Free Operating Systems
A Roundup by David Chisnall
The Free Software community is well known for its diversity. This is most obvious at the application level, but even exists in the context of operating systems. David Chisnall takes a break from UNIX-derivatives and explores some of the more esoteric options.
Whenever people thinks of a free operating system (if they do), the odds are that they will think of Linux, a clone of UNIX from 1991. They also might think of one or more of the BSDs, UNIX-derivatives dating back to the early ’80s. Let’s face it, though—UNIX is pretty boring. It was great for a PDP-11, and it gets the job done now, but it’s not exactly exciting.
Fortunately, the Free Software community has some much more interesting projects which, even if they might not be as useful, are much more fun.
Read: A Roundup of Free Operating Systems
Free online article is provided courtesy of Prentice Hall
This article is excerpted from the book:
Modern Operating Systems, 2nd Edition
