Comparison of open-source operating systems

Last updated February 28, 2024

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.

General information

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

↑ No for single line development model.
↑ For I/O Kit.

Supported architectures

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

1 2 3 4 work in progress
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 with Linux-libre kernel and others, but not on Hurd kernel
↑ with Linux-libre and Linux kernel
1 2 3 4 5 Pistachio supports AMD64; Fiasco only in the CVS version.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Support is outdated or unmaintained.

Supported hardware

General

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	Yes 8.0+^[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

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 is not supported on Hurd kernel for now
1 2 3 4 5 Proprietary Software is not officially supported on GNU system
1 2 Proprietary Firmware blob is not officially supported on GNU system

Networking

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

Network technologies

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

↑ NetBSD has a kernel-only PPPoE driver.
↑ OpenSolaris has support for a TUN driver with TAP support
↑ firewall is not supported on Hurd kernel for now
↑ ipv6 is not supported on Hurd kernel for now
↑ dhcp is partially supported on Hurd kernel for now

Supported file systems

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

1 2 Experimental.
1 2 3 4 5 6 Read/Write support via NTFS-3G.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Read only kernel driver.
↑ read/write access without journaling; HFS+ with journal either be opened read-only or be written with journal ignored (potentially corrupting the file system).
1 2 3 4 5 2.6 and later.
↑ With patch Archived 15 April 2012 at the Wayback Machine .
↑ Read only.
↑ OpenSolaris also has an in-kernel, native SMB server built directly on the ZFS DMU.
1 2 Ext2/3 read and write support for Haiku (jvff's blog).
↑ The GSoC 2009 project assignment was never completed (Obaro Ogbo's blog Archived 17 June 2012 at the Wayback Machine ).
↑ Ext3/4 is not supported on Hurd kernel for now
↑ UFS support is dropped on Hurd kernel for now
↑ Default in series 028.

Supported file system features

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

Security 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

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 available as a patch(not integrated into the linux kernel or the userland utilities), see the security features of the Linux distribution for more details
↑ LXC is a front-end to this; also see lwn.net
↑ not integrated into the operating system
↑ see here for more details
↑ ProPolice/Stack-Smashing Protector has been enabled in base system since FreeBSD 8.0 release.
↑ see here for more details

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Executable and Linkable Format</span> Standard file format for executables, object code, shared libraries, and core dumps.

In computing, the Executable and Linkable Format, is a common standard file format for executable files, object code, shared libraries, and core dumps. First published in the specification for the application binary interface (ABI) of the Unix operating system version named System V Release 4 (SVR4), and later in the Tool Interface Standard, it was quickly accepted among different vendors of Unix systems. In 1999, it was chosen as the standard binary file format for Unix and Unix-like systems on x86 processors by the 86open project.

GNU is an extensive collection of free software, which can be used as an operating system or can be used in parts with other operating systems. The use of the completed GNU tools led to the family of operating systems popularly known as Linux. Most of GNU is licensed under the GNU Project's own General Public License (GPL).

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 GNU C Library, commonly known as glibc, is the GNU Project's implementation of the C standard library. It is a wrapper around the system calls of the Linux kernel for application use. Despite its name, it now also directly supports C++. It was started in the 1980s by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for the GNU operating system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GNU/Linux naming controversy</span> Issues of what to call a system with the GNU toolchain and the Linux kernel

Within the free software and the open-source software communities there is controversy over whether to refer to computer operating systems that use a combination of GNU software and the Linux kernel as "GNU/Linux" or "Linux" systems.

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.

There are a number of Unix-like operating systems based on or descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) series of Unix variant options. The three most notable descendants in current use are FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD, which are all derived from 386BSD and 4.4BSD-Lite, by various routes. Both NetBSD and FreeBSD started life in 1993, initially derived from 386BSD, but in 1994 migrated to a 4.4BSD-Lite code base. OpenBSD was forked from NetBSD in 1995. Other notable derivatives include DragonFly BSD, which was forked from FreeBSD 4.8.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linux</span> Family of Unix-like operating systems

Linux is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution (distro), which includes the kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses and recommends the name "GNU/Linux" to emphasize the use and importance of GNU software in many distributions, causing some controversy.

FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993 developed from 386BSD and the current version runs on x86, ARM, PowerPC and RISC-V processors. The project is supported and promoted by the FreeBSD Foundation.

