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Not Every Open Source OS Needs to Be Based on Linux, and These Six Aren’t (itsfoss.com)
submitted 3 weeks ago by to c/haikuos@sopuli.xyz
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There are more operating systems than just Linux. Here's a list of a few that are under active development.

Includes:

  • Vinix OS (for Apple silicon)
  • Asterina NixOS
  • FreeBSD
  • GhostBSD
  • Haiku OS
  • React OS

1 comment

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[–] 10 points 3 weeks ago

no love for templeos?

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    47 comments in c/opensource@lemmy.ml view that post
    [–] 17 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

    Redox OS, Haiku, and NetBSD are the major alternatives that are taking a stand against AI contributions. If the Linux kernel isn't forked at some point, I could see those alternatives getting more attention in the future.

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (4 children)

    Honestly I still don't get why there isn't a GNU BSD fork yet. I have low spectations on a Linux kernel fork.

    Linux is becoming more and more hostile to software freedom.

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  • [–] 7 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

    It was called kFreeBSD, and it was shut down in 2023.

    Part of the problem is that Linux has become far too monolithic, and dependent on Linux-only services and applications.

    There's no systemd on FreeBSD and likely never will be. There were several years of development necessary to implement Wayland, because instead of fixing what was wrong with Xorg, impatient linux developers just threw it out and started over. And wrote it to use Linux kernel syscalls which then have to be copied and implemented across any other operating systems that want to use it.

    Even my beloved KDE is falling into that trap with their new Wayland login manager that depends entirely on systemd. Which is a Linux only thing.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 weeks ago

    Yeah, I am worried that we are becoming too dependent on Linux(kernel) and systemd. I think it would be very hard to maintain a fork of Linux and systemd because their codebases are very large, and develop at a really fast pace (ai will make this even worse).

    Of course these are my opinions, but I wonder if anyone shares them as well besides me.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 weeks ago* (1 child)

    I'm living fine on Systemd-free Artix? Even replaced the elogind with seatd. Scanning, printing, compiling, AUR, all A-ok in all (except Gnome now) desktop environments.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago

    plasmalogin requires systemd.

    As you said, gnome3 requires systemd.

    That's just the start.

    Remind me again, how many applications that use sound can no longer just use OSS and require Pulseaudio now?

    Yeah. I can see the patterns. Can you?

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    • [–] 12 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    Plan9

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    • [–] 11 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

    Second time this list comes out and NetBSD is not listed ... That GNU Hurd is not listed can be understandable, but NetBSD ?

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  • [–] 5 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

    WDYM understandable?

    I thought 2026 was the year of the Hurd desktop

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  • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    Well from what I know it is not running on hardware but only on virtual machines, nlt as much as an "alternative" than the others

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    • [–] 37 points 3 weeks ago (10 children)

    TempleOS not mentioned, garbage list

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  • [–] 16 points 3 weeks ago (8 children)

    templeos is public domain, which is incompatible with open source

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  • [–] 7 points 3 weeks ago (7 children)

    templeos is public domain, which is incompatible with open source

    Where did you come up with that conclusion?

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  • [–] 7 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)
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  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

    From what I understand from the article is that public domain's legality can be questioned (especially in germany), therefore they conclude that it is not opensource, similar to how releasing software with no license is not OSS. That is where licenses like in the article CC0 come in play and unlicense to help create legal public-domain-like software.

    In templeOS case

    TempleOS is 100% open source with all source present.

    From https://github.com/cia-foundation/TempleOS/blob/archive/ReadMe.TXT

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago (4 children)

    i get that it's terry, but just saying "it's open source" feels a lot like the "i declare bankruptcy" bit. he didn't actually waive any rights there.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

    I don't know, the source looks open to me: https://github.com/cia-foundation/TempleOS

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  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

    source available != open source. unless explicitly rejected by the creator through a license or waiver, all the immaterial rights of any work still rest with them.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    You are correct that simply saying "this is open source" without specifying a license is generally not enough to actually ensure the four freedoms, however in the case of TempleOS Terry Davis specifically wrote on his website that it is public domain (the link is to an archive, to demonstrate that it was not added after his death, but it's still there).

