Every system listed below is open source and not powered by Linux. Each has an ISO or installer you can boot today, and many of the picks can even run Linux applications.
Think of it as a list of operating systems that are friends with Tux but not friendly enough to call him inside for a cup of tea.
This list is not ranked.
Vinix
If you own an Apple Silicon MacBook and want a system that is neither macOS nor a Linux distribution, Vinix is aimed at you. Only the original M1 is supported today, and Alexander Medvednikov, the author of V, maintains the project.
The kernel is monolithic and written mostly in V, while part of it is C and assembly. Because memory is managed by hand, no garbage collector can interrupt a system call, and the security model borrows certain concepts from OpenBSD.
On ARM64, it runs Alpine Linux binaries natively, and pkg installs packages from Alpine’s aarch64 repositories. ISOs for both x86-64 and ARM64 are available for virtual machine use.
A good pick if you enjoy poking at experimental kernels.
Asterina NixOS
Trying Asterinas NixOS means setting up a NixOS system and finding a Rust kernel where Linux should be. Asterinas is that kernel, and because it implements Linux’s system call interface, apps for the Linux platform run on it.
The distribution is configured through Nix like regular NixOS, and unsafe Rust is allowed only inside a small framework called OSTD, while the rest of the kernel, along with its drivers, is safe Rust.
x86_64 is the fully supported platform, and ARM64 and RISC-V sit one tier below it. The project says the distro is not ready for production use and aims the installer ISO on GitHub at early adopters and enthusiasts.
A good pick if you follow the implementation of Rust in operating systems.
Redox OS
Where Asterinas swaps Rust in under NixOS, Redox OS builds the whole system from scratch in Rust. It’s a Unix-like OS with a microkernel design, and Jeremy Soller of System76 created and maintains it.
You get the Orbital desktop, a pkg package manager, and several apps from System76’s COSMIC desktop. Linux and BSD software has gotten much easier to port too, and the project has recently been focusing on making Redox boot reliably on real hardware, not just in a virtual machine.
A good pick if you want to see how far a pure Rust operating system has come
FreeBSD
FreeBSD is a complete operating system derived from BSD, the Unix version developed at the University of California, Berkeley. A large community maintains it, and its license lets companies keep their own changes private.
ZFS, jails, and a hypervisor sit at the center of what it offers. OpenZFS is built into the base system, and boot environments let you roll back a bad update by snapshotting the system first.
Its recent release, FreeBSD 15.1, came out earlier this year, and the OS runs on hardware platforms like AMD64, AArch64, Armv7, PowerPC, and RISC-V.
A good pick if you run servers, storage, or networking gear.
GhostBSD
GhostBSD is FreeBSD with the desktop work already done. The project pairs a FreeBSD base with the MATE desktop and offers a set of applications that make users feel familiar with using it.
The name started as shorthand for GNOME hosted by FreeBSD. MATE, the desktop it ships today, is a continuation of GNOME 2, and the old name still fits.
Updates arrive on a slow-rolling schedule, and the project says it values a stable cycle over chasing the newest software the way some Linux distros do. The current release, 26.1-R15.0p2, came out in April on a FreeBSD 15.0 base.
Also good to know is that Linux binary compatibility comes preconfigured, and an installer built on OpenZFS keeps setup approachable for newcomers.
A good pick if you want FreeBSD as an everyday desktop.
Haiku
Haiku is an open source operating system inspired by BeOS that is aimed at personal computing. The same team writes the kernel and the desktop applications, with the project crediting that approach for the system’s consistent interface.
Under that interface sits a kernel built for responsiveness, a system that is multithreaded throughout, and a BFS file system whose indexed metadata lets Tracker, the file manager, run database-style queries across a drive.
Software installs are handled via packages that mount into the system, and earlier states are kept for rolling back botched updates.
A good pick if you are looking for a uniform desktop experience.
ReactOS
ReactOS comes with a warning label attached because the OS is still considered alpha-level software, and the download page promises nothing about stability, the safety of your files, or whether it would work on your hardware.
Behind the warning is a full operating system with a Windows-style desktop that the project says was written from scratch, while most of its user-mode code is based on Wine, the ubiquitous compatibility layer.
By default, it installs only onto a FAT16 or FAT32 partition, and Btrfs support is experimental.
A good pick if you want to see how far an open source Windows reimplementation can go.
FreeDOS
If you have old DOS games, legacy business software, or a BIOS flashing tool that won’t run anywhere else, FreeDOS is the one to grab. It’s a complete MS-DOS compatible operating system, started by Jim Hall in 1994 and still maintained today.
It runs on everything from an original 8086 to a modern PC, though newer machines need legacy BIOS mode or UEFI with legacy boot turned on. The requirements are tiny too: 640 KB of RAM and about 20 MB of disk space for a basic install.
You get a Live CD, a USB installer for real hardware, a Legacy CD, and even a floppy edition. I’d start with the Live CD in a virtual machine, which is also what the project recommends for most people.
A good pick if you want to run DOS games and legacy software on real hardware.
KolibriOS
KolibriOS is an operating system small enough to fit on a floppy disk. Which sounds weird because no modern computer comes with floppy disk anymore. Even CD drive are rare these days.
But then, the KolibriOS is not meant for modern computers anyway. You need just an i586 processor, 12 MB of RAM, and a few megabytes of disk space. It doesn’t follow POSIX either, so don’t expect to port your Unix tools over.
