If you could make a non-linux OS go mainstream, which one would you pick?

I make the specification of non-linux because otherwise this would just become a thread full of obscure distros that do the same thing as a million other distros.

Some lesser known OSs:

  • AROS - based on Amiga OS, has some derivatives like IcarOS and MorphOS
  • Haiku - based on BeOS
  • Redox - Unix-like, made in Rust (might technically count as linux?)
  • Serenity - Unix-like, very late 90s look and feel
  • Kolibri - Tiny OS, the image is ~44MB. It also has a smaller version that fits in a single floppy.
  • PhantomOS - When 3 Russians decide to turn everything about a typical OS upside down.
maniii ,

I wish Nokia N900 / N950 with Maemo or Meego OS. And full opensource, full MPL or MIT licensed.

I truly wish SailfishOS could be that replacement but I've been burnt too many times already.

yogthos ,
@yogthos@lemmy.ml avatar

Definitely Haiku, BeOS had a lot of neat ideas in it.

Andromxda ,
@Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

ReactOS would be kinda fun

Admetus ,

Back to the ol' times of Windows.

maniii ,

That too NT 5.x ! I wish we had stuck with Windows 2000 Professional.

Andromxda ,
@Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Here's the link for Redox OS btw: https://www.redox-os.org/

mexicancartel ,

Guix GNU/Hurd of course lol

Melatonin ,

GEM

Because it's truly outrageous

ICastFist OP ,
@ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

This? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEM_(desktop_environment)

Melatonin ,

Yes. My first computer was an Atari 520ST. No hard drive, 520k of ram, and and GEM ran on a dedicated chip.

It's a graphical shell over DOS, but still exists.

A7thStone ,

I'll second GEM. The 520ST was my first computer as well.

Melatonin ,

It did a lot with a little!

xia ,

Maybe minix? Because microkernel.

JackbyDev ,

Honestly, if I had this magic power, I'd pick something like Ubuntu or Fedora. The exact pick doesn't matter, I don't want this to devolve into a holy war, but I want to "The Year of the Linux Desktop" to stop being a tongue in cheek meme. I want Windows and Apple to have to make meaningful changes to maintain their market share.

BaumGeist , (edited )

Redox isn't Linux, it uses its own kernel. I want this one to succeed above all others, just because Rust was born to perform this kind of application: guaranteed memory safety when dealing with tens of thousands of lines of code handling hundreds of moving parts running thousands of different tasks, all at a very low level.

I'll second Plan 9, just because it sounds like scifi and truly takes advantage of how interconnected all computing hardware has become.

Third place goes to anything based on GNU Hurd. The microkernel architecture intrigues me, and I'd like to know how it effects the end user. Plus I'm just a big fan of the copyleft/FOSS aspect.

Also, I'd just like any mobile device alternative that's not AOSP, and Linux seems like a bad fit for mobile in general. Why do we need a fully-featured, all-purpose kernel when we're only gonna put it on a known number of SoCs and therefore a known set of hardware configurations? We could be optimizing the hell out of our privacy-friendly mobile OSes, but instead we've shackled ourselves to google or linux

deathbird ,

Haiku, but honestly I'm just happy to see the conversations here

CanadaPlus ,

Nobody's mentioned Guix. It's a GNU project, which is like Nix, but has a number of novel features. I'll copy in from my own thread about it:

Based on what I’ve heard so far: GNU Shepard instead of systemd, a package manager that compiles things from source and allows user-defined compiler options, a totally different way of arranging system files, and Guile-Scheme is used for everything; it sounds like there’s no other kind of configuration anywhere.

It's planned to be Hurd compatible, so I'd argue it counts.

stoy ,

There are a few aspects we need to consider...

For the UI, I would go with beOS, Haiku is cool, but the look is a bit too modern, I love the clean look of beOS's UI

For the best compabillity, after a lot of work, ReactOS, a project aiming to create an open source os that is binary compatible with Windows 2000.

pastermil ,

seL4

A formally verified microkernel

d3Xt3r ,

Serenity for sure. I love the 90s aesthetic and would like to see it make a comeback. At the very least I'd like to see their Ladybird browser become mainstream - we really need more alternatives to the Chromium family.

Crozekiel ,

That "Unix" os from the og jurassic park movie.

Malgas ,

That was actually Unix. Specifically the fsn file manager for IRIX.

There's a Linux clone called fsv.

Crozekiel ,

That's real?! TIL...

I can't decide if that changes my answer or not... lol Seems like a cumbersome way to browse files, but maybe that's because it isn't how I've learned...

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