Notable Projects
This page maintains a list of operating system projects considered to be notable. An operating system is considered notable if it has received some form of success outside of the relatively tiny sphere of hobby operating system development ( e.g. has had a full release, is self-hosting, has been reported on outside of the hobby OSdev world, etc.) or if it has achieved such notability within the operating system development community as a useful answer to the question, "I want to see what kind of operating systems you guys have built"
If you believe your project meets one or more of the criteria above, feel free to add it to the list. The worst that could happen is you fall out of notability due to inactivity.
Everyone is welcome to add their own projects to the regular Projects list of all hobbyist operating systems
Active Notable Alternative Operating Systems
 9frontPlan9front (or 9front) is a fork of the Plan 9 from Bell Labs operating system. The project was started to remedy a perceived lack of devoted development resources inside Bell Labs, and has accumulated various fixes and improvements. Our homepage: http://9front.org/ , our artwork: http://9front.org/propaganda/ |
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 FreeDOSToday, FreeDOS is ideal for anyone who wants to bundle a version of DOS without having to pay a royalty for use of DOS. FreeDOS will also work on old hardware and embedded systems. FreeDOS is also an invaluable resource for people who would like to develop their own operating system. While there are many free operating systems out there, no other free DOS-compatible operating system exists. Sources are here: http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/repositories/1.2/ |
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 Kolibri OSKolibri OS was a fork of the 32-bit version of Menuet OS but has changed much along the way. Despite fitting on a standard 1.44 MB floppy, this wonderful OS contains: the complete GUI desktop, a lot of drivers and great software (such as web browser and music player), system programs and games! The Kernel and most applications, libraries and drivers are written in FASM, but some are in C-- (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-- ; link to their C-- compiler: http://c--sphinx.narod.ru/). At this OS you can write the ASM code and execute it after assembling. Source code is open - http://websvn.kolibrios.org/listing.php?repname=Kolibri+OS - and the contributions are welcome! |
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 SortixSortix is a small self-hosting operating-system aiming to be a clean and modern POSIX implementation. It is a hobbyist operating system written from scratch with its own base system, including kernel and standard library, as well as ports of third party software. It has a straightforward installer and can be developed under itself. Releases come with the source code in /src, ready for tinkering. Our homepage: https://sortix.org/ |
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 VisopsysVisopsys (VISual OPerating SYStem) is an alternative operating system for PC-compatible computers, written “from scratch”, and developed primarily by a single hobbyist programmer since 1997. Its primary "useful feature" is a reasonably functional partition management program - the ‘Disk Manager’, which can create, format, delete, resize, defragment, copy, and move partitions, and modify their attributes. It supports both DOS/MBR and UEFI partition tables. It can also copy hard disks, and has a simple and friendly graphical interface. A basic version can fit on a bootable floppy disk, or you can use the entire system from a ‘live’ CD/DVD |
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 MikeOSMikeOS is an operating system for x86 PCs, written in assembly language. It is a learning tool to show how simple 16-bit, real-mode OSes work, with well-commented code and extensive documentation. It has a BASIC interpreter with 46 instructions, supports over 60 syscalls, could manage a serial terminal connection and output the sound through PC speaker. There is also a file manager, text editor, image viewer and some games |
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 Vanadium OSVanadium OS is a multi-user Unix-like OS. i386, amd64. Fully protected mode. Memory, file and hardware protection. root and unprivileged users. GUI without X, modular kernel, and has a live floppy image with a single user mode! My homepage: http://www.durlej.net/contact ; project pages: http://www.durlej.net/v/ , http://www.durlej.net/nameless , https://github.com/p-durlej/newsys . One of the great features is that you can write C code and instantly compile it to execute |
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 Snowdrop OSSnowdrop OS is a small-scale 16-bit real mode operating system for the IBM PC architecture. Snowdrop was developed from scratch, using only assembly language. Snowdrop boots from a FAT12 filesystem (floppy disk) and comes with a shell, aSMtris (a Tetris clone), and a few other example programs that could greatly simplify the development - for example, see http://sebastianmihai.com/snowdrop/gamedev.php |
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 PrettyOSOS with a simple kernel created for educational purposes. A great care is put on keeping the code as readable as possible. PrettyOS is written in C and some i386 assembly (own bootloader). PrettyOS offers network, FAT12/16/32, uhci, ohci, ehci, xhci. My homepage: http://prettyos.de |
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 tatOSA 32bit x86 OS written in assembly featuring a protected mode driver for USB flash drive and mouse. Source package includes tedit editor and ttasm assembler. Supports UHCI, EHCI, PS2 keyboard and 800x600x8bpp graphics - has a basic GUI |
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 TempleOSTempleOS is a 64 bit lightweight OS with multitasking and multicore support, which is ring-0-only and works in a single address space. It provides the interface for communicating with God: the user has to choose a random number from the constantly changing sequences and then it is converted to the text interpretation. Whole OS with its' software has been single-handedly created during 15 years by Terry A Davis - who also developed a programming language called Holy C together with a special compiler for it. TempleOS supports the FAT32 and RedSea filesystems (the latter created by Terry) and also the file compression. It doesn't support the networking, partially for ideological reasons, but there are forks available with added functionality |
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