Comparison of operating systems
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of widely used and currently available operating systems. Please see the individual products' articles for further information.
Due to the large number and variety of available Linux distributions, all of these operating systems are grouped under a single entry in these tables. See comparison of Linux distributions for a detailed comparison. There are also a wide variety of minor BSD operating systems, many of which can be found at Comparison of BSD operating systems.
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.
Contents |
[edit] General information
| Creator | First public release | Predecessor | Latest stable version | Cost (USD) | Preferred license1 | Target system type | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Version | Release Date | |||||||
| AIX | IBM | 1986 | System V R3 | 5.3 | August 2004 | Bundled with hardware | Proprietary | Server, Network Appliance, Workstation |
| AmigaOS | Amiga, Inc. | July 23, 1985 | TRIPOS (as the disk operating component of AmigaOS) | 4.0 | July 2005 | Bundled with hardware | Proprietary, Clones available under GNU GPL | Workstation, Home Desktop |
| FreeBSD | The FreeBSD Project | December 1993 | 386BSD | 6.1 | May 8, 2006 | Free | BSD | Server, Workstation, Network Appliance |
| HP-UX | Hewlett-Packard | 1983 | Unix | 11.23 "11i v2" | December 2005 | $400 | Proprietary | Server, Workstation |
| i5/OS | IBM | 1988 | OS/400 | V5R3 | May 2004 | Bundled with hardware | Proprietary | Server |
| IRIX | SGI | 1998 | Unix | 6.5.30 | August 2006 | Bundled with hardware and with updates available through overlays obtained from SGI Support | Proprietary | Server, Workstation |
| Inferno | Bell Labs | 1997 | Plan 9 | Fourth Edition | July 2005 | Free | MIT/GPL/LGPL/LPL | Network Appliance, Server, Embedded |
| GNU/Linux | September 1991 | Minix5 | Kernel 2.6.19 | November 29, 2006 | Free | Usually GNU GPL/Copyleft | See: Comparison of Linux distributions | |
| Mac OS | Apple Computer | January 1984 | None2 | 9.2.2 | May 12, 2002 | Free with OS X for PowerPC3 | Proprietary | Workstation, Home Desktop |
| Mac OS X | Apple Computer | March 2001 | NeXTSTEP, Mac OS | 10.4.8 "Tiger" | September 29, 2006 | Bundled with hardware (but also sold separately) Desktop $129 (Single User) Family Pack $199 (5 license) |
Open source core system (Both Intel and Power PC versions) (APSL, GPL, others) with proprietary higher level API layers | Workstation, Home Desktop |
| Mac OS X Server | 10.4.8 | Bundled with hardware (but also sold separately) $499 (10 clients) $999 (unlimited clients) |
Server | |||||
| NetBSD | The NetBSD Project | May 1993 | 386BSD | 3.1 | November 4, 2006 | Free | BSD | Network Appliance, Server, Workstation, Embedded |
| NetWare | Novell | 1985 | S-Net | 6.5 SP5a | May 2006 | $184 (1 user connection) | Proprietary | Server |
| OpenBSD | The OpenBSD Project | October 1995 | NetBSD 1.0 | 4.0 | Nov 1, 2006 | Free | BSD | Server, Network Appliance, Workstation, Embedded |
| OpenVMS | DEC (now HP) | February 1978 | RSX-11M | 8.3 | August 2006 | Free for non-commercial use | Proprietary | Server |
| OS/2 | IBM and Microsoft | December 1987 | MS-DOS | 4.52 | December 2001 | $300 | Proprietary | Home Desktop, Server |
| PC-BSD | PC-BSD Software | 2006 | FreeBSD6 | 1.2 | July 12, 2006 | Free | BSD | Desktop, Workstation, Server |
| Plan 9 | Bell Labs | 1993 | Unix | Fourth Edition | (Daily snapshots) | Free | LPL | Workstation, Server, Embedded, HPC |
| Solaris | Sun | July 1992 | SunOS | 10 11/06 | December, 2006 | Free | CDDL | Server, Workstation |
| Windows Server 2003 | Microsoft | April 2003 | Windows 2000 | Windows NT 5.2 SP1 | March 30, 2005 | $379 Web Edition, $450 Small Business Server (Includes Exchange, ISA 2004, and more) | Proprietary | Server, Network Appliance, Embedded, HPC |
| Windows | Microsoft | October 2001 (Windows XP) | Windows Me, Windows 2000 | Windows NT 5.24(Windows XP Professional x64) | (August 6, 2004) | Home $199, Professional $299 (at launch, now cheaper) | Proprietary | Workstation, Home Desktop, Embedded |
| RISC OS | Acorn Computers, RISC OS Limited | March 8, 2006 | ARTHUR, also the BBC Master OS | RISC OS 4.39 "Adjust" | $127 (£70) | Proprietary; originally bundled with computer | educational desktop, home computer | |
| yellowTAB ZETA | yellowTAB | June 2005 | BeOS R5 | 1.2 | April 27, 2006 | Professional $110, Student $80 | Proprietary | Home Desktop, Media Workstation |
| STOP 6 / XTS-400 | BAE Systems | 2003 | STOP 5 / XTS-300 | 6.3 | June 2006 | contact BAE Systems | Proprietary | Server, Workstation, cross-domain solution, network guard |
| Creator | First public release | Predecessor | Version | Release Date | Cost (USD) | Preferred license1 | Target system type | |
Note 1: Most OS distributions include bundled software with various other licenses.