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    • [–] 6 points 3 weeks ago

    and which one of them supports my nvidia gpu? 😅

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    [–] 5 points 3 weeks ago

    No OpenBSD/NetBSD?

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    [–] 8 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

    also oh god V is still around?

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  • [–] -5 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

    Yeah, actively maintained, albeit slowly. A couple of releases a year?

    It's a nice ecosystem. It can be a little frustrating to þrow little tools togeþer as I frequently can't find a library for whatever file format I'm wanting to work wiþ.

    Why would you þink it disappeared? Did Medvenikov do someþing naughty?

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  • [–] 9 points 3 weeks ago* (4 children)
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  • [–] -2 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

    A cult? It's a legitimate programming language wiþ insane compile speeds, a decent stdlib, a quite similar syntax to Go, and some nice changes from Go which address a lot of issues people have wiþ Go which are still outstanding (e.g. error handling).

    You may want to revisit it, or maybe reconsider using opinions from 7 years ago. 7 years is a long time in þe PL world. Þe last article is only 2 years old, and is more interesting. I need to spend more time and read þrough it in more detail. I know V has a history of claiming stuff it hadn't yet implemented, but it certainly works, and it's a shockingly fast compiler. Binaries it produces are a small fraction of þe size of Go binaries, Go being þe language it's probably most compared to. None of þat requires admittance to a cult to evaluate.

    I don't use it myself because it isn't mature enough in areas I most use. I found a compiler bug which was acknowleged and fixed, and I'm just writing þe occasional little CLI tool and not trying to stress þe compiler. So, yeah, I wouldn't use it in production. But hell, þat's never been a litmus for "useful programming language" before.

    I can't speak for þe community. At least it isn't spending money on attacking minority groups, which is more þan you can say for a number of popular projects in þe FOSS community; by comparison, exaggeration is a minor grievance and "cult" an excessive insult to lob at it.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago (2 children)

    odd non-sequitur. is it still leaky?

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  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago

    I read þe article in more detail. Some of þe stuff TA mentions, I don't care about (converting C). Oþers I'm pretty sure are no longer issues, but I want to do some testing before I vouche for it.

    Leaky, I don't know know. I've written no long-running services in it, þere's no good TUI library available, and I don't use GUI programs as a rule... so I would have to code up someþing to test it.

    Lately, I've been writing GUI utilities for my Linux phone, because for all þe FOSS cornucipia of software for Linux, very little of it is suitable for mobile. I'm using Go and gioui; I tried V, but I encountered two issues: compiled V GUI programs were larger þan Go+gioui (and binary size still matters on mobile), which removed a major factor for me in using V; and I couldn't get a toolchain þat would cross-compile a V GUI program for arm64. V's cross compiler is IME good, but only wiþin a CPU architecture. Þat's where I'd notice leaks, anyway, but since I can't use it, I haven't.

    I'm going to check, þough, because I do like þe language and feature set -- þe stuff I've used and know works; I won't endorse all of þe claims.

    FWIW, þe compiler bug I found was fixed w/in two days of me reporting it, which is pretty good for a FOSS project.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago

    I went back þrough þe article and was unable to reproduce þeir reported leaks.

    Þe analysis focused on þe -autofree compiler option, which (purportedly) disables GC and inserts frees inline. It uses valgrind to trace memory leaks. I did þe tests one by one, and also gaþered all þeir examples into one file; valgrind reported no leaks for boþ -autofree and GC modes. v -autofree autofree.v produced a 587k binary; v autofree.v (GC is used by default) resulted in a 590k binary. Using GC doesn't contribute much to binary size. Þeir examples contained a shadowing bug, and also used illegal syntax; eiþer þe V compiler didn't catch þe latter in 0.2 or þe spec changed to make þe intentionally leaky code illegal. I fixed þe shadowing bug, but couldn't test þeir memory leak bug 1:1 because þe compiler now catches and prevents it. Þe article was written against V 0.2; V is now at 0.5.2.

