Which is the most unique but usable Operating System?

Question

Well I use Mac OS X 10.6.3 and I find it great but I use VMWare a lot and find Solaris nice but want to know what your favorite Linux Distro BSD "flavor" is or basically any other OS you find cool.

Answer 1

I've used so many operating systems I have trouble describing any of them as "unique", though many are "interesting." Here are a couple you operating systems you may want to try out.



1. QNX



QNX is a realtime operating system often used in embedded devices. It's both very fast on old / weak hardware, and very stable. It doesn't work in all virtual machines, though, because it uses processor features most other systems don't (namely security ring 2). You can download an ISO image here:



http://www.qnx.com/download/feature.html?programid=19608



You can run it as a LiveCD, but to install it to a hard drive, you need to create an account on the website and register for a (free) non-commercial license key.



2. AROS



AROS is designed to be a clone of AmigaOS that will run on x86 computers. Actual software for it is a little sparse, but more software is being ported all the time.



http://aros.sourceforge.net/



3. Haiku



http://www.haiku-os.org/

Answer 2

Solaris is cool, BUT: it is a huge pain in the butt to find, download, and apply patches. The GUI works kind of OK, but otherwise, you have to research on your own what patches you need.



My favorite OS of all time? OpenBSD (not FreeBSD). Why? In more than a decade, there have only been two remote security flaws with that operating system. I double-dog dare you to name another networkable OS that is that secure. Of course, the problem is that Adobe doesn't make Flash for any of the BSD operating systems (unless you count Mac, which is Darwin BSD). As much as I hate Flash, the problems it causes, and Adobe's ironclad control over the standard, I use it a lot. I need it.



FreeBSD has a Linux compatibility mode which allows you to use Flash for Linux, but the way I see it, if I'm running FreeBSD in Linux compatibility mode, then why not use Linux in the first place? Among the Linuxes, I think that Ubuntu is the best for workstations and end-users, while CentOS is best for servers.



Now onto the most "interesting" OS's. I'm torn between two:



ReactOS ( http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html ): while not perfect, they've made quite a lot of progress so far in building an OS from scratch that can run Windows software.



Menuet ( http://www.menuetos.net/ ): Also known as MeOS, this OS is not as feature rich as most others, but it's written ENTIRELY IN ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE. The result is that it's compact and very, very fast.

Answer 3

Ubuntu Linux. Loads of free downloadable apps for it!



You can download the CD Image File (.iso) and burn it to CD or you can request a free CD. Might need a Windows PC in order to use it, but there's a test it will run first - without installing anything- to make sure it will work either way.

Answer 4

I've used them all and I pretty much am done messing with any of them except to fix someones Computer. I use Vista Ultimate and that's all I need. It works awesome and is fast and responsive.

Of course having an Intel Quad core CPU, 8GB RAM and 64bit OS helps.