These tables compare free software / open-source operating systems. Where not all of the versions support a feature, the first version which supports it is listed.
Name | License | Kernel type | Kernel programming language | Kernel thread support | OS family | Oldest non-EOL version [Note 1] | Forks |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Linux | GPL version 2 only | Monolithic with modules | C | 1:1 | Unix-like | 4.4 | elks |
FreeBSD | BSD; GPL, LGPL software usually included | Monolithic with modules | C | 1:1 | BSD, Unix-like | 11 | DragonFly BSD |
OpenBSD | BSD | Monolithic | C | 1:1 | BSD, Unix-like | 6.4 | MirOS |
NetBSD | BSD | Monolithic with modules | C | 1:1 | BSD, Unix-like | 7.0 | OpenBSD |
DragonFly BSD | BSD | Hybrid | C | 1:1 | BSD, Unix-like | No | |
OpenSolaris, illumos | CDDL | Monolithic with modules | C | 1:1, M:N | Unix | No | |
Darwin, OpenDarwin | APSL | Hybrid | C, C++ [Note 2] | 1:1 | BSD, Unix, Unix-like, OS X | No | |
MINIX | BSD | Microkernel | C | Unix-like | No | ||
RedoxOS | MIT | Microkernel | Rust | Unix-like | No | ||
FreeRTOS | MIT | RTOS | C | RTOS | No | ||
FreeDOS | GPL | Monolithic | C | DOS | 1.1 | ||
Genode | AGPL | Microkernel | C++ | 1:1 | Genode | ||
Haiku | MIT | Hybrid | C, C++ | BeOS | No | TiltOS | |
House | BSD | Haskell | own/original | No | |||
KolibriOS | GPL | Monolithic | ASM | MenuetOS | No | ||
MenuetOS | Menuet 64, commerce excluded | Monolithic | ASM | own/original | No | KolibriOS | |
GNU | GPL | Multiserver Microkernel (Hurd kernel) or Monolithic (Linux-libre kernel, fork of Linux kernel, and other kernels which are not part of the GNU Project) | C | 1:1 | Unix-like | 2.4 on Linux-libre kernel (not on Hurd kernel) | Linux |
ReactOS | GPL, LGPL | Hybrid | C, C++ | Windows-like | No | ||
RISC OS | Apache 2.0 | Monolithic (with co-operative multitaslking) | ARM assembly | ![]() | RISC OS | No | RISC OS 6 |
L4, Fiasco, Pistachio | Some GPL, some BSD | Microkernel | C++ | L4 | No | ||
Plan 9 | MIT | Hybrid | C | 1:1, 1:M Cothread style. | own, Unix informed | No | Inferno, Plan B, 9front |
AROS | APL | Exokernel | C | AmigaOS | No | ||
Syllable | GPL | Monolithic with modules | C, C++ | 1:1 | Unix-like, BeOS, AmigaOS, POSIX | No | |
Inferno | GPL, LGPL; MIT | C | Plan 9 | No | OzInferno | ||
NuttX | BSD | RTOS | C | RTOS | No | ||
eCos | modified GPL, eCos | RTOS | C, C++ | RTOS | No | ||
RTEMS | modified GPL, BSD, Stanford | RTOS | C and ASM with native support for other languages including C++ and Ada | POSIX, RTEID/ORKID, uITRON | RTOS | 4.7.1 | |
HelenOS | BSD | Microkernel | C | M:N | own/original | No | |
E/OS | GPLv2 | Monolithic | ASM, C | 1:1 | BeOS, Unix-like | No | |
TempleOS | public domain | Monolithic | HolyC, C, C++ | Commodore 64-like | No | ||
Name | License | Kernel type | Kernel programming language | Kernel thread support | OS family | Oldest non-EOL version | Forks |
Name | x86, i386, IA-32 | x86 SMP | Xen | IA-64 | x86-64 | PowerPC | PowerPC SMP | SPARC32 | SPARC SMP | Alpha | MIPS | ARM | XScale | M68k | PA-RISC | OpenRISC | others | hosted mode |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Linux | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | FR-V, Cell, ETRAX CRIS, M32R, Xtensa, h8, s390, SuperH | UML, coLinux, MkLinux, Itanium Linux-on-Linux, wombat |
FreeBSD [1] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | PC98 | |
OpenBSD [2] | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | SuperH | |
NetBSD [3] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | SuperH, ns32k, VAX, hppa, M68010, mipseb, mipsel, sh3eb, sh3el, sparc64 | |
DragonFly BSD [4] | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | vkernel | |
OpenSolaris [5] illumos | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | ||
Darwin, OpenDarwin [6] | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | L4/Darwin | |
MINIX [7] | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | ||
FreeDOS | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | ||
Genode | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | RISC-V | Linux |
Haiku | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No [Note 1] [8] | No | No | No | No | ||
KolibriOS | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | ||
MenuetOS | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | ||
GNU | Yes | Yes [Note 2] | Yes [Note 2] | Yes [Note 2] | Yes [Note 2] | Yes [Note 2] | Yes [Note 2] | Yes [Note 2] | Yes [Note 2] | Yes [Note 2] | Yes [Note 2] | Yes [Note 2] | Yes [Note 2] | Yes [Note 2] | Yes [Note 2] | Yes [Note 2] | FR-V, Cell, ETRAX CRIS, M32R, Xtensa, h8, s390, SuperH [Note 2] | UML, Itanium Linux-on-Linux [Note 3] |
ReactOS | Yes | Yes | No [Note 1] | No | Yes | No [Note 1] | No [Note 1] | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | ||
RISC OS | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | ||
