Operating Systems

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Embedded Operating Systems (>99,9% Availability)
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Operating Systems for Embedded Devices like Mobile Phones, Pocket PCs, Set-Top Boxes, Routers, etc.
Operating System Year Manufacturer Family Versions Architectures 16bit Architectures 32bit Architectures 64bit
eCos 2000- RedHat Inc. Free RTOS eCos 2.0 CalmRISC, H8 PowerPC, SH, SPARC, MIPS, ARM, XScale, LEON, MicroBlaze, Nios II, FR-V, V850, x86, M68k, MN103 MIPS
uCLinux 1998- uCLinux.org Free Unix relative for processors without MMU 2.0, 2.4, 2.6 H8 Blackfin, ARM, MicroBlaze, Nios II, V850, i960, M68k -
Linux 1999- Kernel.org, Linux.org, LynuxWorks BlueCat Linux, Montavista Linux, Lineo uLinux Free Unix relative. 2.4, 2.6 - PowerPC, SH, SPARC, MIPS, ARM, XScale, LEON, Xtensa, ARC, MicroBlaze, CRIS, M32R, x86 IBM POWER, PowerPC, UltraSPARC, MIPS, PA-RISC, IA-64, AMD x86-64, Alpha
Minix 3 Minix 1, Minix 2 Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Free Unix relative 1, 2 - x86, (PowerPC), (ARM) -
NetBSD 1993- NetBSD.org Free BSD Unix 2.0.2 M68k PowerPC, SH, SPARC, MIPS, ARM, ARC, x86, M68k, VAX, PA-RISC, NS32000 SH, UltraSPARC, IA-64, AMD x86-64, Alpha

General Purpose Operating Systems (>99,9% Availability)
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Operating Systems for Notebooks, PCs, Workstations, Servers, Clusters, Minicomputers.
Operating System Year Manufacturer Family Versions Architectures 16bit Architectures 32bit Architectures 64bit
Linux 1991- Kernel.org, Linux.org, Debian, Mandrake, Redhat, SuSE Free and very popular Unix relative 1.0, 1.2, 2.0, 2.2, 2.4, 2.6 - PowerPC, SH, SPARC, MIPS, ARM, XScale, LEON, Xtensa, ARC, MicroBlaze, CRIS, M32R, x86 IBM POWER, PowerPC, UltraSPARC, MIPS, PA-RISC, IA-64, AMD x86-64, Alpha
OpenBSD 1995- OpenBSD.org Free BSD Unix 3.7 - PowerPC, SPARC, MIPS, x86, M68k, VAX, PA-RISC, M88k UltraSPARC, MIPS, AMD x86-64, Alpha
FreeBSD 1993- FreeBSD.org Free BSD Unix 4.11, 5.4 - PowerPC, MIPS, ARM, x86 PowerPC, UltraSPARC, IA-64, AMD x86-64, Alpha
NetBSD 1993- NetBSD.org Free BSD Unix 2.0.2 M68k PowerPC, SH, SPARC, MIPS, ARM, ARC, x86, M68k, VAX, PA-RISC, NS32000 SH, UltraSPARC, IA-64, AMD x86-64, Alpha
OpenDarwin FreeBSD 3.2, FreeBSD 4.4 Apple, Internet Systems Consortium Free Unix based on FreeBSD 8.0.1 - PowerPC, x86 PowerPC
MacOS X FreeBSD 3.2, Darwin, FreeBSD 4.4 Apple Commercial Unix based on FreeBSD 10.4 - PowerPC, x86 PowerPC
Solaris 1990- Sun Free Unix 7, 8, 9, 10 - SPARC, x86 UltraSPARC, AMD x86-64
Irix 1988- SGI Unix 6.5.27 - MIPS MIPS
AIX 1986- IBM Unix 5.3.0 - IBM POWER IBM POWER, IBM RS64
HP-UX 1986- HP Unix 11 - PA-RISC PA-RISC, IA-64
OpenVMS 1975- DEC Minicomputer OS VAX-11/VMS, VAX/VMS, OpenVMS, OpenVMS AXP, OpenVMS IA64 - VAX IA-64, Alpha
OS/400 1988- IBM Minicomputer OS OS/400, i5/OS - IBM POWER IBM POWER, IBM RS64

Mainframe Operating Systems (>99,995% Availability)
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Operating Systems for Mainframes, Minicomputers, Clusters, Servers, Backbones.
Operating System Year Manufacturer Family Versions Architectures 24bit Architectures 31bit Architectures 64bit
z/OS 1974- IBM 64bit Mainframe OS MVS/370, MVS/XA, MVS/ESA, OS/390, z/OS - - zSeries
z/VM 1966- IBM 64bit Mainframe Virtual Machine OS VM/370, VM/SP, VM/XA, VM/ESA, z/VM - - zSeries
VM/ESA 1991-2001 IBM 31bit Mainframe Virtual Machine OS VM/370, VM/SP, VM/XA, VM/ESA - ESA, S/390 -
z/VSE 1971- IBM 31bit Mainframe OS DOS, DOS MP, DOS/VS, DOS/VSE, VSE/ESA, z/VSE - ESA, S/390 zSeries
z/TPF 1979- IBM 64bit Mainframe RTOS TPF, TPF/XA, TPF/ESA, z/TPF - - zSeries
z/Linux 2002- IBM Free 64bit Unix Mainframe OS Linux/390, z/Linux - - zSeries, Hercules
Linux/390 1999- IBM, RedHat Free 31bit Unix Mainframe OS 2.0, 2.2, 2.4, 2.6 - S/390, Hercules zSeries, Hercules
AIX/ESA IBM 31bit Unix Mainframe OS - ESA, S/390 zSeries
Amdahl UTS Amdahl 31bit Unix Mainframe OS - ESA, S/390 zSeries
MUSIC/SP 1968- McGill University 24bit Mainframe OS MUSIC/SP S/370 XA, ESA, S/390 zSeries

Obsolete Mainframe Operating Systems
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Old, now freely available Operating Systems for Mainframes, Minicomputers, Clusters, Servers, Backbones.
Operating System Year Manufacturer Family Versions Architectures 24bit Architectures 31bit Architectures 64bit
MVS/370 1974-1977 IBM Free 24bit Mainframe OS MFT, MVT, MVS/370 S/370 Hercules Hercules
DOS/VS 1964-1970 IBM Free 24bit Mainframe OS DOS, DOS MP, DOS/VS S/370 Hercules Hercules
VM/370 1966-1991 CSC, IBM Free 24bit Mainframe Virtual Machine OS VM/370 S/370 Hercules Hercules

PC Mainframe Emulators
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Mainframe emulators for running IBM mainframe operating systems and software on PCs. They work on every Linux PC, but we recommend multiprocessor boards, 64bit processors and enough of Gigabytes RAM.
Operating System Year Manufacturer Family Versions Architectures 16bit Architectures 32bit Architectures 64bit
Hercules Mainframe Emulator 2000- Free zSeries, S/390, ESA, S/370 Emulator on Linux 3.02 - PowerPC, SH, SPARC, MIPS, ARM, XScale, LEON, Xtensa, ARC, MicroBlaze, CRIS, M32R, x86 IBM POWER, PowerPC, UltraSPARC, MIPS, PA-RISC, IA-64, AMD x86-64, Alpha

(c) 2005, 2006, 2007 Ralf Schaefer Consulting