NTFS-3G is an open-source cross-platform implementation of the Microsoft Windows NTFS file system with read/write support. NTFS-3G often uses the FUSE file system interface, so it can run unmodified on many different operating systems. It is runnable on Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenSolaris, illumos, BeOS, QNX, WinCE, Nucleus, VxWorks, Haiku, MorphOS, Minix, macOS and OpenBSD. It is licensed under the GNU General Public License. It is a partial fork of ntfsprogs and is under active maintenance and development.

Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a free and open-source 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.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to free software and the free software movement:

Illumos is a partly free and open-source Unix operating system. It is based on OpenSolaris, which was based on System V Release 4 (SVR4) and the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Illumos comprises a kernel, device drivers, system libraries, and utility software for system administration. This core is now the base for many different open-sourced Illumos distributions, in a similar way in which the Linux kernel is used in different Linux distributions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NetBSD</span> Free and open-source Unix-like operating system

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.

OpenZFS is an open-source implementation of the ZFS file system and volume manager initially developed by Sun Microsystems for the Solaris operating system and now maintained by the OpenZFS Project. It supports features like data compression, data deduplication, copy-on-write clones, snapshots, and RAID-Z. It also supports the creation of virtual devices, which allows for the creation of file systems that span multiple disks.

References

↑ "Supported Platforms". Freebsd.org. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
↑ "OpenBSD: Platforms". OpenBSD. 9 May 2006. Retrieved 21 October 2019.
↑ "Platforms Supported by NetBSD". NetBSD.org. Retrieved 9 December 2016.
↑ DragonFly Frequently Asked Questions Archived 6 October 2006 at the Wayback Machine
↑ "OpenSolaris FAQ: Does the OpenSolaris project include source code for both the SPARC and x64/x86 architectures?". Opensolaris.org. 26 October 2009. Archived from the original on 27 September 2009. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
↑ "OpenDarwin FAQ: Compatibility issues". 15 April 2007. Archived from the original on 18 December 2007. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
↑ "MINIX 3 Hardware Requirements". MINIX3.org. Retrieved 6 December 2014.
↑ "Haiku ARM port progress". 18 August 2009. Archived from the original on 12 May 2012. Retrieved 13 April 2012.
↑ "The Various Ports". Plan9.bell-labs.com. Archived from the original on 14 September 2008. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
↑ "Other hardware (Plan 9 wiki)". Plan9.bell-labs.com. Archived from the original on 29 December 2014. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
↑ "First Driver for USB 3.0". 9 June 2009.
1 2 "Manual Pages: radeon(4)". OpenBSD.org. Retrieved 4 February 2018.
↑ "Manual Pages: nv(4)". OpenBSD.org. Retrieved 4 February 2018.
↑ Larabel, Michael (21 July 2018). "NetBSD 8.0 Officially Released With USB3 Support, Security Improvements & UEFI". Phoronix .
↑ "DragonFly Release 3.2".
1 2 USB with DOS Archived 22 May 2008 at the Wayback Machine – Limited support for some devices provided by third-party driver.
1 2 – Very limited support.
↑ "TV Tuner information". cconcepts.co.uk. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
↑ "Ufs2 write support for linux | hawking's weblog". Archived from the original on 3 July 2008. Retrieved 28 August 2008.
↑ "bhyve".
↑ "vmm(4)". OpenBSD. Retrieved 14 October 2017.
↑ "KVM". Joyent. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
↑ "RBAC". Oracle. Retrieved 28 September 2013.

External links

Open source operating systems at Curlie

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[a1-1] No for single line development model.

[a3-2] For I/O Kit.

[b1-10] 1 2 3 4 work in progress

[b4-12] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 with Linux-libre kernel and others, but not on Hurd kernel

[b5-13] with Linux-libre and Linux kernel

[b2-14] 1 2 3 4 5 Pistachio supports AMD64; Fiasco only in the CVS version.

[b3-15] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Support is outdated or unmaintained.

[c1-24] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 is not supported on Hurd kernel for now

[c2-25] 1 2 3 4 5 Proprietary Software is not officially supported on GNU system

[c3-26] 1 2 Proprietary Firmware blob is not officially supported on GNU system

[e1-29] NetBSD has a kernel-only PPPoE driver.

[e2-30] OpenSolaris has support for a TUN driver with TAP support

[e3-31] rewall is not supported on Hurd kernel for now

[e4-32] v6 is not supported on Hurd kernel for now

[e5-33] s partially supported on Hurd kernel for now

[f5-34] 1 2 Experimental.

[f7-35] 1 2 3 4 5 6 Read/Write support via NTFS-3G.

