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Alternative Operating Systems | View information about Alternative Operating Systems within our Technology Website Directory section by reviewing this area of our website. We provide a wealth of information online to help our visitors become better informed about Computer Buzz. |
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Alternative Operating Systems
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Part of our mandate here at the Computer Buzz Labs in Dallas is to test and evaluate some of the more important computer software packages that are available today. There's no piece of software that is more important to your computer than its operating system. But most computer users are familiar with only Windows or Macs (and only occasionally both) and know little or nothing about the myriad of other OSs that are available to us nowadays, usually at no cost.
As you can tell by looking at the list of alternatives that we have assembled for you, we have taken the attitude that Windows (all versions right up to Vista) and the Mac OS (including both "Classic" and OS X) are mainstream OSs and that just about all the others are alternatives to them. We are not going to waste your time or our own by considering earlier operating systems that are no longer realistic alternatives, such as Apple DOS, CP/M, PC/MS-DOS, Pro DOS, Amiga DOS, Radio Shack's TRS-DOS, Apple's Lisa, GEOS, etc.).
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Red Hat/RPM
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Without a doubt, the most famous and easily recognized brand name in the entire Linux universe is Red Hat. Red Hat Inc (RHT on the NYSE), with annual revenues of approximately half a billion dollars, was founded in 1993 and has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite offices worldwide.
The company is best known for its enterprise-class operating system, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). It is also the largest distributor of the GNU/Linux operating system. Red Hat provides operating system platforms along with middleware, applications, and management solutions, as well as support, training, and consulting services.
RHEL is one of the quartet of major branches of several hundred individual Linux distributions, and it is arguably the most popular of the four. Software package installation, management, updating, and deletion (including the OS itself) is handled by a program called Redhat Package Manager (RPM) and is unique to the Red Hat branch of Linux. RHEL uses the GNOME desktop environment GUI.
Official Website: www.RedHat.com
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Fedora
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Fedora (previously called Fedora Core) is an RPM-based GNU/Linux distribution, developed by the community-supported Fedora Project and sponsored by Red Hat. It is intended to be a complete, general purpose operating system that contains only free and open source software. Fedora is derived from the original Red Hat Linux distribution.
The Fedora Project was created in late 2003, when the original Red Hat Linux was discontinued. Red Hat recommended that commercial Red Hat Linux users switch to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), which continues to be Red Hat's only officially supported Linux distribution while sponsoring Fedora as a community project. Fedora is meant to be a fast moving distribution with more of the latest and robust software while RHEL is for paying customers who value commercial support, certification and associated services with a longer life cycle.
Fedora, like its Red Hat cousin, features the user friendly GNOME desktop environment GUI. Installation is simple and straightforward, so this is an excellent choice for Linux newbies and veterans alike. Computer Buzz does not hesitate to recommend Fedora to all.
Official Website: www.FedoraProject.org/
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PCLinuxOS
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PCLinuxOS is a free, easy-to-use operating system for the home that dates back to 2003. It was forked off of Mandriva Linux which was, in turn, derived from the Red Hat/RPM branch of Linux. But PCLinuxOS is somewhat of a hybrid in that it utilizes the Advanced Packaging Tool (APT), a package management system borrowed from the Debian Linux distribution, together with Synaptic, a graphical front end to APT.
Although the KDE desktop GUI gives it a similar "look and feel" to Mandriva Linux, PCLinuxOS has diverged significantly. It distinguishes itself by having carefully selected features from distributions other than Mandriva, and numerous distro-independent projects.
PCLinuxOS places specific emphasis on desktop computing, concentrating its efforts for home or small business environments, hence paying less attention to other more traditional uses, such as servers (although packages for most server tasks are available).
Its popularity skyrocketed in 2007, and it is now one of the most popular Linux distributions of all. Computer Buzz is pleased to recommend it.
Official Website: www.pclinuxos.com/
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Mandriva
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Mandriva Linux (formerly Mandrake Linux) is a Linux distribution created by the Paris-based company Mandriva, S.A. (formerly Mandrakesoft). The first release was based on Red Hat Linux (version 5.1) and KDE desktop environment GUI in July 1998. It has since diverged from Red Hat and has included a number of original tools mostly to ease system configuration.