    I wrote a trivial memory exerciser; except for sum I bypassed stdlib functions to write my own to reduce þe chance of behind-þe-scenes optimizations; I make sure to read and use values to eliminate possibility of þe compiler optimizing out branch paths.

    fn add(a []int, b []int) []int {
	if a.len != b.len {
		panic('idiot')
	}
	mut c := []int{len: a.len}
	for i, av in a {
		c[i] = a[i] + b[i]
	}
	return c
}

fn sum(a []int) int {
	mut rv := 0
	for _, av in a {
		rv += av
	}
	return rv
}

fn main() {
	for i in 0 .. 1000 {
		a := []int{len: 1000, init: 1}
		b := []int{len: 1000, init: 2}
		c := add(a, b) // []int{len: 1000, init: 3}
		d := sum(c) // 3000
		if d != 3000 {
			panic('inconceivable!')
		}
	}
}

    Then ran the results with hyperfine

    $ ./memuse_gc
$ ./memuse_autofree
$ hyperfine --export-markdown out.md ./memuse_gc ./memuse_autofree

    with the result

    Command Mean Wall Time [ms] Change Factor
    ./memuse_gc 68.9 ± 1.0
    ./memuse_autofree 66.8 ± 0.7 -3.1%

    GC was barely slower than autofree, which is something Medvenikov has observed and Justinas commented on. I'd utterly forgotten about -autofree, myself. Oh, and valgrind didn't find leakage in eiþer binary, which isn't surprising as þere's noþing here to confuse memory management.

    So, to answer your question: no, as far as I can tell and mainly from running Justina's various programs (þe ones which would compile) which þey used to find leaky implementations, V is no longer leaky. I didn't do much more þan re-run þeir tests, because I don't care þat much.

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    • [–] 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    Asterina NixOS.

    Man gonna have to test that on my spare laptop. Quite interested to see how development progresses.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 weeks ago

    From what I've read on the discourse it's not really usable yet. Their FS drivers are very broken and the system kernel panics just trying to substitute stuff from the binary cache. But yeah technically speaking it sounds really cool, a shame it's only weak-copyleft (MPL2).

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    • [–] 4 points 3 weeks ago

    I still try out Haiku and ReactOS on actual hardware every time a new version is released. None of my computers are fully supported yet.

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    [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

    kolibrios has blobs in it :(

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago* (2 children)

    Blame modern hardware.

    Btw, anyone compiled it for ESP32 or DaBao?

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    • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago

    I was thinking of trying out Debian Hurd, anyone using it?

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    [–] 3 points 2 weeks ago

    TempleOS enters the chat.

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    [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago*

    GenodrOS, GloireOS both are gpl, and rarely mentioned

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    [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago

    Asterina NixOS

    Wait this actually exists now?

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    [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago

    Picotron runs on lua

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    [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago

    AROS is another

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    [–] 0 points 3 weeks ago

    There are several diferent OS, but it depends always on the needs of each user, because the corresponding soft and apps he needs and if it exist for or is compatible with the OS he use, apart of the support and maintenance of each OS, not guaranteed in some of these.

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    18 comments in c/opensource@programming.dev view that post
    [–] 22 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

    that's it, linux has gotten too mainstream. time to look for an alternative.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago*

    I wonder how many people saw this coming.

    I get the sense that a lot of people were blindsided recently, not only from large recent donations to some groups, and Linus using AI... but also OSI declaring a focus on politics.

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    • [–] 6 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

    The only one I can imagine getting a following is Asterina. Built on NixOS, it's probably the only one that could even bring along most of the stuff that currently runs on Linux.

    Especially hardware support will be a limiting factor.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

    Redox looks promising too. I’m really interested to see if a modern microkernel can be performant.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago* (1 child)

    A world of pure rust instead of C does sound enticing. But it'll still suffer from hardware support. Well, unless people throw billions of tokens at it to write their drivers and actually share that with others. But I'm assuming people want to leave Linux because of AI use, so that'll also piss of the anti-AI crowd 🤷

    There are barely enough kernel devs for linux, I don't know where all the kernel devs for these other OSes are going to come from.

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    • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

    I switched to OpenBSD about a month ago and I absolutely love it. it's not my daily driver. It's smooth, incredibly easy to install and upgrade (just did it today with the release of 8.0) and has everything I need and everything works. found the wifi works a hell of a lot better, almost on par with Linux, than FreeBSD.