L4, Pistachio | Yes | No | No | Yes [Note 4] | Yes [Note 4] | Yes [Note 4] | No | No | No | Yes [Note 4] | Yes [Note 4] | Yes | No | No | No | No | ||
Plan 9 | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes [Note 5] | Yes [Note 5] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes [Note 5] | No | No | See [9] [10] | lguest, vx32 |
AROS | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | i386-linux, i386-freebsd | |
Syllable | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | ||
Inferno | Yes | ? | No | No | ? | Yes | ? | Yes | ? | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes [Note 5] | No | No | AMD Am29000, [Note 5] Texas Instruments OMAP | Microsoft Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, Plan 9, OS X, Solaris, Irix, UnixWare, [Note 5] HP-UX, [Note 5] Internet Explorer |
FreeRTOS | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | AVR, PIC, MSP430, HCS12, 8052, MicroBlaze, Cortex-M3, H8S | |
eCos | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | CalmRISC, ColdFire, FR-V, h8, Matsushita AM3x, Nios II, NEC V8xx, SuperH | Microsoft Windows, Linux |
RTEMS | Yes | No | Xen | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Blackfin, Nios II, Coldfire, Texas Instruments C3x/C4x, SuperH, H8S | Linux, Solaris, Cygwin, FreeBSD, multiple CPU simulators |
HelenOS | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | ||
E/OS | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | ||
TempleOS | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | QEMU, VirtualBox, etc. | |
Name | x86, i386, IA-32 | x86 SMP | Xen | IA-64 | x86-64 | PowerPC | PowerPC SMP | SPARC32 | SPARC SMP | Alpha | MIPS | ARM | XScale | M68k | PA-RISC | OpenRISC | other | hosted mode |
Name | ATA | SATA | SCSI | USB 3.0 | USB 2.0 | USB 1.1 | FireWire | PCMCIA/PC card | AGP | Nvidia official driver IA-32 | Nvidia official driver IA-64 | Nvidia official driver AMD64 | ATI official driver x86 | ATI official driver x86-64 | ATI r200 free software driver | ATI r300 free software driver | Nvidia free software driver | Audio | TV tuner, video editing, or webcam |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Linux | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes 2.6.31+ [11] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes,nv(2d only), nouveau(3d with mesa) | OSS, ALSA | V4L,V4L2 |
FreeBSD | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes 8.2+ | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
OpenBSD | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes 5.7+ | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes [12] | 2d only [12] | 2d only [13] | Yes | Yes |
NetBSD | Yes | Yes | Yes | No 7.1 [14] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | |||
DragonFly BSD | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes [15] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | ||||
OpenSolaris, illumos | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | V4L2 | |||
Darwin, OpenDarwin | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | |||||||||
MINIX | No | No | No | No | No | ||||||||||||||
FreeDOS | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No [16] | No [16] | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | |
Genode | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No |
Haiku | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
KolibriOS | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | |||||
MenuetOS | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | |||||
GNU | Yes | Yes [Note 1] | Yes [Note 1] | Yes [Note 1] | Yes [Note 1] | Yes [Note 1] | Yes [Note 1] | Yes | No [Note 2] | No [Note 2] | No [Note 2] | No [Note 2] | No [Note 2] | No [Note 3] | No [Note 3] | Yes [Note 1] | Yes [Note 1] | Yes [Note 1] | |
ReactOS | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes [17] | Yes [17] | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | |||||
RISC OS | ? | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | TV tuner [18] |
L4, Fiasco, Pistachio | No | No | No | No | No | ||||||||||||||
Plan 9 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | |||||
AROS | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | own | No | 2D only | |||||||||||
Syllable | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | ||||||||
Inferno | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | |||||
FreeRTOS | No | No | No | No | No | ||||||||||||||
eCos | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | ||||||||||
RTEMS | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | ||||||||||||
HelenOS | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | |
E/OS | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | ||||
Name | ATA | SATA | SCSI | USB 3.0 | USB 2.0 | USB 1.1 | FireWire | PCMCIA/PC card | AGP | Nvidia official driver IA-32 | Nvidia official driver IA-64 | Nvidia official driver AMD64 | ATI official driver x86 | ATI official driver x86-64 | ATI r200 free software driver | ATI r300 free software driver | Nvidia free software driver | Audio | TV tuner, video editing, or webcam |