Nowadays Mandriva Linux is geared to use either KDE or GNOME as the standard desktop GUIs, but the installation disk also includes others such as IceWM, Blackbox, Window Maker and twm.
Mandriva Linux uses a unique software manager with the euphonious name of "urpmi," which functions as a front end for the RPM package management system.
Computer Buzz likes and recommends Mandriva. We find it to be easy and straightforward to install and use. It is a good choice for new users, albeit we are a little concerned about the viability of Mandriva, S.A. which has been in and out of bankruptcy and has announced significant layoffs recently.
Official Website: www.Mandriva.com
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Debian
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Ian Murdock, who designed the Debian branch of Linux, had a girlfriend whose name was Debbie. "Deb" + "Ian" = Debian; get it? The last we heard, they had gotten married and were still together.
It's one of the Big Three Linux branches, and it's the only one whose popularity rivals that of Red Hat. Unlike Red Hat, it is a noncommercial, all-volunteer outfit and you don't have to subscribe to any support services in order to acquire it.
You can download the installation disk images from several places on the Internet, but don't be a hurry; this is easily the largest Linux distro of all, and at last count it occupied your choice of 3 DVDs or 14 CDs.
It takes a while to install and configure it on your hard disk, and the installation procedure has a reputation of requiring more technical knowledge on the part of the user than most other versions of Linux. The most recent release of Debian is certainly more user-friendly than the earlier ones, but it is still probably not a good choice for a Linux newbie. Computer Buzz recommends that first-time Linux users go with a Debian derivative, such as MEPIS or Ubuntu, instead.
Official Website: www.Debian.org
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Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu/Edubuntu
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Ubuntu is a predominantly desktop-oriented Linux distribution, based on Debian GNU/Linux but with a stronger focus on user-friendliness, regular releases, and ease of installation. Ubuntu is published by Canonical Ltd, a London-based company owned by billionaire South African (and former cosmonaut) Mark Shuttleworth. It aims to use only free software to provide an up-to-date yet stable operating system for the average user.
Ubu (as it is affectionately known) uses the GNOME desktop environment GUI. Kubuntu and Xubuntu are official distributions of the Ubuntu project, bringing the KDE and Xfce desktop environments to the Ubuntu core, respectively. The Edubuntu distribution is an official subproject designed for educational environments.
The organization derives income from subscriptions to its support services. Contact Canonical at their official web site below, and they will send you a free Ubuntu installation CD anywhere in the world.
Computer Buzz highly recommends Ubu to new Linux users. It is one of our very favorites even though it does not allow anyone to log in as the "root" user. We particularly favor the Xubu version.
Official Website: Ubuntu.com
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MEPIS
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MEPIS is a Debian-based version of Linux that was designed as an alternative to SUSE, Red Hat, and Mandriva Linux which, in the creator Warren Woodford's opinion, were too difficult for the average user. MEPIS's first official release was in May 2003.
MEPIS 7.0 is the curent version, and version 8 is in beta. It features the KDE desktop environment GUI and is intended for everyday desktop and laptop computing.
Computer Buzz likes and recommends MEPIS as a user-friendly distro that is easy for new Linux-heads to install and maintain. That said, we would prefer to have the option of choosing GNOME instead of KDE at installation time, and we are a little skittish about committing to a distro whose continued existence appears to be dependent almost entirely dependent upon the career, efforts, and life of one single individual, however talented a programmer he may be.
Official Website: www.Mepis.org/
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Linux Mint
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Linux Mint is a Linux distribution, the stated purpose of which is "to produce an elegant, up to date and comfortable GNU/Linux desktop." It is based on, and compatible with, Ubuntu and shares the same repositories. Most applications are the same on both distributions, and the two systems behave almost identically. Most differences between Mint and Ubuntu are on the desktop. Linux Mint comes with homemade applications which are designed to enhance the user experience. A few changes in the system make Linux Mint a bit faster than Ubuntu. The default set of applications is different in the two distributions and some software is more up to date in Mint.
The Main Edition of Mint provides a Gnome desktop with multimedia codecs which fits on a single CD. At the moment Mint only supports x86 (i.e., 32-bit) architectures. However, this does not prevent Linux Mint from being run on x64 processors, as the processors themselves are backwardly compatible and capable of running 32-bit operating systems, and the benefits of 64-bit applications are most apparent only when doing computationally heavy tasks and are less noticeable with most common applications.
