Whenever you mention the phrase Open Source, most people think of Linux. Such is it’s popularity that even people not familiar with open source software have still heard of this mystical, geeky “software” called Linux. And all though my hats are off for the level of popularity that a college project has achieved, I think there is far more to Open Source than Linux, or as a certain Mr.RMS would like to remind us, GNU Linux.
Without further ado, let us familiarize ourselves with some of the more popular open-source non-Linux Distributions or Operation Systems :
OpenSolaris : OpenSolaris is Sun’s attempt at opening it’s traditionally closed but highly successful Solaris OS ( Sun Solaris is covered in Part 2 of this post on closed source POSIX Operating Systems). It is licensed under Sun’s CDDL. It is available as a LiveCD , a USB Distro as well as installable DVD variant for the Sparc as well as x86 family of processors. Built on the GNOME desktop environment, it also comes with other cool open source software from Sun’s foundries like the venerable ZFS file system for Data Centres.
FreeBSD : FreeBSD , like many other flavours of BSD is a fork of University of California, Berkley’s Unix operating system. It has ports on a number of popular platforms like Ultra Sparc, PowerPC, ARM, etc. FreeBSD is touted as been the “unknown giant among operating systems”, since it is used as a production OS by a surprisingly large number of companies including Apple, Yahoo, Cisco, Juniper and NetApp. It is also a favourite among embedded system developers for it’s security, robustness & compatibility features and is used in some residential gateways, set-top-boxes , etc. FreeBSD’s adorable mascot Beastie is one of the most popular logos in the open source world.
Popular Open Source Non-Linux Based Operating Systems
PCBSD : PC BSD is actually derived from FreeBSD. However, PC-BSD was designed for the layman. It comes with a KDE desktop environment complete with the 3D desktop effects and acceleration. Apart from all the features of FreeBSD like stability, virus-free environment, etc., PC-BSD has an astonishingly large number of applications ported or written exclusively for it.
NetBSD : NetBSD, some say runs on everything except a toaster. And then someone went and made it run on one. It is the most widely ported OS in the world. It is another fork of the venerable Berkely Unix, BSD. Again, a favourite among embedded systems developer for reasons mentioned above, it embraces the BSD license making it a financially more viable OS to to adopt.
OpenBSD : Rumor has it that Theo de Raadt, the venerable NetBSD developer forked this Distribution from NetBSD because of personality clashes. However, some like to believe that the reason was more technical since Theod de Raadt wanted to focus on security, open source nature, documentation, code quality, etc. As a result OpenBSD is called the most secured OS in the world, since it implements certain security features which others tend to ignore. In fact, OpenBSD’s logo is a Blowfish, the name of the popular security cipher.
Apart from the ones mentioned above there are more BSDs like DesktopBSD, DragonFlyBSD and a few other commercial, propreitary BSDs, but I think we have covered enough for one post.
GNU/Hurd : Hurd was actually the kernel being developed for the GNU operating system before Linux. It “sits” on top of the “Mach” micro-kernel which is used by Apple’s MAC OS X. Since GNU embraced the monolithic Linux kernel, the Hurd project has been sidelined and although it would interesting for a geek to study it, no known high profile commercial deployments are known… or advised.
React OS : ReactOS is NOT a POSIX operating system, but it is such an interesting project, that an exception was in order. ReactOS is based on the Windows design and aims at being completely compatible with WinXP, Win2003, i.e, all the applications and drivers developed for the Windows family would run without ANY changes on ReactOS. The ReactOS kernel, like the rest of the OS , is written from scratch and is COMPLETELY FREE. This feat has been possible only by painstakingly reverse engineering the Windows architecture. I think a few screenshots would say much more than words what this team has been successful in achieving.
This is a Linux world, and it is not advisable for any startup to embrace any of the above OSes. However, it must be remembered that some of the biggest names in the IT industry use some of the above OSes as highly robust and secure servers. Others are projects of huge potentials and could be tomorrow’s Linux.
What’s your opinion on these OSes?
Look forward to the next part of this series (we will cover commercial and proprietary Distributions based on POSIX).
Pingback: Glyn Moody (glynmoody) 's status on Tuesday, 18-Aug-09 11:41:27 UTC - Identi.ca
No, it’s not a Linux world !
A unix-clone like Linux can only fantasize about (or attempt to clone) the innovative tecnologies present in a UNIX system like (Open)Solaris. T
My C/C++ development experience has involved DOS/Linux/MS Windows/OpenSolaris from early 1990′s and the best development platform for me has been OpenSolaris.
I have migrated people from MS Windows to Linux then finally to OpenSolaris and there is no way I would suggest a startup to go the Linux way as a first choice. My advice would be to checkout OpenSolaris first, then the BSD’s and then a Linux distro.
what EXACTLY are the advantages you had when you used OpenSolaris ?
Please elaborate..
ZFS and DTrace.
DTrace is AMAZING. There is nothing like it in Linux as yet.
What is dtrace, and what advantages do the ZFS bring?
I’m thinking about switching from frugalware, and I want to develop, but last time I had trouble with a few hardware issues. My network had problems and my sound card didn’t work (solved the sound one now though, had to select analog audio output over digital) Do you think it would be worth the effort to switch? Also, how difficult is it to install from source? I know that in linux it’s really hard (I’ve tried – it gets messy) and in FreeBSD it’s super easy!
