List of BSD operating systems

Last updated

There are a number of Unix-like operating systems under active development, descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) series of UNIX variants developed (originally by Bill Joy) at the University of California, Berkeley, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. As of 2016 there were four major BSD operating systems, and an increasing number of other OSs derived from these, that add or remove certain features but generally remain compatible with their originating OS—and so are not really forks of them. This is a list of those that have been active since 2014, and their websites.

Contents

FreeBSD-based

FreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). FreeBSD currently has more than 200 active developers and thousands of contributors. Other notable derivatives include DragonFly BSD, which was forked from FreeBSD 4.8, and Apple Inc.'s macOS, with its Darwin base including a large amount of code derived from FreeBSD.

Active

NameDescription
ClonOS [1] Offers a complete web UI for easily controlling, deploying and managing FreeBSD jails, containers and Bhyve/Xen hypervisor virtual environments.
DragonFly BSD Originally forked from FreeBSD 4.8, now developed in a different direction
TrueNAS Previously known as FreeNAS.
GhostBSD GhostBSD is a FreeBSD OS distro oriented for desktops and laptops. Its goal is to combine the stability and security of FreeBSD with OpenRC, OS packages and Mate graphical user interface. GhostBSD comes as livecd for users to test before installing.
HardenedBSD HardenedBSD is a security-enhanced fork of FreeBSD. The HardenedBSD Project is implementing many exploit mitigation and security technologies on top of FreeBSD.
helloSystemA desktop system for creators that focuses on simplicity, elegance, and usability.
Junos OS For Juniper routers
MidnightBSD Midnight BSD forked away from FreeBSD 6.1 Beta
XigmaNAS Previously known as NAS4Free, is a network-attached storage (NAS) server software. It is a continuation of the original FreeNAS code.
NomadBSDPersistent live system for USB flash drives
OPNsense OPNsense is a FreeBSD-based firewall tailored for use as a firewall and router that was forked from pfSense.
pfSense pfSense is a FreeBSD-based firewall tailored for use as a firewall and router.
StarBSDStarBSD is a Unix-like, server-oriented operating system based on FreeBSD for Mission-Critical Enterprise Environment. [2]
CellOS The PlayStation 3 operating system
Orbis OS The PlayStation 4 operating system
Zrouter FreeBSD based firmware for embedded devices
ULBSD ULBSD is a Unix-like, desktop-oriented operating system based on FreeBSD. It aims to be easy to install and ready-to-use immediately by providing pre-installed graphical KDE5 user desktop environment.
ravynOS (formerly airyxOS)ravynOS is a FreeBSD-based OS aimed at providing "the finesse of macOS".

Discontinued

NameDescription
AskoziaPBX Discontinued [3]
BSDBoxDiscontinued
BSDeviantDiscontinued
BSDLiveDiscontinued
Bzerk CDDiscontinued
ClosedBSDDiscontinued
DesktopBSD Discontinued. [3] Was a desktop-oriented FreeBSD variant using K Desktop Environment 3.5.
EclipseBSDDiscontinued
EvokeDiscontinued. Formerly DamnSmallBSD; a small live FreeBSD environment geared toward developers and system administrators. [4]
FenestrOS BSDDiscontinued
FreeBSDLiveDiscontinued
FreeBSD LiveCDDiscontinued
FreeSBIE Discontinued
Frenzy Live CDDiscontinued. A "portable system administrator toolkit". It generally contains software for hardware tests, file system check, security check and network setup and analysis.
FuryBSD [5] Discontinued in 2020. Paid homage to desktop BSD projects of the past like PC-BSD and TrueOS with its graphical interface and adds additional tools like a live, hybrid USB / DVD image.
Debian GNU/kFreeBSD Discontinued [6]
Ging Discontinued
Gentoo/FreeBSD Discontinued. Gentoo/*BSD was a subproject to port Gentoo features such as Portage to the FreeBSD operating system.
GuLIC-BSDDiscontinued
HamFreeSBIEDiscontinued
HeXDiscontinued
IronPort AsyncOSDiscontinued. security appliances
miniBSDDiscontinued
m0n0wall Discontinued. [7] Successor is OPNsense. m0n0wall was an embedded firewall distribution of FreeBSD, one of the BSD operating system descendants. It provided a small image which can be put on Compact Flash cards as well as on CDROMs and hard disks. It ran on a number of embedded platforms and generic PCs.
NetBozDiscontinued
Nokia IPSODiscontinued. Nokia IP security appliances
PacBSD [8] Discontinued. A lightweight operating system that aimed to bring the flexibility and philosophy of Arch Linux to BSD-based operating systems. The Project has been inactive since 2017.
PaxymDiscontinued. FreeBSD for Cavium Networks OCTEON
PicoBSD Discontinued
RelaxBSDDiscontinued
RoFreeSBIEDiscontinued
SnarlDiscontinued
The Dark StarDiscontinued
TheWallDiscontinued
ThinBSDDiscontinued
Triance OSDiscontinued
TrueBSDDiscontinued
TrueOS Discontinued. TrueOS (formerly PC/BSD) was a Unix-like, desktop-oriented operating system based on FreeBSD based on ZFS boot-environments, Lumina (desktop environment), and the sysadm administration framework; reinvented as Trident OS on top of Void Linux, retained many BSD aesthetics.
TrustedBSD Discontinued. Many of its extensions were integrated into FreeBSD. Only activity on trustedbsd-discuss mailing list is spam (as of 2020-12-22).
WarBSDDiscontinued
WiBSDDiscontinued
WiFiBSDDiscontinued
XORP Discontinued
BSDTahoe BSD 4.3 Tahoe for VAX