Official Website: http://linuxmint.com/
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Slackware/SLS
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Slackware was one of the earliest Linux distributions and the oldest currently being maintained. It was originally descended from SLS Linux, the most popular of the original Linux distributions. SLS dominated the market until the developers made a decision to change the executable format, a decision that was not popular amongst SLS's user base at the time. Patrick Volkerding released a modified version of SLS, which he named Slackware in 1993, and it quickly replaced SLS as the dominant Linux distribution.
For almost a decade, Slackware was the only way to go. Today Slackware is getting rather long in the tooth and has been overtaken in popularity by Debian and Red Hat/RPM. It still has its nostalgic proponents, and it and its clones will be around for quite a while, but Slackware no longer represents the future of Linux.
Slackware has a policy of incorporating only stable releases of applications, standing mainly for design stability and simplicity, and it is intended to be the most UNIX-like Linux distribution. Computer Buzz does not recommend any flavor of Slackware except SUSE/open SUSE (which see below) for Linux newcomers.
Official Website: www.Slackware.com
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SUSE/openSUSE
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S.u.S.E is an acronym for the German phrase "Software- und System-Entwicklung" ("Software and system development"). Now owned by Novell, the company was founded in late 1992 as a UNIX consulting group, which among other things regularly released software packages that included Slackware. They released the first CD version of SLS/Slackware in 1994, under the name S.u.S.E Linux 1.0. It was later integrated with Jurix Linux to produce the first really unique S.u.S.E Linux 4.2 in 1996.
Over time, SuSE Linux incorporated many aspects of Red Hat Linux (e.g., the RPM package manager), so it is really a mongrel form of Linux whose roots are in both Slackware and Red Hat.
The commercial version is now "SUSE," and it is distributed only with subscription to Novell's support service. The free public version (which is almost identical) is called openSUSE, and it is extremely popular, always ranking in the top two or three versions of Linux. It is the operating system of choice for the US military, so its stability and security are among the very best.
The default desktop environment GUI is GNOME, but KDE and others are supplied and can be chosen at time of installation. SUSE includes an installation and administration program called YaST2 which handles hard disk partitioning, system setup, RPM package management, online updates, network and firewall configuration, user administration, and more in an integrated graphical interface.
SUSE is a very user-friendly Linux distro, and Computer Buzz recommends it very hightly.
Official Website: www.openSUSE.org
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Gentoo
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Gentoo is one of the younger branches of Linux, being first released in 2002, and it is not derived from any of the major branches (i.e., Debian, Red Hat, or Slackware). Named for the fast-swimming Gentoo penguin, this OS and its derivatives install software, including itself, in a manner that is completely different from any other form of Linux. It starts out with only the source code, which it then compiles into executable files while you watch and wait. Consequently, initial installation takes quite a long time, sometimes as long as a day or two unless you have a very fast computer.
The claimed advantage of Gentoo is that the source code can be (and presumably is) optimized for the particular hardware on which it is being run; you get a customized installation that runs as fast as a Gentoo penguin can swim. In our Computer Buzz Labs in Dallas, we have been unable to quantify any significant speed advantage over Linux distros from other branches.
Moreover, there haven't been many new Gentoo-based distros coming out in the last couple of years, and it appears to us that Gentoo is fading in popularity. Some notable Gentoo distros are: Sabayon (currently the most popular), Pentoo, GentooX, and VidaLinux. Because of its slow and complex manner of installation, Gentoo is often favored by the propellor-heads who like play with the guts of their software, but Computer Buzz does NOT recommend it for Linux first-timers.
Official Website: www.Gentoo.org/
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Sabayon
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Sabayon Linux (formerly known as RR4 Linux/RR64 Linux) is a Gentoo-based Linux distribution created by Fabio Erculiani. It is the only Gentoo-based distro that is more popular than Gentoo itself.
Sabayon differs from Gentoo in that instead of installing the entire system from source code, the initial install is made using packages which are precompiled and bundled with the source code. Sabayon Linux currently supports only the x86 platform.
