12 Alternative Operating Systems You Can Use Today

Bored of Windows, Mac OS or Linux? There is more to try than just the standard 'big three' OSes. I take a look at 12 amazingly alternative Operating Systems you can use.

Operating Systems mentioned:

Sources used in this video:

#retrocomputing #operatingsystems #computing

[kneekoo]

Others worth mentioning:
- FreeBSD (quite surprised it wasn't mentioned, as it's very well known in the industry)
- MenuetOS (programmed in assembly language, super efficient, although not enough software)
- Redox (young OS, programmed in Rust, remarkable for the progress in its latest release, already capable of playing Doom and Duke 3D, along with DOSBox for plenty of DOS games)

[phobet]

I remember running OS/2 Warp back in the day. It really was a "Better Windows than Windows, Better DOS than DOS". It was absolutely hard to kill, and much more stable then either of them.

[custardo]

When using Haiku
Expect frequent encounters
With faults and poems

[MARRANCA]

I was a hardcore BeOS user. I loved the speed and the security. When Be died, a piece of me did, too

[JelloPotate]

did not expect temple OS on here. Props

[krzychaczu]

10:43 Many don't realise, that they have MINIX embedded inside of their Intel processor, up and running even when the computer is "powered off".
BSD family systems, like FreeBSD are missing, despite having much larger user groups than many mentioned here.

[wasd____]

I wish ReactOS was moving more quickly in development. It'd be nice to have a meaningful, fully working alternative to Microsoft's Windows.

[MetalTrabant]

This video is a goldmine for geeks loving to explore some very obscure OS's! Thanks for the suggestions, will definitely try some of them! I've only tried ReactOS and Minix so far, the rest is almost completely unknown to me...

[skaruts]

Legend has it Haiku's REAL source code is only 3 lines of code.

[mikewoodman]

Man oh man I remember BeOS back in the day! As I recall, it allowed the user to load the OS entirely into RAM from a CD or DVD so you didn't need to fully install it to try it out - so that's what I I did. It was fun for about 30 minutes, exploring how it does this or displays that - and then I had the sobering thought "what now? I can't load any software onto this whatsoever". And so, I rebooted into Windows and moved on. Kind of sad nothing became of it.

[andersj]

Great video!
That wallpaper on the Amiga OS 4 was a nice touch. SAAB 900 is a classic!

[renatomartins]

So... This explains why the "big three" are the "big three" operating systems

[redemerald]

You forgot to mention that minix runs on pretty much every Intel PC these days inside the Management Engine that is built into every Intel CPU. This probably makes it the most widely-used OS you showed here.

[nytrex]

Glad to see RISC OS getting some love. A tiny OS with big potential.

[Peeves]

I was worried this would just be a bunch of linux distros, but there were so many cool and niche os listed here! Awesome video!

[Longplay_Games]

I'm just stoked you went the whole time without mentioning Plan 9 :D

[alasdairlumsden]

Great video, and nice to see a mention of OpenSolaris. The kernel and core userland of Solaris was forked as illumos, but the OpenSolaris distribution was forked as OpenIndiana. There are quite a few distros based on the illumos core, including some quite advanced ones such as SmartOS, designed for cloud computing.

[eternafuentedeluzdivina]

An OS without apps is like a city without people...

[kquat]

"amazingly alternative" rather than "amazing alternative".

[dappermuis]

Archimedes now that brings back happy memories. My dad ordered the PC's from England. We had been using them as far back as the BBC's. Needless to say we were not happy when they stopped making PC's. Going to Windows after using that, was like someone taking your sports car away and giving you a skateboard to work with :-( Especially when most people here if they had a computer were either using DOS or 3.1 or maybe 95. Back in 87 we already had 'windows' on a Archimedes while everyone else was using DOS. So never really took to Microsoft. Some of the Features we had on the Archimedes were only eventually covered by Windows in Windows 8!. But I must admit for what it could do, XP was the one that was usable didn't really take to 7 and oh man don't get me started on the mess that is 10. I'm now using Linux Mint and am very happy.