DragonFly BSD-based

NameDescription
Gentoo/DragonFlyBSDGentoo/*BSD subproject to port Gentoo features such as Portage to the DragonFly BSD operating system
FireFly BSD [9] Was a DragonFly based distribution.

NetBSD-based

NetBSD is a freely redistributable, open source version of the Unix-derivative Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) computer operating system. It was the second open source BSD descendant to be formally released, after 386BSD, and continues to be actively developed. Noted for its portability and quality of design and implementation, it is often used in embedded systems and as a starting point for the porting of other operating systems to new computer architectures.

NameDescription
BlackBSD NetBSD-based Live CD, with security tools on it and Mate as a window manager
EdgeBSD [10] NetBSD fork with main goal to be more modern in some aspects than NetBSD itself. Looks like some of the differences will be back-committed to the main project.
Force10 Networks FTOSthe operating system for Force10 TeraScale E-Series switches/routers
Debian GNU/NetBSD Debian GNU/NetBSD was a project to combine Debian with the kernel of NetBSD. It was abandoned in 2002 and has not seen active maintenance ever since.
Gentoo/NetBSD Discontinued. Gentoo/*BSD was a subproject to port Gentoo features such as Portage to the NetBSD operating system.
JibbedLive CD based on NetBSD
OS108OS108 is a desktop-oriented operating system based on NetBSD.
PolyBSD / pocketSANMultipurpose framework for building embedded systems based on NetBSD.
SEOSThe operating system for the Ericsson SmartEdge router series

OpenBSD-based

OpenBSD is a Unix-like computer operating system descended from Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), a Unix derivative developed at the University of California, Berkeley. It was forked from NetBSD in 1995. OpenBSD includes a number of security features absent or optional in other operating systems and has a tradition of developers auditing the source code for software bugs and security problems.