Name | Networking support | NE2000/RTL8029 | RTL8139 | Gigabit Ethernet | 10 Gigabit Ethernet | Wireless LAN | Bluetooth | IrDA |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Linux | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
FreeBSD | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
OpenBSD | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
NetBSD | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
DragonFly BSD | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
OpenSolaris, illumos | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | |
Darwin, OpenDarwin | Yes | |||||||
MINIX | Yes | Yes | ||||||
FreeDOS | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||||
Genode | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
Haiku | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||
KolibriOS | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | |||
MenuetOS | Yes | Yes | No | No | ||||
GNU | Yes | |||||||
ReactOS | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
L4, Fiasco, Pistachio | ||||||||
Plan 9 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
AROS | Yes | Yes | ||||||
Syllable | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||
Inferno | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | |
FreeRTOS | ||||||||
eCos | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||||
RTEMS | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
HelenOS | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
E/OS | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
Name | Networking support | NE2000/RTL8029 | RTL8139 | Gigabit Ethernet | 10 Gigabit Ethernet | Wireless LAN | Bluetooth | IrDA |
Name | Firewall | TCP/IP | IPv6 | IPX | PPP | PPPoE | DHCP | Bridge | TUN/TAP | SSH | OpenVPN |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Linux | netfilter iptables/nftables | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
FreeBSD | IPFW2, IPFilter, PF | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
OpenBSD | PF | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
NetBSD | IPFilter, NPF, PF | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes [Note 1] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
DragonFly BSD | IPFW2, PF | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
OpenSolaris, illumos | IPFilter | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes [Note 2] | Yes | Yes | |
Darwin, OpenDarwin | IPFW | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||||
MINIX | Yes | Yes | |||||||||
FreeDOS | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||||
Genode | software IP routing | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | ||||
Haiku | None | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||||
KolibriOS | None | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | |||||
MenuetOS | None | Yes | No | No | No | ||||||
GNU | netfilter iptables/nftables (with Linux-libre and Linux kernel) [Note 3] | Yes | Yes [Note 4] | Yes [Note 5] | Yes | ||||||
ReactOS | Yes | Yes | |||||||||
L4, Fiasco, Pistachio | |||||||||||
Plan 9 | ipmux | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No |
AROS | Yes | ||||||||||
Syllable | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||||
Inferno | ipmux | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
FreeRTOS | |||||||||||
eCos | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||||
RTEMS | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||
HelenOS | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | |
E/OS | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | |
Name | Firewall | TCP/IP | IPv6 | IPX | PPP | PPPoE | DHCP | bridge | TUN/TAP | ssh | OpenVPN |
Name | FAT16, dosfs; FAT32, vfat | NTFS | Ext2 | Ext3 | XFS | ReiserFS | UFS | UFS2 | HFS | HFS+ | MINIXfs | BFS | ISO 9660 | UDF | NFS | SMBFS | RAM disk, tmpfs | ZFS | Other special file systems |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Linux | Yes | Yes [Note 1] [Note 2] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes [Note 3] | Yes [19] | Yes | Yes [Note 4] | Yes | Yes [Note 3] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | 9P, [Note 5] FUSE, [Note 5] sysfs, [Note 5] configfs, [Note 5] Reiser4, [Note 5] [Note 6] JFS, Btrfs, UnionFS, Ext4 |
FreeBSD | Yes | Yes [Note 3] [Note 2] | Yes | Yes [Note 3] | Yes [Note 1] | Yes [Note 3] | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | FUSE, nullfs, UnionFS |
NetBSD | Yes | Yes [Note 3] [Note 2] | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes [Note 3] | No | No | Yes | Yes [Note 3] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | PUFFS, LFS, EFS | ||
OpenBSD | Yes | Yes [Note 3] | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | AFS | |