Note 2: Although Lisa OS ran on the same microprocessor and was developed by Apple Computer at the same time as Mac OS, very little code was shared between the two. [1]
Note 3: Mac OS versions up to 7.5.5 are available free of charge here.
Note 4: Version NT 5.2 is the latest release of Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. The latest 32-bit build is version NT 5.1 SP2
Note 5: Minix inspired Linux. No code from Minix was used to create the Linux kernel
Note 6: PC-BSD uses FreeBSD as a base system with custom configuration and several desktop oriented tools to create a easy to use FreeBSD system for Desktops and Workstations.
[edit] Technical information
| Supported architectures | Supported file systems | Kernel type | Lines of code | GUI on by default6 | Package management | Update management | Primary APIs7 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AIX | POWER, PPC | JFS, JFS2, ISO 9660, UDF, NFS, SMBFS, GPFS | Monolithic | No | installp, RPM | Service Update Management Assistant (SUMA) | SysV, POSIX | |
| AmigaOS | 68k, PPC | Proprietary (OFS, FFS,SFS, PFS), FAT, ISO 9660, UDF, many others via 3rd party drivers | Microkernel | Yes | Installer (almost not necessary)19 | none (almost not necessary) | Proprietary, POSIX environment functions available thru GNU licensed Amiga ixemul.library | |
| FreeBSD | x86, x86-64, PC98, SPARC, others | UFS2, ext2, ext3, FAT, ISO 9660, UDF, NFS, ReiserFS (read only), XFS (experimental) and others | Monolithic with modules | No | ports tree, packages | by source (CVSup, portsnap), network binary update (freebsdupdate) | BSD, POSIX | |
| HP-UX | PA-RISC,IA-64 | VxFS, HFS, ISO 9660, UDF, NFS, SMBFS | Monolithic with modules | No | swinstall | ? | SysV, POSIX | |
| GNU/Linux | x86, x86-64, PPC, SPARC, Alpha, others | ext2, ext3, ext4, ReiserFS, FAT, ISO 9660, UDF, NFS, and others | Monolithic with modules | See: Comparison of Linux distributions | POSIX | |||
| Inferno | x86, PPC, SPARC, Alpha, MIPS, others | Styx/9P2000, kfs, FAT, ISO 9660 | Monolithic with modules, user space file systems | Yes | - | ? | proprietary | |
| Mac OS Classic | 68k, PPC | HFS+, HFS, AFP, ISO 9660, FAT, UDF | Monolithic with modules | Yes | Apple Installer | Software Update | proprietary, Carbon | |
| Mac OS X | PPC, x86 | HFS+ (default), HFS, UFS, AFP, ISO 9660, FAT, UDF, NFS, SMBFS, NTFS (read only), FTP, WebDAV | Hybrid | ~86 million | Yes | Mac OS X Installer | Software Update | Carbon, Cocoa, BSD/POSIX, X11 (since 10.3) |
| NetBSD | x86, x86-64, PPC, SPARC, 68k, Alpha, others | UFS, UFS2, ext2, FAT, ISO 9660, NFS, LFS, and others | Monolithic with modules | No8 | pkgsrc | by source (CVS, CVSup, rsync) or binary (using sysinst) | BSD, POSIX | |
| NetWare | x86 | NSS, NWFS, FAT, NFS, AFP, UDF, CIFS, ISO 9660 | Hybrid | No | NWCONFIG.NLM, RPM, X-Windows-based GUI installer | binary updates, Red Carpet | proprietary | |
| OES-Linux | x86 PPC | NSS, NFS, AFP, UDF, CIFS, ISO 9660 | Monolithic with modules | No | RPM, X-Windows-based GUI installer | binary updates, Red Carpet | proprietary | |
| OpenBSD | x86, x86-64, SPARC, 68k, Alpha, VAX, others | ffs, ext2, FAT, ISO 9660, NFS, some others | Monolithic with modules | No8 | ports tree, packages | by source | BSD, POSIX | |
| OpenVMS | VAX, Alpha, IA-64 | Files-11, ISO 9660, NFS | Monolithic with modules | No | PCSI, VMSINSTAL | - | proprietary, Unix-like | |
