Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Niche Operating Systems

Posted by michael on from the help-i-have-too-many-programs-that-run-on-my-OS dept.

Eugenia writes: "So, you think that BeOS or AtheOS are niche Operating Systems? Well, you haven't seen anything yet. OSNews provides a list and short description of the most active and most promising Operating Systems written by individuals or small teams just for the fun of it or because they have a dream of how the perfect OS should be (is there such a thing though?). Some of them, like SkyOS for example, are even quite far down the line in terms of usability and advancements."

1 of 405 comments (clear)

  1. Different types of niche operating systems by adadun · · Score: 5, Insightful
    In my (somewhat limited) experience with niche operating systems for PCs, they can roughly be divided into two categories:
    • "Toy" systems that are written by a few hackers "just because they can". Those are typically written in (x86) assembler and even eary versions can produce a nice looking GUI. (Note that "toy" systems can very rigid and functional, despite their name.)
    • "Research" systems that are written by researchers to prove a point. The rarely have a GUI (unless the research involve real-time graphics as for Nemesis).
    Both kinds are extremely hard to install, only run on a very carefully selected set of hardware, and don't really gain much appreciation other than from a very small group of followers. Followers from both groups often look down on eachother.

    Lately, the operating systems research has come to a slowdown, but the operating system hackers (that produce the "toy" systems) are gaining more and more momentum. The latter can most likely be contributed to the success of Linux. Can the former be explained by that operating systems now is a fully explored area?