NameDescription
ÆrieBSDOpenBSD fork which tends to be free from GPL-licensed software. [11]
adJ Distribution of OpenBSD for Spanish speakers, [12] since 2005 new versions are released around 3 months after OpenBSD's releases, source in GitHub, [13] to learn how to install there is a challenge with badge on P2PU [14]
Anonym.OS Discontinued.
Bitrig [15] Discontinued. [16] Was a OpenBSD fork with main goal to be more modern in some aspects than OpenBSD.
BowlFishCustomized OpenBSD installation script for embedded systems, intended to make OpenBSD fit into small media like compact flash cards.
BSDanywhereLive CD featuring the Enlightenment DR17 window manager
ComixWallA firewall with UTM features
ekkoBSDekkoBSD was a Unix-like operating system based on OpenBSD 3.3, also incorporating code from other BSD-like operating systems. Its focus was on security and easy administration.
EmBSD
FabBSDOpenBSD fork with main application in CNC field. It's almost inactive.
FuguIta Providing both LiveDVD and LiveUSB for i386/amd64/arm64. Highly customizable by user. Tracking errata on OpenBSD-stable.
Gentoo/OpenBSD Gentoo/*BSD was a subproject to port Gentoo features such as Portage to the OpenBSD operating system.
MarBSDLiveCD of OpenBSD
LibertyBSDFork of OpenBSD with all non-free binaries removed.
MicroBSD Fork of the UNIX-like BSD operating system descendant OpenBSD 3.0, begun in July 2002. The project's objective to produce a free and fully secure, complete system, but with a small footprint.
MirOS BSD Core system based mostly on OpenBSD and some NetBSD code for 32-bit i386 and SPARC, updated via infrequent snapshots and by following "current". Additional packages via MirPorts and pkgsrc are no longer updated.
OliveBSD [17] Was a live CD originally based on OpenBSD 3.8
PsygNATFirewall and NAT router tool
Quetzal [18] Was a live DVD/CD system, based on OpenBSD
SONaFRSONaFR is a small system with router/NAT/firewalling capabilities that fits on a single floppy.
SnasciOS [19] Snasci OS is a general purpose operating system built upon OpenBSD and the Lumina Desktop Environment. Designed to be very light weight, Snasci OS is quick, responsive and secure. Whether you want a pretty desktop to surf the web, read emails, work with documents or a hardened server platform, Snasci OS provides a nice balance between the two, without compromising on either.
UTMFWSuccessor of ComixWall, a firewall with UTM features
LiveUSB OpenBSDLiveUSB OpenBSD is a project started around 2009 for creating OpenBSD based bootable USB flash images. There are 3 variants, one with Gnome, a minimal text only version and an XFCE desktop image.
LiveCD OpenBSDLiveCD OpenBSD is sister project of LiveUSB-OpenBSD and this gives users a Live CD/DVD bootable distribution where the user gets to experience OpenBSD without installing to disk. There are 3 flavors, one with XFCE, one with MATE desktop and one with KDE.

Historic BSD

BSD was originally derived from Unix, using the complete source code for Sixth Edition Unix for the PDP-11 from Bell Labs as a starting point for the First Berkeley Software Distribution, or 1BSD. A series of updated versions for the PDP-11 followed (the 2.xBSD releases). A 32-bit version for the VAX platform was released as 3BSD, and the 4.xBSD series added many new features, including TCP/IP networking.

For many years, the primary developer and project leader was Bill Joy, who was a graduate student at the time; funding for this project was provided by DARPA. DARPA was interested in obtaining a programming platform and programmer's interface which would provide a robust, general purpose, time-sharing computing platform which would not become obsolete every time computing hardware was or is replaced. Such an operating system would allow US Department of Defense software, especially for intricate, long-term finance and logistics operations, to be quickly ported to new hardware as it became available.

As time went on, code was later ported both from and to Unix System III and still later Unix System V. Unix System V Revision 4 (SVR4), released circa 1992, contained much code which was ported from BSD version up to and including 4.3BSD.

See also

Related Research Articles

vi (text editor) Keyboard-oriented text editor

vi is a screen-oriented text editor originally created for the Unix operating system. The portable subset of the behavior of vi and programs based on it, and the ex editor language supported within these programs, is described by the Single Unix Specification and POSIX.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">386BSD</span> Operating system

386BSD is a discontinued operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) that was developed by couple Lynne and William Jolitz. Released on March 17, 1992, it was the first fully operational Unix operating system to be completely free and open source.

Darwin is the core Unix operating system of macOS, iOS, watchOS, tvOS, iPadOS, visionOS, and bridgeOS. It previously existed as an independent open-source operating system, first released by Apple Inc. in 2000. It is composed of code derived from NeXTSTEP, FreeBSD, other BSD operating systems, Mach, and other free software projects' code, as well as code developed by Apple.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UNIX System V</span> Early commercial UNIX operating system

Unix System V is one of the first commercial versions of the Unix operating system. It was originally developed by AT&T and first released in 1983. Four major versions of System V were released, numbered 1, 2, 3, and 4. System V Release 4 (SVR4) was commercially the most successful version, being the result of an effort, marketed as Unix System Unification, which solicited the collaboration of the major Unix vendors. It was the source of several common commercial Unix features. System V is sometimes abbreviated to SysV.

BSD/OS is a discontinued proprietary version of the BSD operating system developed by Berkeley Software Design, Inc. (BSDi).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Berkeley Software Design</span>

Berkeley Software Design, Inc., was a corporation which developed, sold licenses for, and supported BSD/OS, a commercial and partially proprietary variant of the BSD Unix operating system for PC compatible computer systems. The name was chosen for its similarity to "Berkeley Software Distribution" the source of its primary product.

