Review of Other Operating Systems


This page is under constant construction.
Please help me enrich it, by sending annotations to existing pointers, new pointers, and the usual feedback.

Please tell me about any other interesting pointer you know, that may relate somehow (anyhow) to the Tunes project...


OS Projects

  • Tunes, the very project hosting this page, encompasses an OS project, mind you, even if it goes far beyond a mere conventional operating system.
  • Jecel's Merlin project of a SELF-based OS.
  • Sony CSL's Apertos, the Reflective OO OS
  • Grasshopper, the orthogonally persistent distributed OS from Australia
  • Andy Valencia's VSTa fine free open-developped microkernel-based OS, its mailing list archive and its distribution (also a french mirror here).
  • Mach is a free microkernel upon which many unix clones are built.
  • Linus Torvalds' Linux free POSIX.1 compliant Unix clone for 32 bit intel PCs, and more: Sparc, ALPHA, M68K, MIPS (PowerPC ?) ports are on the way...
    Also check out the linux.org or sunsite. Manual pages here.
  • LITES is a 4.4BSD Lites based Mach server providing binary compatibility with 4.4BSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, 386BSD, UX, and Linux.
  • Papers about Andy Tanenbaum's Amoeba distributed OS, and related Orca programming language
  • Flexmach, a project for objects above Mach in C++ (yuck) and the related OMOS model and implementation over plain unix.
  • Apple's Newton Operating System and NewtonScript language
  • SPIN OS from University of Washington
  • Sun's Spring OS (also here)
  • NachOS is an instructional OS developped at Berkeley by Tom Anderson, Wayne Christofer, Stephen Procter and others.
  • AT&T's Plan9 OS, or what Unix should have been.
  • The PUMA project from New Mexico.


    OS Related Pointers

  • The comp.os.research newsgroup, its FAQ, and its archive
  • Indexes about OSes and related subjects:

  • Here are pointers to threads packages:
  • Here are some research laboratories interested in operating systems (send me more addresses):
  • Other OS-related pages

    And remember, the "OS" side is only one side of the medal. Also look at the


    To Do on this page

  • Actually review these OSes, not merely pointing to them. Gasp.
  • Talk about the open development model, as used in Linux.
  • Add pointers and reviews to other, interesting commercial systems, like GEOS, TAOS, Chorus (and its, FAQ) QNX, Sprite
  • Review major brand X OSes, like MS-DOS, MacOS, Windows (3.x, NT, '95), UNIX clones, OS/2, etc.


    Back to the Review subproject.


    Page Maintainer:
    Faré -- rideau@clipper.ens.fr