Comparison Of Operating Systems

The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of operating systems. Please see the individual products' articles for further information. The tables specifically do not include subjective viewpoints on the merits of each operating system. For this kind of information, please see operating system advocacy. Due to the size and variety in differing Linux distributions available, a separate article compares different Linux distributions. See comparison of Linux distributions.

General

Basic general information about the operating systems: creator/company, license/price etc.
!Creator !First public release date !Predecessor !Stable version !Cost (USD) !Preferred license2 !Target Audience
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Amiga OS Commodore International,
Amiga (from v.3.5),
Hyperion Entertainment (from v.4.0)
1985 None 4.0 $ ??? Proprietary Home Desktop, Media creators
tyle="background: #ececec;"| BeOS Be November 1996 None 5.03 $49 Professional, Free Personal Proprietary Home Desktop, Media creators
tyle="background: #ececec;"| FreeBSD The FreeBSD Project December 1993 386BSD 5.3 Free BSD Server, Enthusiast
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Linux colspan="15" style="background: #fff; text-align: left;" |
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Mac OS Apple January 1984 None1 9.2 Free up to 7.6.1, 9.2 is $20 for Mac OS X owners Proprietary Artists, Designers, Home Desktop
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Mac OS X Apple March 2001 OPENSTEP, FreeBSD, Mach 10.3 (Panther) $129 or bundled Proprietary
Partially open source (APSL)
Artists, Designers, Home Desktop, Music creators
tyle="background: #ececec;"| NetBSD The NetBSD project May 1993 386BSD 2.0 Free BSD Server, Research, Software development and portability, Embedded systems, Security, Fast-To-Market hardware, Enthusiast
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Netware Novell 1985 S-Net 6.5
(current version)
$184 base price + 1 user connection
(as of 1/1/2005)
Proprietary Server, Secure Domain, Clustering
tyle="background: #ececec;"| OpenBSD OpenBSD project October 1995 NetBSD 3.6 Free BSD Server, Enthusiast, Security Professional
tyle="background: #ececec;"| OpenVMS Digital Equipment Corporation
(now Hewlett Packard)
February 1978 RSX-11M 8.2
(current version)
Free for non-commercial use Hobbyist, Proprietary Server, Enthusiast, Secure Domain, Batch, Fully-Shared Clustering
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Plan 9 from Bell Labs Bell Labs 1993 Unix Fourth Edition Free LPL (OSI approved) Research, software development, distributed systems, high performance computing, embedded systems.
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Solaris Sun July 1992 SunOS 10 Free CDDL Server, Business Desktop
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Windows Server 2003 Microsoft 23 April 2003 Windows 2000 5.2.3790 + SP1 $999 (Std Ed, 5 clients)
$1,199 (Std Ed, 10 clients)
$3,999 (32/64-bit Ent Ed, 25 clients)
Proprietary Server
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Windows XP Microsoft 25 October 2001 Windows 2000 5.1.2600 + SP2 $199 (Home)
$299 (Professional)
Proprietary Home and Business Desktop
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Windows Me Microsoft 14 September 2000 Windows 98 4.90.3000 $209 Proprietary Home Desktop
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Windows 2000 Microsoft February 2000 Windows 2000 5.00.2195 + SP4 $319 (Professional)
$1,199 (Std Server, 10 clients)
$3,999 (Adv Server, 25 clients)
Proprietary Server, Business Desktop
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Windows 98 Microsoft April 1999 Windows 95 4.10.2222
(Windows 98 SE)
$209 Proprietary Home Desktop
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Windows NT 4.0 Microsoft August 1993 (Workstation), 1995 (Server) Windows NT 3.51 4.00.1381 + SP 6a $319 (Workstation)
$809 (Server, 5 clients), $1,1619 (Server, 25 clients)
Proprietary Business Desktop
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Windows 3.x Microsoft March 1992 Windows 2.0 Windows for Workgroups 3.11 ? Proprietary Home Desktop
!Creator !First public release date !Predecessor !Stable version !Cost (USD) !Preferred license2 !Target Audience
1 Although Lisa OS ran on the same microprocessor and was being developed at the same time by the same company as Mac OS, very little code was shared between the two. http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Hungarian.txt 2 Most OS distributions include bundled software with various other licenses.