DragonFly BSD | Yes | Yes [Note 3] | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes [Note 7] | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | HAMMER, nullfs, PUFFS |
OpenSolaris, illumos | Yes | Yes [Note 2] [Note 8] | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | SMB (native), QFS | |
Darwin, OpenDarwin | Yes | Yes [Note 3] [Note 2] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||||||||
MINIX | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | ||||||||||||||
FreeDOS | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | ||||||||
Genode | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No | Extensible VFS layer |
Haiku | Yes | Yes [Note 2] | Yes [Note 9] | Yes [Note 9] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No [Note 10] | ||||||||||
KolibriOS | Yes | Yes [Note 3] | Yes [Note 3] | Yes [Note 3] | Yes [Note 3] | Yes | Yes | ||||||||||||
MenuetOS | Yes | ||||||||||||||||||
GNU | Yes | Yes | Yes [Note 11] | Yes [Note 12] | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | |||||||||||
ReactOS | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | |||||||||||
L4, Fiasco, Pistachio | Yes | No | |||||||||||||||||
Plan 9 | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Fossil, Venti, most system services | |
AROS | Yes | Yes | SFS, AFFS | ||||||||||||||||
Syllable | Yes | Yes [Note 3] | Yes [Note 3] | Yes [Note 3] | Yes | Yes | Yes | AFS | |||||||||||
Inferno | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | kfs, most system services | |
FreeRTOS | No | ||||||||||||||||||
eCos | Yes | Yes [Note 3] | Yes | MMFS, ROMfs, JFFS2, YAFFS | |||||||||||||||
RTEMS | Yes | Yes | Yes | TarFS, TFTP FS, IMFS, miniIMFS | |||||||||||||||
HelenOS | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | locfs, exFAT | |
E/OS | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes [Note 13] | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
Name | FAT16, dosfs; FAT32, vfat | NTFS | Ext2 | Ext3 | XFS | ReiserFS | UFS | UFS2 | HFS | HFS+ | MINIXfs | BFS | ISO 9660 | UDF | NFS | SMBFS | RAM disk, tmpfs | ZFS | Other special file systems |
Name | RAID | quota | Resource access control | encryption | other special file system features |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Linux | Yes | Yes | Unix, ACL, MAC | Yes | LVM, EVMS |
FreeBSD | Yes | Yes | Unix, ACL, MAC | Yes | GEOM, snapshots, background fsck, user-mountable file systems |
OpenBSD | Yes | Yes | Unix | Yes | |
NetBSD | Yes | Yes | Unix, Veriexec | Yes | Snapshots, Journaling |
DragonFly BSD | Yes | Yes | Unix | Yes | HAMMER, Snapshots, Checksumming, Deduplication |
OpenSolaris, illumos | Yes | Yes | Unix, ACL, MAC | Yes | Solaris Volume Manager, ZFS, snapshots, transparent data repair |
Darwin, OpenDarwin | Yes | Unix, ACL | Yes | ||
MINIX | Unix | ||||
FreeDOS | No | ||||
Genode | No | No | No | No | Per-process virtual file-system layer |
KolibriOS | No | ||||
MenuetOS | No | ||||
GNU | Unix | ||||
ReactOS | No | ||||
L4, Fiasco, Pistachio | |||||
Plan 9 | No | No | Unix-like, no root | No | snapshots, venti archival storage, per-process namespace, user-mountable file systems |
AROS | |||||
Syllable | Unix | 64-bit, journaling, extended file attributes | |||
Inferno | No | No | Unix-like, no root | No | per-process namespace, user-mountable file systems |
FreeRTOS | |||||
eCos | |||||
RTEMS | |||||
HelenOS | No | No | No | No | No |
E/OS | Yes | Yes | Unix | Yes | No |
Name | RAID | quota | Resource access control | encryption | other special file system features |
Operating system | Mandatory access control | Software executable space protection | Operating system-level virtualization | Virtualisation | Userspace protection | Others |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Linux | SELinux, AppArmor [Note 1] | Exec Shield, [Note 1] PaX [Note 1] | Chroot, namespace and cgroups, [Note 2] Linux-VServer, [Note 1] OpenVZ [Note 1] | KVM | IPFilter, Iptables | grsecurity, [Note 1] RSBAC [Note 1] |
FreeBSD | SeBSD, [Note 3] [Note 4] TrustedBSD | ProPolice/SSP [Note 5] | jail | bhyve [20] | IPFW, PF, IPFilter | |
Darwin | SEDarwin, TrustedBSD | jail | IPFW | |||
OpenBSD | W^X, ProPolice/SSP [Note 6] | vmm [21] | PF | |||
OpenSolaris, illumos | TrustedBSD | Solaris Containers | KVM [22] | IPFilter | RBAC [23] | |
Plan 9 | No | No | per-process namespaces | |||
Inferno | No | No | per-process namespaces |
GNU Hurd is a collection of microkernel servers written as part of GNU, for the GNU Mach microkernel. It has been under development since 1990 by the GNU Project of the Free Software Foundation, designed as a replacement for the Unix kernel, and released as free software under the GNU General Public License. When the Linux kernel proved to be a viable solution, development of GNU Hurd slowed, at times alternating between stasis and renewed activity and interest.