Sabayon uses the Portage system from Gentoo for package management, meaning that all updates and base characteristics are in sync with Gentoo's portage tree.
Computer Buzz does not recommend any versions of Linux that are based on Gentoo. We believe that Gentoo Linux and its fellow travelers are headed down an evolutionary dead end road. But if we were to recommend only one of this doomed genre, it would certainly be Sabayon.
Official Website: SabayonLinux.org/
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Solaris
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Solaris (formerly branded as Sun OS) is a computer operating system developed by Sun Microsystems. It is certified against the Single Unix Specification as a version of UNIX, and, as such, is undoubtedly the most well known bona fide UNIX OS in the world.
From its inception until June 2005, it was a closed, proprietary OS. Since then, it has been open sourced, and Sun will send you the installation disks at no charge. It can be installed on x86, x86-64, and SPARC-based desktop computers.
Solaris uses Sun's own Common Desktop Environment (CDE) GUI by default, but it also ships with the optional GNOME GUI which can be selected at installation time. Computer Buzz does not recommend CDE; we find it to be clunky and non-intuitive. GNOME is a far better choice. Once it is up and running, you will hardly be able to tell that you are not running Linux or Windows.
Computer Buzz labs in Dallas has been testing Solaris for more than a year now, and we are impressed enough to recommend it as an alternative OS. Much of our in-house work is done on Solaris systems.
Official Website: www.Sun.com/Solaris/
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Nexenta
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Nexenta OS is a Debian/Ubuntu-based Solaris operating system for IA-32 and x86-64 systems. It is based on Ubuntu, but with the Linux kernel replaced with the Solaris kernel. Nexenta is the first distribution to combine any version of Linux with the Solaris kernel and core user space utilities. It has two official APT repositories, totaling more 12,000 application packages.
Nexenta is completely open source and free of any charge. It contains Apache, MySQL, Perl/Python/PHP, Firefox, Evolution, software update manager, Synaptic package manager, Gaim Instant Messenger, Abiword word processor, administration and development utilities, editors, graphics, the GNOME GUI (like Ubu), interpreters, libraries, and more.
Computer Buzz finds Nexenta to be the unique and impressive offspring of two of our all-time favorite operating systems, Ubu and Solaris. Still a very young OS, Nexenta is already a quality product, and we expect that it will only get better with time. Remember where you heard about it first.
Official Website: www.gnusolaris.org/
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FreeBSD
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Descended from AT&T UNIX, the most robust branch of BSD is a UNIX-like distro called FreeBSD. It runs on the Intel x86-32 family, PC compatible systems, Sun UltraSPARC-64, AMD64, and PowerPC architectures.
BSD, like Linux, is an umbrella term that includes any number of individually designated OS distributions. It was developed at UC Berkeley, and the letters BSD stand for Berkeley Software Distribution. BSD is one of the two main forks of UNIX, although few if any of today's BSD distros have actually bothered to get themselves certified as UNIX. Rather, they describe themselves as "UNIX-like."
As an operating system, FreeBSD is generally regarded as extremely reliable, and of all the operating systems that accurately report uptime remotely, FreeBSD is the most common free operating system listed in the 50 web servers with the longest uptime. (A long uptime indicates that no crashes have occurred and that no kernel updates have been deemed necessary.)
Computer Buzz does NOT recommend FreeBSD as a desktop OS, because it boots to an arcane command line interface that is inscrutable to all but the most hopeless propeller-heads. However, we like the nuts and bolts that are under FreeBSD's hood, and we DO recommend the FreeBSD clones that have incorporated a friendly desktop GUI. You will find more into on those elsewhere on this list.
Official Website: www.FreeBSD.org
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PC-BSD
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PC-BSD is a Unix-like, desktop-oriented operating system based upon FreeBSD. A graphical installation program affords easy installation, and it then features KDE as the default, pre-installed graphical user interface. In 2006 it was voted the most beginner-friendly operating system by OSWeekly.com.
No doubt, this was at least in part because PC-BSD's package management system takes a different approach to installing software than many other Unix-like operating systems. Instead of utilizing FreeBSD's ports or packages system, PC-BSD uses files with the .pbi filename extension which, when double-clicked, brings up an installation wizard program similar to Microsoft Windows.