UNIX/32V is an early version of the Unix operating system from Bell Laboratories, released in June 1979. 32V was a direct port of the Seventh Edition Unix to the DEC VAX architecture.

init UNIX system component

In Unix-based computer operating systems, init is the first process started during booting of the operating system. Init is a daemon process that continues running until the system is shut down. It is the direct or indirect ancestor of all other processes and automatically adopts all orphaned processes. Init is started by the kernel during the booting process; a kernel panic will occur if the kernel is unable to start it, or it should die for any reason. Init is typically assigned process identifier 1.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TrueOS</span> Unix-like, desktop-oriented operating system

TrueOS is a discontinued Unix-like, server-oriented operating system built upon the most recent releases of FreeBSD-CURRENT.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Unix</span>

The history of Unix dates back to the mid-1960s, when the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, AT&T Bell Labs, and General Electric were jointly developing an experimental time-sharing operating system called Multics for the GE-645 mainframe. Multics introduced many innovations, but also had many problems. Bell Labs, frustrated by the size and complexity of Multics but not its aims, slowly pulled out of the project. Their last researchers to leave Multics – among them Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Doug McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna – decided to redo the work, but on a much smaller scale.

BioLinux is a term used in a variety of projects involved in making access to bioinformatics software on a Linux platform easier using one or more of the following methods:

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">FreeBSD</span> Free and open-source Unix-like operating system

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Berkeley Software Distribution</span> Unix operating system

The Berkeley Software Distribution or Berkeley Standard Distribution (BSD) is a discontinued operating system based on Research Unix, developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berkeley. The term "BSD" commonly refers to its open-source descendants, including FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and DragonFly BSD.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unix-like</span> Operating system that behaves similarly to Unix, e.g. Linux

A Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-like application is one that behaves like the corresponding Unix command or shell. Although there are general philosophies for Unix design, there is no technical standard defining the term, and opinions can differ about the degree to which a particular operating system or application is Unix-like.

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

Unix is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and others.

<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.

The History of the Berkeley Software Distribution begins in the 1970s.

Comparison of user features of operating systems refers to a comparison of the general user features of major operating systems in a narrative format. It does not encompass a full exhaustive comparison or description of all technical details of all operating systems. It is a comparison of basic roles and the most prominent features. It also includes the most important features of the operating system's origins, historical development, and role.

References

  1. ↑ "Free Open-Source Hosting Platform ClonOS" . Retrieved 28 September 2016.
  2. ↑ http://digitalixi.com
  3. 1 2 "Updated: FBSD based Projects and Systems page". FreeBSD News. 2010-01-12. Retrieved 2014-02-16.
  4. ↑ "evoke - Formerly DamnSmallBSD - Google Project Hosting" . Retrieved 2014-02-16.
  5. ↑ "A Powerful, Portable, FreeBSD Desktop" . Retrieved 6 July 2020.
  6. ↑ Wiltshire, Jonathan (2014-11-09). "Release Team Sprint Results". debian-devel-announce (Mailing list).
  7. ↑ m0w0wall discontinued 2014
  8. ↑ "PacBSD : Homepage : A simple, lightweight distribution". Archbsd.net. Retrieved 17 November 2014.
  9. ↑ "FireflyBSD - DragonFlyBSD". Archived from the original on September 8, 2013. Retrieved 17 November 2014.
  10. ↑ "The EdgeBSD Project: About EdgeBSD". Edgebsd.org. Retrieved 17 November 2014.
  11. ↑ "AerieBSD". Archived from the original on 2015-05-02. Retrieved 2016-05-16.
  12. ↑ "Novedades". Aprendiendo.pasosdejesus.org. Retrieved 2014-02-16.
  13. ↑ "pasosdeJesus/adJ · GitHub". Github.com. Retrieved 2014-02-16.
  14. ↑ "Reto: adJ como sistema operativo de escritorio" (in Spanish). P2PU. Retrieved 2014-02-16.
  15. ↑ "Bitrig". Bitrig.org. Retrieved 17 November 2014.
  16. ↑ "Faq 路 bitrig/bitrig Wiki 路 GitHub". Github.com. 2013-10-04. Retrieved 2014-02-16.
  17. ↑ DistroWatch. "DistroWatch.com: OliveBSD". Distrowatch.com. Retrieved 17 November 2014.
  18. ↑ Micho Durdevich. "Quetzal::BSD Home Page". Archived from the original on May 12, 2011. Retrieved 17 November 2014.
  19. ↑ Snasci. "snasci.com: SnasciOS". snasci.com. Retrieved 7 October 2016.
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.