The kernel and drivers are written entirely in FASM assembly, which is why it boots to a GUI in seconds and opens apps almost instantly.
Despite its tiny size, you get a text editor, an image viewer, a graphics editor, a web browser, and over 30 games. It fully supports FAT12/16/32 and can read NTFS, exFAT, and ext2/3/4 partitions.
The project is still very active, so worth considering it in your retro tool kit.
A good pick if you are into retro computing or if you want to keep the 90s computer alive.
A suggestion
Try these operating systems in a virtual machine before switching. I say that because it’s a good habit to test out such non-standard pieces of kit before committing to them on your hardware.
First see what works for you. Then see if your workflow and usage habits align with what the OS offers. Once you settle on one, keep it updated so you never miss critical patches.
Air-gapped setups are better protected from such risks, of course.
Picotron runs on lua
TempleOS not mentioned, garbage list
templeos is public domain, which is incompatible with open source
templeos is public domain, which is incompatible with open source
Where did you come up with that conclusion?
@[email protected] @[email protected] is that actually true? I’m more so to the side of Free/Libre Software because I disagree with the Open Source Initiative on many things, but from my knowledge public domain software (if provided with the 4 freedoms) should be considered both Free/Libre as well as Open Source?
Public domain just means you waive your copyrights. Unlicense is a license that helps you get your piece of software into public domain and is OSI approved. I prefer public domain over permissive licenses because it is easier to release a gpl version of them over permissive licenses (public domain does not have any restrictions). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-domain_software
public domain generally means you can’t relicense or copyright works using it. the osi doesn’t like that. the gpl is also not open source for the same reason.
@[email protected] can you expand on that? GNU (A/L)GPL version 3 is OSI approved
the entire reason the osi got started was because they (mainly esr) felt the gpl was too restrictive.
@[email protected] (sorry, might be paragraph incoming)It is still OSI approved, and it is not true that the gpl was too restrictive despite what ESR might say
let me explain, what most people mean when they say the gpl is restrictive is specifically that it “forces” forks to respect the 4 freedoms
One fallacy here is that most people who object the GPL use words like “force” to describe its’ copyleft and viral effects (not speaking for lesser-GPLs here) even though those are distribution terms, not EULAs for personal usage, so it actually upholds freedom more than it restricts it, this way the average user of whatever fork is also a user of Free Software
That distribution guideline is not an EULA or “force” it is simply an obligation, much like how attribution is treated as an obligation, both terms when put side by side are legally identical treated as obligations as far as I know.
Some developers who favor non-copyleft licenses may say it is more “free” because it lets anyone mix in proprietary software into the project, but if an entity mixes nonfree code with free code what exactly are they exercising? is it power or freedom? (its Power), we’ve seen forks of popular operating systems be used in proprietary environments, think of things like PlayStation operating system! it was made through non-copyleft free software, and today, the average of user of PlayStation is using a nonfree operating system now, same could be said for Darwin Operating System, the OS that the Intel Management Engine runs, etc…
so of course, the GPL felt restrictive to them because it triggers discomfort for businesses to question their ethics, so why not make a marketing initiative instead and strip the ethics out of Free Software to attract businesses? (which is what happened)
preaching to the choir. useful for newbies though
@[email protected] https://opensource.org/blog/public-domain-is-not-open-source#%3A%5C%7E%3Atext=elsewhere.-%2CPublic%2Crespected
This is no different than what I said, additionally, if you dont have the permission or are not the copyright holder for the license, you can not relicense it either way, regardless of if it’s public domain, 0BSD, ISC, etc
you can if it’s mit, cc0, or unlicense.
@[email protected] you can add additional patches with a different license and that is not the same as relicensing the original work, it is a common mistake to mix the two, and that is not what the MIT license permits, the copy of the MIT license must stay there for attribution
yeah mit requires attribution, fair.
also oh god V is still around?
Yeah, actively maintained, albeit slowly. A couple of releases a year?
It’s a nice ecosystem. It can be a little frustrating to þrow little tools togeþer as I frequently can’t find a library for whatever file format I’m wanting to work wiþ.
Why would you þink it disappeared? Did Medvenikov do someþing naughty?
A cult? It’s a legitimate programming language wiþ insane compile speeds, a decent stdlib, a quite similar syntax to Go, and some nice changes from Go which address a lot of issues people have wiþ Go which are still outstanding (e.g. error handling).
You may want to revisit it, or maybe reconsider using opinions from 7 years ago. 7 years is a long time in þe PL world. Þe last article is only 2 years old, and is more interesting. I need to spend more time and read þrough it in more detail. I know V has a history of claiming stuff it hadn’t yet implemented, but it certainly works, and it’s a shockingly fast compiler. Binaries it produces are a small fraction of þe size of Go binaries, Go being þe language it’s probably most compared to. None of þat requires admittance to a cult to evaluate.
I don’t use it myself because it isn’t mature enough in areas I most use. I found a compiler bug which was acknowleged and fixed, and I’m just writing þe occasional little CLI tool and not trying to stress þe compiler. So, yeah, I wouldn’t use it in production. But hell, þat’s never been a litmus for “useful programming language” before.
I can’t speak for þe community. At least it isn’t spending money on attacking minority groups, which is more þan you can say for a number of popular projects in þe FOSS community; by comparison, exaggeration is a minor grievance and “cult” an excessive insult to lob at it.
kolibrios has blobs in it :(