Computer Buzz unhesitatingly recommends PC-BSD as our all-time favorite version of BSD. It is entirely suitable for mentors and novices alike.
Official Website: www.PCBSD.org
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DesktopBSD
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DesktopBSD is a UNIX-derivative, desktop-oriented operating system based on FreeBSD. It is intended to combine the stability of FreeBSD with the ease of use of KDE, which is the default graphical user interface. It is available for the IA-32 and AMD64 platforms.
DesktopBSD is essentially a customized installation of FreeBSD, not a fork of it. DesktopBSD is always based on FreeBSD's latest stable branch but incorporates certain customized, pre-installed software such as KDE and DesktopBSD utilities and configuration files.
A common misconception about DesktopBSD is that it is intended as a rival to PC-BSD as a BSD-based desktop distribution. In fact, the DesktopBSD project was started approximately one year before the PC-BSD project. Neither the DesktopBSD nor PC-BSD projects are intended to rival each other. They are completely independent projects with distinctive features and very different attitudes.
Computer Buzz heartily recommends DesktopBSD to BSD newbies and veterans alike.
Official Website: www.DesktopBSD.net/
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Syllable OS
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Syllable is a free and open source operating system for Intel x86 Pentium and compatible processors. It is still under development, and it is intended to be an easy-to-use desktop OS for the home and small office user. It was forked from the stagnant AtheOS in July 2002.
It has a native web browser (Abrowse, which is WebKit based), email client (Whisper), media player, IDE, and several other applications. More apps, all apparently free, are under development at this time.
Features listed on the official website include:
-Native 64-bit journaled file system, the AtheOS File System
-Object-oriented graphical desktop environment on a native GUI architecture
-oftware ports, including Emacs, Vim, Perl, Python, Apache, and others.
-Pre-emptive multitasking with multi-threading
-Symmetric multi-processing (multiple processor) support
-Device drivers for most common hardware (video, sound, network chips)
The latest version is 0.6.5, released in January 2008. You can download Syllable "Basic" for free at the Syllable website. Or you can download the "Premium" version for $9.45 USD, or you can order "Premium" on a CD for $16.19 USD.
To be sure, Syllable is nowhere near ready for prime time right now, and we don't know when it will be. But Computer Buzz is keeping a close eye on it, and we are cautiously optimistic about it. The open-source community is capable of cranking out some amazingly great software. Now, if they only could figure out some way to make a buck off of that great software so as to avoid starvation...
Official Website: www.syllable.org
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BeOS
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The BeOS shouldn't be on this list because it's dead. Well, almost dead. Actually, it's on life support. It collapsed back in '01 when Apple was wooing it to be the replacement for the original Mac OS and then jilted it so as to elope with Steve Jobs' NextStep.
We include it here only because it's one of Computer Buzz's very, very, very favorite alternate operating systems and it is still barely clinging to life.
BeOS was written from scratch in the early '90s and owes nothing to UNIX or Linux or Apple or Microsoft. The code is elegant and amazingly compact, and it includes support for multiple CPUs. Everyone agrees that it is truly a quality product that was far ahead of its time, and it's a crying shame that it never found a viable home.
Unlike virtually all versions of Linux and UNIX, BeOS resembles the Mac OS rather than Windows.
When Be, Inc went belly up, a German company called Yellow Tab took the BeOS code and released a couple of versions under the name of Zeta OS before declaring bankruptcy. Another outfit is working on the code now, and they hope to reissue it soon using the brand name, "Haiku." Until they do, you can still find copies of BeOS on eBay for a few bucks.
Official Website: www.BeBits.com
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QNX Neutrino
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Neutrino is marketed by Canadian company QNX as an operating system for specialized applications such as telecommunications, medicine, automotive devices, and air traffic control. But you can download a demo version that runs on your x86 machine at home.
The desktop contains a Windows-like task bar and Launch menu. On the right side of the screen is the "shelf" that provides a quick way to launch applications. As you might expect, there are not many application programs for Neutrino, but you can at least use it to surf the web.
Computer Buzz can not, in good faith, recommend Neutrino as a viable general purpose alternative OS, but, hey, it's fun to fool around with, and the price is right.
Official Website: www.QNX.com/
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