Technical

Information on technical aspects of the operating systems.
!Kernel type !Default file system !Other major file systems supported !Architectural support
(first, primary platform) !Default online OS update tool !Default package management/
software installation tool !Main API and language
for GUI applications !Main API and language
for textual/CLI applications
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Amiga OS Microkernel FFS OFS, SFS, FAT, UDF, ISO 9660, HFS 68K, PPC NA Setup executable, Amiga Installer Amiga OS API Amiga OS API with C++
tyle="background: #ececec;"| BeOS Microkernel/
Monolithic
hybrid
BFS ext2, FAT, NTFS, UDF, ISO 9660, HFS x86, PPC SoftwareValet SoftwareValet Be API Be API with C++
(POSIX conforming)
tyle="background: #ececec;"| FreeBSD Module-loading
monolithic
UFS2 ext2, FAT, NTFS, ISO 9660, UDF, NFS x86, Alpha, x86-64, IA64, MIPS, PC98, SPARC64 By source (CVSup) packages, ports tree Various (no default) BSD with C, various other
(POSIX conforming)
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Linux colspan="15" style="background: #fff; text-align: left;" |
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Mac OS Nanokernel HFS/HFS+ ISO 9660, UDF PPC, 68K Software Update Apple Installer Carbon style="background-color: #ececec" | N/A
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Mac OS X Microkernel/
Monolithic
hybrid
(XNU)
HFS+ UFS, AFP, ISO 9660, FAT, UDF, NFS, NTFS PPC Software Update Installer Cocoa/Application Kit
Carbon
Cocoa/Foundation Kit with Objective-C
tyle="background: #ececec;"| NetBSD Module-loading
monolithic
UFS ext2, FAT, NTFS, ISO 9660, NFS, UFS2, LFS x86, 40+ others By source (CVS) or (FTP),
also binary patch releases
packages (pkg_add),
pkgsrc tree
Various (no default) BSD with C, various other
(POSIX conforming)
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Netware Microkernel/
Monolithic
hybrid
NSS NWFS, FAT, NFS, AFP, UDF, ISO 9660 x86, x86-64 http://download.novell.com nwconfig, ConsoleOne Java x86 assembly language, Netware API with C
tyle="background: #ececec;"| OpenBSD Monolithic UFS ext2, FAT, NTFS, ISO 9660, NFS x86, Alpha, x86-64, HP3000, PA-RISC, Mac/VME 68k, VME 88k, PPC, SPARC, SPARC64, VAX By source (CVS) or (FTP) packages (pkg_add),
ports tree
Various (no default) BSD with C, various other
(POSIX conforming)
tyle="background: #ececec;"| OpenVMS Privilege ring,
modular-subsystem,
real time kernel
Files-11 ISO 9660, NFS VAX, Alpha, IA64, CHARON-VAX Emulator http://www1.sqp.com PCSI
VMSINSTALL
Various
(language neutral,
no default),
CDE
Various
(language neutral,
no default),
ANSI VT100
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Plan 9 from Bell Labs Monolithic, user space file systems. fossil/venti, 9P2000 kfs, ext2, FAT, ISO 9660 x86, SPARC, x86-64, 68k, i960, Alpha, MIPS, ARM, PowerPC, and others. replica http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/Staying_up_to_date/index.html mk C, draw C, rc
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Solaris Module-loading
Monolithic
UFS/ZFS ext2, FAT, NTFS, ISO 9660, UDF, NFS SPARC, SPARC64, x86, x86-64 http://sunsolve.sun.com System V packages (pkgadd) Various (no default) SysV with C, various other
(POSIX conforming)
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Windows XP Microkernel/
Monolithic
hybrid
NTFS FAT, ISO 9660, UDF x86, x86-64 Windows Update Setup executable, Microsoft Installer Win32
MFC
.NET
Win32
MFC
.NET
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Windows 98 ? FAT32 FAT16, FAT12 x86 Windows Update Setup executable Win32, Win16, DirectX Win32, Win16
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Windows 3.x ? FAT16 FAT12 x86 None Setup executable Win16 Win16
!Kernel type !Default file system !Other major file systems supported !Architectural support
(first, primary platform) !Default online OS update tool !Default package management/
software installation tool !Main API and languagefor GUI applications !Main API and language
for textual/CLI applications

Features

Information on features in the operating systems. Note that defaults shown as N/A (not available) simply mean that the system has no default and that the user has a plethora of choices of implementations to install via available packages.
!Graphics software and capabilites1 !Default Filesystem Browser !Default desktop environment !Default window manager !Default GUI styling
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Amiga OS Integrated into OS Workbench Workbench Integrated into OS Amiga OS default.
tyle="background: #ececec;"| BeOS User/Kernel hybrid:
Applications Server
Tracker Tracker Applications Server Applications Server default.
tyle="background: #ececec;"| FreeBSD User program:
X Window System
style="background-color: #ececec" | N/A style="background-color: #ececec" | N/A twm
(not installing GNOME/KDE at install)
twm default
(not installing GNOME/KDE at install)
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Linux colspan="15" style="background: #fff; text-align: left;" |
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Mac OS Kernel based Finder Finder Mac toolbox Platinum
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Mac OS X User level:
Quartz Compositor
Finder Quartz Compositor, Finder & Dock Quartz Compositor Aqua
tyle="background: #ececec;"| NetBSD User program:
X Window System
style="background-color: #ececec" | N/A style="background-color: #ececec" | N/A twm twm default
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Netware Executive or Supervisor-mode
programs using XFree86
ConsoleOne file browser ConsoleOne fvwm ConsoleOne
tyle="background: #ececec;"| OpenBSD User program:
X Window System
style="background-color: #ececec" | N/A style="background-color: #ececec" | N/A fvwm fvwm default
tyle="background: #ececec;"| OpenVMS Executive, Supervisor, or
User-mode programs using
X Window System
CDE File Manager CDE DECW$MWM Motif CDE
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Plan 9 from Bell Labs Rio (Plan 9) / /dev/draw rio's window + rc or Acme Rio Rio Rio
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Solaris User program:
X Window System
CDE File Manager
or Nautilus
CDE or Java Desktop System dtwm (for CDE), Metacity for Java Desktop System CDE/Java Desktop System
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Windows XP Kernel based Windows Explorer Windows Explorer win32k.sys Luna-styled interface
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Windows 98 Kernel based Windows Explorer Windows Explorer ? Classic style interface
tyle="background: #ececec;"| Windows 3.x GDI File Manager Program Manager gdi.exe (?) ?
!Graphics software and capabilites1 !Default Filesystem Browser !Default desktop environment !Default window manager !Default GUI styling
1 Graphics software is either kernel-based or can run as a user-level program.

See also

External links

Operating systems *

 

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