Operating Systems


There are many different options that you can make when choosing the operating system(s) for your computer today. 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 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 lent 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. The downside of X is that it is extremely configurable, is clumsy, and is horrible to program for.

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
Irix - SGI's Unix for SGI Graphics workstations
Unicos - SGI's Unix for SGI Supercomputers (Acquired when SGI acquired Cray)
Solaris - Sun's Unix for SPARC workstations and PCs
Digital Unix - DEC's Unix for DEC Unix servers
AIX - IBM's Unix for it's various workstation and server systems
There are many more....


NeXTStep/Openstep/Rhapsody/Darwin


NeXTStep is given special notice because it is a very innovative and noteworthy Unix with an excellent (non-X) GUI. It also is the foundation for Apple's future operating system for Power Macintosh, currently known as MacOS X. NeXTStep was made by NeXT, a company recently purchased by Apple. NeXTStep ran on HP, Intel, Motorola, as well as at least one other architecture. NeXTStep has its own interface, which has been described by many as the single most beautiful GUI on any operating system. It uses Display Postscript as its imaging model, and is fully object oriented. NeXTStep would best be described as the way Unix should be(imho). The only things that kept NeXTStep out of the hands of most of the populance were it's rather high price and the RAM required to run it. NeXTStep does require a fairly high-end system to run well, a large amount of RAM being the most important aspect. This is the other side of using Display Postscript as an imaging model, because although it offers excellent control of the video device, it is very memory intensive. NeXTStep is distantly related to a few other OS's, including OS/2, as it is based off of the Mach kernel.

BeOS


BeOS is a new OS for PowerPC and Intel systems. It is vaguely modeled after Unix in architecture, and has a fairly attractive interface. The BeOS was not designed with backward compatability in mind, instead focusing on system performance (esp in multimedia). The BeOS derives several benefits from being one of the few OS's designed in the last few years. Specifically, it is designed very much with SMP and multithreading in mind, and as such performs very well.

Windows Family:

Windows 98

Windows 98 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 98 and Windows 3.1 are a lot of new APIs and interfaces that replace a lot of add-ons available for Windows..

Windows NT

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.

OS/2


OS/2 is a fully 32-bit, preemptively multitasking OS that runs on the Intel 80x86. OS/2, further back in its development, had Windows NT split off from it. OS/2 places great emphasis on user customization and emulation, making it achieve a very high level of DOS and Windows (3.1) compatability. OS/2 has a component that may be installed on fast machines that allow the user to dictate (i.e. talk and have it type for you) to it, and has integrated Java support. OS/2 is highly extendable, and comes with many OS/2 applications bundled with it. If OS/2 is lacking anywhere, it is in its lack of tolerance for hardware that isn't quite behaving correctly. Current versions of OS/2 are lightly based on the Mach microkernel.

VMS

VMS is a 64-bit high-performance OS designed by DEC for running cpu-intensive tasks. It is multiuser, and is one of the few OS's that can compete with Unix in power and capability. It's future is now uncertain now that Compaq has bought DEC