[f2-36] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Read only kernel driver.

[f9-38] read/write access without journaling; HFS+ with journal either be opened read-only or be written with journal ignored (potentially corrupting the file system).

[f3-39] 1 2 3 4 5 2.6 and later.

[f4-40] With patch Archived 15 April 2012 at the Wayback Machine .

[f10-41] Read only.

[f8-42] OpenSolaris also has an in-kernel, native SMB server built directly on the ZFS DMU.

[f12-43] 1 2 Ext2/3 read and write support for Haiku (jvff's blog).

[f11-44] The GSoC 2009 project assignment was never completed (Obaro Ogbo's blog Archived 17 June 2012 at the Wayback Machine ).

[f13-45] Ext3/4 is not supported on Hurd kernel for now

[f14-46] UFS support is dropped on Hurd kernel for now

[f6-47] Default in series 028.

[z1-48] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 available as a patch(not integrated into the linux kernel or the userland utilities), see the security features of the Linux distribution for more details

[z4-49] LXC is a front-end to this; also see lwn.net

[z2-50] t integrated into the operating system

[z3-51] see here for more details

[z5-52] ProPolice/Stack-Smashing Protector has been enabled in base system since FreeBSD 8.0 release.

[z6-54] see here for more details

[3] "Supported Platforms". Freebsd.org. Retrieved 26 October 2011.

[4] "OpenBSD: Platforms". OpenBSD. 9 May 2006. Retrieved 21 October 2019.

[5] "Platforms Supported by NetBSD". NetBSD.org. Retrieved 9 December 2016.

[6] DragonFly Frequently Asked Questions Archived 6 October 2006 at the Wayback Machine

[opensolarisarch-7] "OpenSolaris FAQ: Does the OpenSolaris project include source code for both the SPARC and x64/x86 architectures?". Opensolaris.org. 26 October 2009. Archived from the original on 27 September 2009. Retrieved 26 October 2011.

[opendarwincompatibility-8] "OpenDarwin FAQ: Compatibility issues". 15 April 2007. Archived from the original on 18 December 2007. Retrieved 26 October 2011.

[minixhwreq-9] "MINIX 3 Hardware Requirements". MINIX3.org. Retrieved 6 December 2014.

[11] "Haiku ARM port progress". 18 August 2009. Archived from the original on 12 May 2012. Retrieved 13 April 2012.

[16] "The Various Ports". Plan9.bell-labs.com. Archived from the original on 14 September 2008. Retrieved 26 October 2011.

[17] "Other hardware (Plan 9 wiki)". Plan9.bell-labs.com. Archived from the original on 29 December 2014. Retrieved 26 October 2011.

[18] "First Driver for USB 3.0". 9 June 2009.

[openbsd1-19] 1 2 "Manual Pages: radeon(4)". OpenBSD.org. Retrieved 4 February 2018.

[20] "Manual Pages: nv(4)". OpenBSD.org. Retrieved 4 February 2018.

[21] Larabel, Michael (21 July 2018). "NetBSD 8.0 Officially Released With USB3 Support, Security Improvements & UEFI". Phoronix .

[22] "DragonFly Release 3.2".

[USB_with_DOS-23] 1 2 USB with DOS Archived 22 May 2008 at the Wayback Machine – Limited support for some devices provided by third-party driver.

[reactos.org-27] 1 2 – Very limited support.

[28] "TV Tuner information". cconcepts.co.uk. Retrieved 27 July 2019.

[37] "Ufs2 write support for linux | hawking's weblog". Archived from the original on 3 July 2008. Retrieved 28 August 2008.

[53] "bhyve".

[55] "vmm(4)". OpenBSD. Retrieved 14 October 2017.

[56] "KVM". Joyent. Retrieved 25 August 2012.

[57] "RBAC". Oracle. Retrieved 28 September 2013.

[Note 1]

[Note 2]

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[Note 1]

[8]

[Note 2]

[Note 3]

[Note 4]

[Note 5]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[Note 1]

[Note 2]

[Note 3]

[17]

[18]

[Note 1]

[Note 2]

[Note 3]

[Note 4]

[Note 5]

[Note 1]

[Note 2]

[Note 3]

[19]

[Note 4]

[Note 5]

[Note 6]

[Note 7]

[Note 8]

[Note 9]

[Note 10]

[Note 11]

[Note 12]

[Note 13]

[Note 1]

[Note 2]

[Note 3]

[Note 4]

[Note 5]

[20]

[Note 6]

[21]

[22]

[23]