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Try 10 OSes You've Never Heard Of
PC Plus ^ | 22 January 2010 | Mike Saunders

Posted on 01/22/2010 8:39:10 AM PST by ShadowAce

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To: tgusa

Never, ever will I have another Windows product! I don’t care if they hand out gold bullion with it.


41 posted on 01/22/2010 10:57:31 AM PST by momincombatboots (Ambition: climbing over others to make it; Passion: arriving while everyone enjoyed the climb)
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To: momincombatboots

-shrugs- Your choice, it’s a free country (at least for now). I object more to MS’s predatory policies. But that’s just me.


42 posted on 01/22/2010 11:04:21 AM PST by tgusa (Gun control: deep breath, sight alignment, squeeze the trigger ....)
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To: ShadowAce

The two that impress me are KolibriOS, because I miss the amazingly tight and fast old-time programs written in assembly, and Minix because of its extremely robust pure microkernel architecture.


43 posted on 01/22/2010 11:32:58 AM PST by antiRepublicrat
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To: ShadowAce
Lets see. I've heard of:

BeOS/Haiku
AmigaOS/AROS
Plan 9
FreeDOS
Minix

I too am intrigued by KolibriOS. Assembler coded; man that must scream on a modern processor. But I have no machines with working floppies. Will it boot off a 5 in 1 card reader (SD)? Or USB thumb drive?

44 posted on 01/22/2010 11:56:43 AM PST by AFreeBird
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To: DemforBush; LearnsFromMistakes

“TI-99/4A

Now THAT was a real computer.”

In 1985 a friend and I wrote a fully functioning football statistics system in BASIC for the TI-99. We used it to provide real-time statistics for the radio broadcast of the local high school football games. Adapted it the next year to do basketball as well.

Those were the grand old days of personal computing. I would kill to have a copy of that code today.


45 posted on 01/22/2010 12:15:28 PM PST by NerdDad (Aug 7, 1981, I married my soul mate, CDBEAR. 28 years and I'm still teenager-crazy in love with her.)
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To: AFreeBird

Not sure, but I think so. I once installed it into a 256MB VM and it ran very well.


46 posted on 01/22/2010 12:15:55 PM PST by ShadowAce (Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
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To: thulldud
I put some of my old floppies to good use:

Image and video hosting by TinyPic

47 posted on 01/22/2010 12:19:10 PM PST by shorty_harris
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To: shorty_harris

Hey, good one!


48 posted on 01/22/2010 1:38:29 PM PST by thulldud (It HAS happened here!)
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To: xenob
You can't be serious, or haven't looked at a modern Linux/BDS distro...

Oh i have. Ubuntu is the only one I have seen I deem pretty enough for the normal ID10T user to use

49 posted on 01/22/2010 1:48:28 PM PST by smith288 (Peace at all costs gives you tyranny free of charge)
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To: streetpreacher
What are these? OSes for losers?

Because in your view what defines a "winner" or "loser" is the OS they choose to use on their computer?

Not successful happy healthy children, material wealth, job success and/or satisfaction, one's relationship with God or even how articulate you can be on a political board? No, with you its... the OS one runs on their computer.

How interesting it must be to be around you.

50 posted on 01/22/2010 2:54:46 PM PST by MichiganMan (Oprah: Commercial Beef Agriculture=Bad, Commercial Chicken Agriculture=Good...Wait, WTF???)
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To: momincombatboots

You should check out Mint. It’s the “full” version of Ubuntu Linux. My son installed it himself on one of our netbooks. It’s fully functional, unlike Ubuntu itself.

Another great OS is PCLinuxOS. I love it. Most likely one of these two will do all you need for a computer.


51 posted on 01/22/2010 3:16:10 PM PST by Big Giant Head (Running my computer bare naked for over a year with no infections at all.)
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To: ShadowAce
I've heard of 6 of the 10.

They left out FreeVMS, which of the alternative Open Source OSes I've heard of, I'd be mostly likely to give a try if I were really, really bored.

KolibriOS just sounds insane. Writing an OS in assembly language for a class project is rather fun (mine was in HP1000 assembly), but has rather limited application. Kind of like something that is fun to say you did, but know you will never do again.

When it comes down to it, I'm a Unix guy, heart, body and soul. I've run Unix at home for over a quarter century. It has aged extraordinarily well. I'm not looking for a replacement.

Microsoft Windows(tm) is eventually going to wither on the vine. Closed systems are like so mid 20th century. I would expect that there will not be another major system done beyond Unix (=Linux/BSD/Darwin) and something Windows (=Microsoft/ReactOS). The cleaner design of Unix means it will continue to age well. The clear separation of layers means you can pretty much do anything you want to with it. I recommend the Vista haters take a hard look at ReactOS. That is your future.

(I'm rooting for the ReactOS guys to beat Microsoft. Once that happens, the idiots who program computer games will have no choice but to make their games run on Open Source systems. Of course, profitable game companies like Blizzard already understand that).

52 posted on 01/22/2010 3:21:38 PM PST by altair (I hope he fails)
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To: momincombatboots
I will never ever buy another Windows product after Vista and I am looking for something different.

If you really, really like the Microsoft Windows interface, then take a look at ReactOS.

53 posted on 01/22/2010 3:23:15 PM PST by altair (I hope he fails)
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To: All

bump for later...


54 posted on 01/22/2010 3:28:15 PM PST by Kakaze (Exterminate Islamofacism and apologize for nothing.....except not doing it sooner!)
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To: antiRepublicrat
Minix because of its extremely robust pure microkernel architecture.

Microkernels lost, just like non-stack based architectures lost, just like RISC lost. Get over it.

55 posted on 01/22/2010 3:29:45 PM PST by altair (I hope he fails)
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To: AFreeBird
I too am intrigued by KolibriOS. Assembler coded; man that must scream on a modern processor.

The skills of compiler writers have exceeded those of assembly language programmers for over half a century. Assembly language programming is even harder to hand optimize on modern processors.

56 posted on 01/22/2010 3:32:32 PM PST by altair (I hope he fails)
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To: altair
Microkernels lost

They lost because of performance. That is being addressed, and modern computers have quite a bit of performance to be able to handle them.

BTW, RISC didn't really lose. The modern Intel Core chip is essentially a RISC underneath with an x86 decoder up front.

57 posted on 01/22/2010 3:36:51 PM PST by antiRepublicrat
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To: smith288

My everyday machine is this XP unit. However, I just upgraded my Linux computer to Linux Mint. I would highly recommend Linux Mint to anybody, new or experienced Linux users. The interface is extremely “Windows-like” and very easy to use.


58 posted on 01/22/2010 3:42:23 PM PST by 2111USMC
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To: antiRepublicrat
>Microkernels lost

They lost because of performance. That is being addressed, and modern computers have quite a bit of performance to be able to handle them.

Face up to the facts. Andy was wrong, Linus was right.

Or, to paraphrase Mr. Spock, Microkernels are like a beautiful rose that smells ... bad.

I think OO is a fad that will eventually go away for similar reasons. It's silly to throw away performance for non-human readable code - you pretty much need an IDE for OO programming. FP FTW!

59 posted on 01/22/2010 3:53:05 PM PST by altair (I hope he fails)
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To: altair

I also like ReactOS a little more work and it will be a good OS. I am running a tri boot right now Fedora 12, Suse 64 and Suse Edu, I think I am going to go with the Suse Edu everything anyone could need is already on the dvd and it works on my computer. Try them all it’s free


60 posted on 01/22/2010 4:18:46 PM PST by Lees Swrd ("Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe and preserve order in the world as well")
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