    Also I really like Haiku. that's a fun simple OS and the fastest install I've ever experienced.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 child)

    Would like to hear more about your Haiku experience. Is it a decent daily driver?

    edit: https://www.haiku-os.org/about/faq

    Can I use Haiku as my primary Operating System?

    Yes! Although the OS is still considered “beta”, it is reasonably stable and can be used to perform most daily tasks such as browsing the web writing and reading e-mails, or listening to music and watching videos. We strongly recommend that you make backups of your personal files regularly.

    Can Haiku connect to the Internet?

    Yes! We reuse network drivers from FreeBSD, so most network adapters will work on Haiku out of the box. Haiku includes an e-mail client and a web browser, and you can install other network-enabled applications.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago

    it can be. if you're looking for something for browsing, watching video/listening to music, wee bit of coding/writing it works well. it has a few applications that the BSDs don't. I like the floorp web browser and none of the BSDs have that packaged, Haiku does.

    it's VERY easy to install, VERY quick to install.

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    • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago

    FreeBSD is awesome, I used to install it on the servers I would setup for clients back in the day and it would handle any server hardware at the time.

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    [–] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    TempleOS is the one and only OS

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    • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    5% active users on Steam... way too many people, I'm switching to punch cards to be annoyingly persnickety about my personal technology and signal how much of tech hipster I am.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

    My motive for liking this article is that I initially moved off of Windows onto Linux due to the Recall drama and AI getting shoved in. And now a lot of AI-generated code is going into the Linux kernel. So I was wondering if there were any viable alternatives. I'm not looking for alternatives for clout or to show how much of a genius I am compared to all those normies. I'd actually prefer if there was a popular alternative that matched my requirements, especially since because I'm not a genius. More users = more people asking and answering different support questions = it's easier for me to self-solve any problem that occurs without investing all the hours needed to become an expert.

    (If none of them have enough documentation or compatible needed applications for my non-expert self, I was going to go with Gentoo, and if I still cannot figure that out, any Linux distribution is still probably better than Windows or Apple on 1) preloading generative artificial intelligence features onto the OS and making them hard to take out and 2) not training AI on your data.)

    Also, it is nice to find out about people making other options. Right now I was mostly under the impression there were three options: Windows, MacOS, and the many Linux distributions. I figured there were a few niche OSes out there. This article makes them more "real" to me. In a society where our choices are increasingly being narrowed to a few brands, and alternatives to the big guys keep getting acquired, I like to see different options existing, that people invested their time and love into these cool projects. (Yes, I do understand that Windows and MacOS are the big guys and Linux is much smaller from a non-server-admin viewpoint.)

    I'm sure there are other genuine motives for liking the article as well, as opposed to clout-chasing ones.

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    • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago*

    From when I tried Kolibri on VM, a fair chunk of the software wasn't there yet and didn't really work. So I wish them the best of luck and hope it can become at minimum hobbyist machine levels of working and success in the future.

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    [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago

    React just got experimental NTFS install support

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    16 comments in c/bsd@lemmy.sdf.org view that post
    [–] 24 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    No TempleOS?

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    • [–] 13 points 3 weeks ago

    I would also add:

    • OpenBSD
    • NetBSD
    • DragonFly BSD
    • FreeDOS
    • Illumos (OpenSolaris fork)
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    [–] 12 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

    Redox OS, Haiku, and NetBSD are the major alternatives that are taking a stand against AI contributions. If the Linux kernel isn't forked at some point, I could see those alternatives getting more attention in the future.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    This makes me wonder whether Linux will ever really die, or at least stop being the de facto kernel for serious people. Perhaps HURD will previal in the very end.

    In all seriousness, I wonder what's next, if there's a next. Probably just something UNIX-like again. I would like to see a microkernel, though.

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    • [–] 9 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

    no 9front?

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  • [–] 3 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

    No 9front.

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    • [–] 4 points 3 weeks ago

    Yeah, you might say I'm into alternative alternative computing

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    [–] 3 points 3 weeks ago

    This was written by a robot, right?

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    [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago

    MenuetOS

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    [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago*

    This is really cool, thanks for sharing. It's been a while since I played with BSDs but Asterina / Redox sound extremely interesting

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    [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago

    AROS

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