10 amazingly alternative operating systems...

[Thelasko]

I just played around with MenuetOS last night under VirtualBox. It would run fine for about a minute and then the mouse would go crazy (anything I did made it go right) and the whole OS became slower. (memory leak?)

I think there are other programs available for it if you download the CD (perhaps even a web browser) but I never got that far. I find their website very confusing. It seems they want you to use 64-bit only. Unfortunately, my version of VirtualBox can't run 64-bit guests (the new one does, but I'm not about to mess with it). No way am I loading an alpha OS on my main box to run 64-bit. Besides, my machine doesn't even have a floppy drive.

[Thelasko]

I tried Syllable last night. It took over an hour to install it. Once it was installed it seemed nice. It had a working web browser. However, I noticed that the web browser was slow and pegged my CPU at 100%. I also noticed that whenever I rolled my mouse over an icon the CPU spiked. Otherwise, it was very stable.

[Sorivenul]

I tried Syllable last night. It took over an hour to install it. Once it was installed it seemed nice. It had a working web browser. However, I noticed that the web browser was slow and pegged my CPU at 100%. I also noticed that whenever I rolled my mouse over an icon the CPU spiked. Otherwise, it was very stable.

Really? Over an hour? Is that just copying the install to disk, or is that the entire setup process (partitioning, etc.)? I'm curious because it took about 20 minutes on my machine, but then, I have none of the problems you listed. Are you trying it on some older hardware?

[lukjad]

Interesting!

[Thelasko]

Really? Over an hour? Is that just copying the install to disk, or is that the entire setup process (partitioning, etc.)? I'm curious because it took about 20 minutes on my machine, but then, I have none of the problems you listed. Are you trying it on some older hardware?

It was in VirtualBox. I'm only counting decompressing and copying the files. I didn't sit there with a stopwatch though. I remember eating dinner and watching half of last night's debate before it finished.

[Thelasko]

...and I just noticed the Syllable VMWare images halfway down the download page. DOH!

[cardinals_fan]

I just tested the latest Syllable VMWare image... and I am very impressed. Hardware support is bad at the moment, but this is a remarkably usable operating system.

[zmjjmz]

Actually hardware was better supported by Syllable on my old eMachine (1998) than it was in Linux.
But I gave it up due to issues involving it constantly freezing, which is supposedly fixed in the new version.

[linuxisevolution]

I have tried every os on that page before reading this post(except morph,beos,and skyos) lol. Visopsys is a neat operating system that feels much like Windows for some reason... When I was using it i got the funny error that is in the attachment below . I say the best out of all of them is Kolibri. MenuetOS runs on my 16mb 75mhz machine with no problems. With AROS on my 450mhz system and 128mb ram I was able to render six 'demos' at once and still use the filebrowser with no problems, and this thing has an 8mb video card. Each of the demos is like running 1 screensaver in Ubuntu that maxes out my 3ghz cpu, while AROS uses like 10% of a PIII... Put's the efficiency of the Linux kernel to shame. KolibriOS boots in 3seconds on my IBM Thinkbad X40. Runs quite well and very good graphics. Assembly is the way to program an operating system! Hell with python and C++! hehe

[handy]

I look forward to AROS having a web browser; the port of which is currently being worked on.

When that becomes usable I will start spending time with AROS.