Also, should I go with 64-bit or is it super buggy and unsupported like in linux?
Advantages include:
[1] SunStudio tool chain (including DTrace integration with SunStudio).
[2] Mature boot enviroment (BE) based patching/upgrading of system (basically ZFS + rollback support).
[3] Mature multi-processing (e.g. SMP/big-iron) support.
–> e.g. Solaris (SPARC version) was 64-CPU big-iron scalable back in 1996 and the x86/SPARC versions of (Open)Solaris code are essentially the same apart from the CPU abstraction.
The multi-processing potential is relevant since the trend for newer systems has been to increase the number of CPU cores since hitting the CPU GHz barrier on Intel/AMD CPUS.
[4] The same operating system (i.e. (Open)Solaris) that has first-class-support across all of Sun’s hardware line (desktop/workstations –> low/mid/high-end servers –> storage servers –> enterprise servers).
This reinforces the notion of (Open)Solaris’ stability/maturity.
For an OpenSolaris developer the added advantage is that code is instantly portable across all this well supported hardware.
If scalablity of x86 system is not good enough then I would direct my clients towards SPARC systems.
For an OpenSolaris administrator the added advantage is that the same administration tasks are instantly applicable across all this well supported hardware.
Contrast this with the “1001″ Linux distros out in the wild.
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To digress abit …
The same could not be said for Linux on IBM hardware or Linux on HP hardware since these companies still maintain their closed-source UNIX systems (AIX and HP-UX respectively). I have no issue with a company maintaining their own closed-source solutions (I have my own closed-source solutions that I rely on) but I do object to these companies frowning on the open-sourcing of Solaris because of their “open-source Linux is the way” propaganda while hypocritically still pushing their closed-source operating system to clients implying that “Linux is not meant for you”. At least Sun’s stands behind (Open)Solaris implying that it is good for “everywhere-use”.
Remember, Sun open-sourced it’s flagship operating system while
IBM/HP-UX have not. IBM/HP have done a “feel good” embrace of Linux so that people think less (or not at all) about the open-sourcing of AIX/HP-UX.
Remember, Sun open-sourced their commercial Solaris.
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[5]
Access to a commercially proven system.
Sun designed it’s hardware/software based on a real-world commercial needs which happens to suit the needs of the desktop/workstation user/coder as myself.
For Linux, Linus Torvalds remains the ultimate authority on what new code is incorporated into the standard Linux kernel. What criteria does Linus use to affect the evolution of Linux ?
The fact of the matter is that Sun has good kernel/system engineers and had to create a powerful operating system to handle real-world constraints backed by real-world warranties. Their experience coupled with the OpenSolaris community developers has promoted a focussed path for the evolution of the OpenSolaris code base while maintaining a good level of volatility (creativity) for this evolutionary path.
Pingback: Raseel Bhagat (raseel) 's status on Tuesday, 18-Aug-09 12:16:45 UTC - Identi.ca
OpenBSD is cool …
Minix
Plan9
Haiku
FreeDOS
I nearly got excited thinking you were going to write about something exciting, not different variants of BSD…
Minix, Plan9, FreeDos …
these are rarely used in production systems ..
most common ones are ( OpenSolaris , FreeBSD and OpenBSD )
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Re: FreeBSD’s logo: The “beastie” (daemon) is the mascot of BSD, not FreeBSD. As such, the daemon is the mascot of all BSDs, and FreeBSD attributed this by switching to a separate logo some time ago.
Agreed. But since the other BSDs mentioned above had their distinct logos, while FreeBSD homepage displays Beastie, I forgot that originally Beastie represented just BSD.
Thanks for pointing it out.
Thanks for the info on ReactOS.
My pleasure. It’s a damn interesting project. The fact that they have managed to replicate Windows too such an eerie detail and that too by developing it from scratch is awesome.
While waiting for this webpage I was wondering if I would read of any I did not know about & whether I would know of some not mentioned. So I was surprised when the article only addressed POSIX compliant OSs & ReactOS. I would have thought AROS, Haiku & Syllable were fairly often installed or run from a disk image even if most “owners” wouldn’t run them often.
zzz’s response to fudgemonkey narrows the definition of what this article was listing.
Apparently Plan9 is used for A FEW, VERY BIG installations that handle a lot of online users. Most Open Source OSs are amateur projects & presumably would be not be a good bet for a startup business.
Rather than risking an argument with what you chose to write about or what you call the article I’ll just put some links for readers wanting to read about lots of OSs. (And depending on the definition of OS there’s plenty of self-hosted software environments I haven’t spotted with a quick scan of the first one).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_operating_systems
http://www.osnews.com/resources
because the tile says …
>> Most Popular Open Source Non-Linux Based Operating Systems [List]
stress is on ‘Popular’
so plan 9 and others do not even come near
no. of { OpenSolaris , FreeBSD , OpenBSD } production systems
OpenSolaris and FreeBSD are mainstream OSes. But may not be very easy to setup a production environment. But to tryout, SUN has oneclick lamp, ROR stacks for OpenSolaris.