MINIX is a Unix-like operating system based on a microkernel architecture. Since version 2.0, it has been Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) compliant.
The ext2 or second extended file system is a file system for the Linux kernel. It was initially designed by French software developer Rémy Card as a replacement for the extended file system (ext). Having been designed according to the same principles as the Berkeley Fast File System from BSD, it was the first commercial-grade filesystem for Linux.
The Open Sound System (OSS) is an interface for making and capturing sound in Unix and Unix-like operating systems. It is based on standard Unix devices system calls. The term also sometimes refers to the software in a Unix kernel that provides the OSS interface; it can be thought of as a device driver for sound controller hardware. The goal of OSS is to allow the writing of sound-based applications that are agnostic of the underlying sound hardware.
The Unix file system (UFS) is a family of file systems supported by many Unix and Unix-like operating systems. It is a distant descendant of the original filesystem used by Version 7 Unix.
A live CD is a complete bootable computer installation including operating system which runs directly from a CD-ROM or similar storage device into a computer's memory, rather than loading from a hard disk drive. A live CD allows users to run an operating system for any purpose without installing it or making any changes to the computer's configuration. Live CDs can run on a computer without secondary storage, such as a hard disk drive, or with a corrupted hard disk drive or file system, allowing data recovery.
This is a list of operating systems specifically focused on security. Operating systems for general-purpose usage may be secure without having a specific focus on security.
These tables provide a comparison of operating systems, of computer devices, as listing general and technical information for a number of widely used and currently available PC or handheld operating systems. The article "Usage share of operating systems" provides a broader, and more general, comparison of operating systems that includes servers, mainframes and supercomputers.
Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE) is a software interface for Unix and Unix-like computer operating systems that lets non-privileged users create their own file systems without editing kernel code. This is achieved by running file system code in user space while the FUSE module provides only a bridge to the actual kernel interfaces.
The USB mass storage device class is a set of computing communications protocols, specifically a USB Device Class, defined by the USB Implementers Forum that makes a USB device accessible to a host computing device and enables file transfers between the host and the USB device. To a host, the USB device acts as an external hard drive; the protocol set interfaces with a number of storage devices.
A kernel is a component of a computer operating system. A comparison of system kernels can provide insight into the design and architectural choices made by the developers of particular operating systems.
Wireless network cards for computers require control software to make them function. This is a list of the status of some open-source drivers for 802.11 wireless network cards.
The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of file systems.
Minix 3 is a small, Unix-like operating system. It is published under a BSD-3-Clause license and is a successor project to the earlier versions, Minix 1 and 2.
Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a virtualization module in the Linux kernel that allows the kernel to function as a hypervisor. It was merged into the mainline Linux kernel in version 2.6.20, which was released on February 5, 2007. KVM requires a processor with hardware virtualization extensions, such as Intel VT or AMD-V. KVM has also been ported to other operating systems such as FreeBSD and illumos in the form of loadable kernel modules.
GNU variants are operating systems based upon the GNU operating system. According to the GNU project and others, these also include most operating systems using the Linux kernel and a few others using BSD-based kernels.
chattr is the command in Linux that allows a user to set certain attributes of a file. lsattr is the command that displays the attributes of a file.
NetBSD is a free and open-source Unix operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). It was the first open-source BSD descendant officially released after 386BSD was forked. It continues to be actively developed and is available for many platforms, including servers, desktops, handheld devices, and embedded systems.