obscure operating systems i tried

so, this is a list of obscure and bizzare operating systems i dealt with, and what i think about them. nothing else to explain here, so let's go!

1. Amiga Research Operating System (AROS)

remember Amiga? these fancy computers that in late 80s and early 90s outdid the usual IBM-compatible PCs by miles ahead? also it had an OS that was nothing like that we used to. and no, it's not AROS.

AROS is an AmigaOS-wannabe, structured like AmigaOS and intended for both Amigas with theese crazy upgrade solutions like Vampyr, and x86 PCs. and well, it's fun for a couple of minutes as you explore its completely different choice of analogies - directories are drawers instead of folders, files are blueprints and programs are tools. and desktop is workbench - wacky~

but beyond that you just realize that this OS has nothing more to offer - AmigaOS is only interesting on real Amigas with all the iconic games and software made for it. AROS has like zero useful software to explore and like only a dozen of games ported to it. 60% of AROS software library fits on one DVD, which is... not good...

so while it's neat, it's only useful to spice up real Amigas with upgrades like Vampyr that replace he original Motorola CPU with a whole compute daughterboard 10 times the power of the original processor.

2. ArcaOS

first, 120 GBP for friggin IBM OS/2 revival barely anyone needs? that's a ripoff right off the bat. MorphOS has more use and doesn't cost nearly as much. and also is made from scratch.

with that said, i pirated an ArcaOS 5.0 ISO. and... it's just IBM OS/2 Warp 4. with modifications done to run it on more moden systems or whatnot and different branding. i can see a use case for it, and it can be fun to explore with running OS/2 and Win 3.x software. also it has Firefox and Thunderbird ports bundled in - cool, i guess. really, nothing much else to say about it.

just...

i'm still mad the devs are asking THAT MUCH for it!!!

3. Haiku

that's maybe one of the most full-fledged retro OSes i ever tried. it's still a WIP, but already very impressive! Haiku is a BeOS revival, and yet i haven't tried any BeOS software on it, it already has own quite extensive software library, and it manages to run well on a wide range of machines i have. i actualy will say that Haiku is ready to be daily-driven to at least some extent. browser, office, games - it has it all

also it looks cool and i found it being able to combine several separate windows into one tabbed window really neat~

so if you really want a sorta daily-driveable retro OS for ya - check out Haiku, you won't be disappointed!

4. ReactOS

a free open source Windows implementation that supports software from Windows 2000 and XP. tried it, it crashed a lot and never really got running on real hardware. so can't say much besides it, had no interest to test it thouroghly

5. FreeBSD

most common OS in this list. a close relative to Linux and macOS, that in some places, works within its own weird logic. i wanted to make it run properly but didn't get enough time, maybe some other time i will make it work like a normal desktop OS.