| OS/2 | x86 | HPFS, JFS, FAT, ISO 9660, UDF, NFS | Monolithic | Yes | Feature Install and others | - | proprietary | |
| PC-BSD | x86 10 | UFS2, ext2, ext3, FAT, ISO 9660, UDF, NFS, ReiserFS (read only), XFS (experimental) and others | Monolithic with modules | Yes | ports tree, packages, PBI Graphical Installers | by PBI updates, source (CVSup, portsnap), network binary update (freebsdupdate) | BSD, POSIX | |
| Plan 9 | x86, Alpha, MIPS, PPC, SPARC, others | fossil/venti, 9P2000, kfs, ext2, FAT, ISO 9660 | Monolithic, user space file systems | Yes | None | replica | Unix-like (and optional POSIX compatibility layer) | |
| Solaris | x86, x86-64, SPARC | UFS, ZFS, ext2, FAT, ISO 9660, UDF, NFS, some others | Monolithic with modules | Yes | SysV packages (pkgadd) | Sun Update Connection | SysV, POSIX | |
| Windows Server | x86, x86-64, IA-64 | NTFS, FAT, ISO 9660, Ext29, Ext39, UDF | Hybrid | Yes | MSI, custom installers | Windows Update | Windows API, .NET | |
| Windows | x86, x86-64, IA-64 | NTFS, FAT,Ext29,Ext39, ISO 9660, UDF | Hybrid | ~40 million | Yes | MSI, custom installers | Windows Update | Windows API, .NET |
| RISC OS | ARM (both 26 and 32-bit) | Acorn ADFS, Econet ANFS, FAT, ISO9660, many others as loadable filesystems | Unprotected monotasking microkernel with large number of relocatable modules | Yes | Applications self-contained; hardware drivers often in ROM | No | Huge number of SWI calls; extensive C libraries | |
| yellowTAB ZETA | x86 | BFS (default), FAT, ISO 9660, UDF, HFS, AFP, ext2, CIFS, NTFS (read only), ReiserFS (read only, up to v3.6) | Hybrid | Yes | SoftwareValet, script-based installers | none | POSIX, BeOS API | |
| STOP 6 / XTS-400 | x86 | proprietary | Monolithic | No | RPM for some untrusted applications | binary updates via snail-mail and proprietary tools | some SysV, some POSIX, some Linux, some proprietary | |
| Supported architectures | Supported file systems | Kernel type | Lines of code | GUI on by default6 | Package management | Update management | Primary APIs7 | |
Note 6: Operating systems where the GUI is not installed and turned on by default are often bundled with an implementation of the X Window System. However, installing X is usually optional.
Note 7: Most operating systems use proprietary APIs in addition to any supported standards.
Note 8: NetBSD and OpenBSD includes the X Window System as base install sets rather than packages within the ports collection. It includes some local changes and is managed as part of the NetBSD/OpenBSD source tree.
Note 9: Windows can read or write to Ext2 and Ext3 file systems only when a driver from FS-driver or ext2fsd is installed. However, using Explore2fs, Windows can read, but not write, from Ext2 and Ext3 file systems.
Note 10: only i686 CPU
Note 19: Amiga OS features since OS 2.0 version a standard centralized Install utility called Installer, which could be used by any software house to install programs. It works as a LISP language interpreter, and install procedures could be listed as simple text. AmigaOS can also benefit of a 3rd party copyrighted library called XPKMaster.Library. This library is freely distributable and publicly available on Aminet Amiga centralized repository of all Open Source or Free programs and utilities. XPKMaster.Library, complete with GUI, it is made on modules and capable to manage over 300 compression methods and package systems, including those widely accepted as standards such as such as .ZIP, .CAB, .LHA, .LZX, .RPM, etc.
