Blog Archives

Hear the word “operating system,” and the first thing that pops into mind for most of us is the Windows logo in all its multi-colored glory; peer a little harder and you might see a big shiny Apple and maybe catch a glimpse of the Linux Penguin hovering around the corner, each with their band of devotees carrying their respective banners passionately onwards.

The operating system (OS) development space of today though, is arguably getting a little stale. Windows 7, OS X Snow Leopard and Ubuntu 9 – the latest incarnations of the Top Three – have all seen no huge innovation in the way OS are designed and used. They’ve been by and large maintenance and performance improvement releases; and while it’s great to see faster boot times and improved stability, they are far from being the revolution in computing we’ve been waiting for.

For many, the story ends at the operating system that comes installed with the computer we buy and “dual boot” is another name given to more than one shoe. Diving into the world of formatted hard drives, BIOS updates and driver incompatibilities in search of “the perfect OS” is certainly not a job for the faint-hearted.

But what about BeOS, or Haiku – or even the many flavors of Linux that never get the attention of the mainstream? What if these relatively obscure operating systems are better suited to the evolving trend of computer use in the home – or even the school and office? What have you left when we take out Windows, Mac OS and Ubuntu from the picture? Chaos? Pandemonium? World peace?

So I wrote a few articles some time ago for DAWN SciTech World and Spider Magazine and because I didn’t have a site when they were published, they sort of got lost on the Web. In loving memory, here they are in reverse order of publication: