AtheOS

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AtheOS was a free software Unix-like operating system for x86-based computers. (The name is a contraction of Athena Operating System; no reference to atheism was ever intended. It was previously called AltOS.) It was initially intended as an AmigaOS clone, but that objective was later abandoned. It is no longer in development, and has been superseded by the Syllable operating system.

[edit] History

It was created entirely by a Norwegian programmer, Kurt Skauen, from 1994 to the early 2000s; AtheOS was announced to the world in March 2000 on Usenet. Although it was licensed as open source software, Skauen was more hesitant to accept contributions from the public than other open source operating system projects. He ceased development of it and the project is generally considered dead. But the free availability of the source code under the GPL allowed other developers to launch Syllable, a fork from the stagnant AtheOS code base, with ongoing development.

Skauen ported KHTML to AtheOS in order to create the ABrowse web browser.

The AtheOS homepage at http://atheos.syllable-norden.info/

[edit] Features

• Its own native 64-bit journaling file system, the AtheOS File System (usually called AFS)
• Support for symmetric multiprocessing
• An original, legacy-free, object-oriented GUI architecture
• Support for most of the POSIX standard
• Pre-emptive multitasking with multithreading
• C++ oriented API

[edit] External links

• Interview With The AtheOS Creator, Kurt Skauen - OSNews (27th August, 2001)
• AtheOS Wizard Kurt Skauen Tells All - Slashdot (7th September, 2001)

	Preceding:
	Subsequent:	Syllable