[edit] Security
| Resource access control | Subsystem isolation mechanisms | Integrated firewall | Encrypted file systems | Data execution prevention | Known unpatched vulnerabilities9 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| hardware | emulation | number | oldest | |||||
| AIX | Unix, ACLs | chroot | IP Filter, IPSec VPNs, basic IDS | No | ? | 2 | 2002-10-11 | |
| FreeBSD | Unix, ACLs, MAC | chroot, jail, MAC Partitions | IPFW2, IPFilter, PF | Yes | ? | 0 | - | |
| HP-UX | Unix, ACLs | chroot | IPFilter | No | ? | 0 | - | |
| Inferno | Unix | Namespaces | ? | ? | No | No | n/a | |
| GNU/Linux | Unix, ACLs10, MAC | chroot, Capability-based security11, seccomp, SELinux, IPSec | Netfilter/Varied by distribution | Yes | Yes | No12 | See comparison of Linux distributions | |
| Mac OS Classic | none | none | none | No | No | No | 0 | - |
| Mac OS X | Unix, ACLs13 | chroot | ipfw | Yes | ? | 4 | 2006-11-02 | |
| NetBSD | Unix, Veriexec | chroot, systrace | IPFilter, PF | Yes | Yes | No | n/a | |
| NetWare | Directory-enabled ACLs | Protected Address Spaces | IPFLT.NLM | Yes | Yes | No | n/a | |
| OES-Linux | Directory-enabled ACLs | chroot | IPFilter | Yes | Yes | No | n/a | |
| OpenBSD | Unix | chroot, systrace | PF | Yes | Yes | Yes | 0 | - |
| OpenVMS | ACLs | logical name tables | ? | ? | ? | 0 | - | |
| OS/2 | ACLs14 | none | none | No | ? | n/a | ||
| PC-BSD | Unix, ACLs, MAC | chroot, jail, MAC Partitions | IPFW2, IPFilter, PF | Yes18 | ? | 0 | - | |
| Plan 9 | Unix (?) | Namespaces | ipmux | Yes | No | No | n/a | |
| Solaris | Unix, RBAC, ACLs, Privileges | chroot, Containers15 | IPFilter | ? | Yes | No | 2 | 2005-04-13 |
| Windows Server 2003 | ACLs | Win32 WindowStation, Desktop, Job objects | Windows Firewall,IPSec TCP\IP Filtering | Yes | Yes | Yes | 9 | 2003-06-11 |
| Windows | ACLs | Win32 WindowStation, Desktop, Job objects | Windows Firewall (XP and later), TCP\IP Filtering (NT Based systems), IPSec | NTFS Only | Yes | Yes | 27 | 2002-12-30 |
| yellowTAB ZETA | Unix 16 | none | none | No | No | No | n/a | |
| STOP 6 / XTS-40017 | Unix, Multilevel security, Biba mandatory integrity, ACLs, Privileges, subtype mechanism | Multilevel security, Biba Integrity Model, subtype mechanism | customer would have to install their own application | No | No | No | 0 | - |
| Resource access control | Subsystem isolation mechanisms | Integrated firewall | Encrypted file systems | hardware | emulation | number | oldest | |
| Data execution prevention | Known unpatched vulnerabilities9 | |||||||
Note 9: Comparison of known unpatched vulnerabilities is based on Secunia vulnerabilities reports with a severity of less critical and above. Updated daily.
Note 10: Posix ACL support is included in Linux 2.6, but requires a file system capable of storing them (such as ext3, XFS or ReiserFS).
Note 11: A jail mechanism is available separately in the Linux-VServer project, but is not integrated into any mainline Linux kernel.
Note 12: The Exec Shield and PaX extensions provide NX emulation on x86 hardware. They are not yet integrated inside the mainline kernel but are available as patches or separate kernels
Note 13: ACLs were added to Mac OS X beginning with version 10.4.
Note 14: ACLs are available only in OS/2 Server versions with HPFS386 filesystem.
Note 15: "Solaris Containers" (including "Zones") are a jail-type mechanism introduced with Solaris 10.
Note 16: Zeta has full Unix file permissions, but the OS is single user, and users always run as superuser.
Note 17: STOP 6 is certified under Common Criteria at EAL5+.
Note 18: Additionally swap space may be encrypted during installation, uses memory based tmp file storage by default.
[edit] See also
- Comparison of open source operating systems
- Comparison of Linux distributions
- Comparison of Windows versions
- Comparison of BSD operating systems
- List of operating systems
- Comparison of file systems
- Comparison of kernels
- Operating system advocacy
- Comparison of FTP clients
- Windows vs. Linux
- XvsXP
[edit] External links
- Operating System Technical Comparison. Retrieved on May 9, 2005.
