers (Now maintained by SGI due to their acquisition of Cray)
Solaris - Sun's Unix for SPARC workstations and PCs
Tru64 Unix - Compaq's Unix for Alpha and Merced systems (formerly Digital Unix, but Compaq acquired DEC)
AIX - IBM's Unix for it's various workstation and server systems
There are many more....


NeXTStep/Openstep/MacOS X/Darwin


NeXTStep/MacOSX is given special notice because it is a very innovative and noteworthy Unix with an excellent (non-X) GUI. Originally an attempt to bring Unix to the masses by a company called NeXT, NeXTStep was well known as being one of the most beautiful and easy to use operating systems. Unfortunately, because NeXT sold it's computers for above $6000 apiece, the OS never caught on. NeXT was then bought by Apple in order to replace the aging MacOS, and with a facelift, was renamed MacOS X. NeXTStep (and MacOS X) are BSD-family Unixes with the Mach microkernel. Darwin is a recent Apple project to make available parts of MacOS X as open source. As such, it is a stripped down version of OS X without the GUI. As NeXTStep ran on multiple architectures shortly before its demise, OS X currently runs on Intel and PowerPC hardware.

Windows Family:

Windows 95/98/ME

Windows 95/98/ME is a preemptively multitasking operating system, based on the prior combinations of DOS and Windows. It is partially 32-bit, and partially 16-bit, and shuts off preemptive multitasking mode when running programs designed for Windows 3.1. It has a new interface that is somewhat better than Windows 3.1, but is still quite ugly (IMHO). Separating Windows 95/98/ME and Windows 3.1 are a lot of new APIs and interfaces that replace a lot of add-ons available for Windows..

Windows NT/2000

Windows NT is a fully 32-bit, preemptively multitasking OS that runs on Intel 80x86 and Alpha-based systems. Previously, it ran on several different architectures, including MIPS and PowerPC, but these versions of NT are no longer being developed. Windows NT was designed with stability in mind, with little concern for performance. It unfortunately has a very weak command-line, scales poorly, is not multiuser (same-time multiuser), performs poorly, and is not easy to customize.

VMS

VMS is a 64-bit high-performance OS designed by DEC for running cpu-intensive tasks. Born on the VAX architecture, VMS has migrated to the faster Alpha architecture. For many years, it was the only competitor to Unix in the server market, and many of its developers were lured from DEC by Microsoft to work on Windows NT. Like Unix, it uses the X Window System, is multiuser, and is highly configurable.

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