Catalog of Novel Operating Systems

83 points20 comments8 hours ago
alphazard

Notably missing from this list are seL4 and Helios which is based on it.

https://ares-os.org/docs/helios/

The cost of not having proper sandboxing is hard to overstate. Think of all the effort that has gone into linux containers, or VMs just to run another Linux kernel, all because sandboxing was an afterthought.

Then there's the stagnation in filesystems and networking, which can be at least partially attributed to the development frictions associated with a monolithic kernel. Organizational politics is interfering with including a filesystem in the Linux kernel right now.

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MomsAVoxell

I had the privilege to work as a junior operator in the 80’s, and got exposed to some strange systems .. Tandem and Wang and so on .. and I always wondered if those weird Wang Imaging System things were out there, in an emulator somewhere, to play with, as it seemed like a very functional system for archive digitalization.

As a retro-computing enthusiast/zealot, for me personally it is often quite rewarding to revisit the ‘high concept execution environments’ of different computing era. I have a nice, moderately sized retro computing collection, 40 machines or so, and I recently got my SGI systems re-installed and set up for playing. Revisiting Irix after decades away from it is a real blast.

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maxlin

This list should include SerenityOS IMHO.

It might not be super unique but is a truly from-scratch "common" operating system built in public, which for me at least puts it at the position of a reference of an OS of whose code one person can fully understand if they'd want to understand the codebase of a whole complete-looking OS.

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Lerc

Are there any operating systems designed from the ground up to support and fully utilize many processor systems?

I'm thinking systems designed based on the assumption that there are tens, hundreds or even thousands of processors, and design assumptions are made at every level to leverage that availability

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RetroTechie

Why the "novel" qualifier?

There exist many OSes (and UI designs) based on non-mainstream concepts. Many abandoned, forgotten, @ design time suitable hardware didn't exist, no software to take advantage of it, etc etc.

A 'simple' retry at achieving such alternate vision could be very successful today due to changed environment, audience, or available hardware.

xattt

I can’t help but notice that each of these stubs represent a not-insignificant portion of effort put in by one or more humans.

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serhack_

I would love to see some examples outside of the WIMP-based UI

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diego_moita

As a kernel programmer I find it so lame that when people say "Operating Systems" what they're thinking is just the superficial layer: GUI interfaces, Desktop Managers and UX in general. As if the only things that could have OS were desktop computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones.

What about more specialized devices? e-readers, wifi-routers, smartwatches (hey, hello open sourced PebbleOS), all sorts of RTOS based things, etc? Isn't anything interesting happening there?

rubitxxx3

This list could be longer! I expected much more, given that CS students and hobbyists are doing this sort of thing often. Maybe the format is too verbose?