Alternatives to Windows
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Do I have to use Microsoft Windows or are there any alternatives? No there are many alternatives to Microsoft windows. Some of these are available at a cost and some of them are available free under a variety of licenses. The most common is the GNU General Public License. The main types are below |
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Linux - Linux was originally created by a university student Linus Torvalds as a hobby. It was based on Minnix which was a small unix system. This is currently the most popular alternative to Microsoft Windows. A more detailed description of the most popular (by downloads) versions of linux can be found on the Linux Page here |
UNIX |
Unix - Unix is an operating system which was in the past usually used on large mainframes and personally I don't think that it suitable for the majority of home or small business users. If you want to know more about unix you can find more about it here. Unix is mostly available under paid software licence's |
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Beos - At the current moment in time Be incorporated is selling all the intellectual property rights to beos to a division of palm inc. It is therefore uncertain whether this operating system will undergo further development. |
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0S/2- This was originally produced by Microsoft and IBM. Microsoft went on to produce windows NT and IBM still produce updates for OS/2 although this is not a greatly used operating system now. IBM have withdrawn standard(free) support for OS/2 as of December 2006. |
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0SX- This is an operating system exclusively manufactured by Apple computers for use on their Apple Macintosh hardware. "Officially" this will not run on a pc. It is based on a "Debian" version of Linux |
SOLARIS |
Solaris - This is a java based operating system from Sun microcomputers. Sun describe it as the most advanced operating system on the planet. This is a 'free' operating system although not for beginners.
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| There are in fact hundreds of operating systems but the majority are based or derived from the main types above. |
