12 Alternative Operating Systems You Can Use In 2020

12 Alternative Operating Systems You Can Use In 2020

Bored of Windows, Mac OS or Linux? There is more to try than just the standard ‘big three’ OSes. I take a look at 12 amazingly alternative Operating Systems you can use in 2020.

My retro gaming podcast: http://theretrohour.com

My Twitter: http://twitter.com/danwood_uk
My Facebook: http://facebook.com/danwooduk

Operating Systems mentioned:

Haiku OS: https://www.haiku-os.org/
ReactOS: https://reactos.org/
Friend: https://friendos.com/ – For a FREE demo account email info@friendos.com or visit their discord at: https://discord.gg/HQ93NFG
ARAnyM: https://aranym.github.io/
Risc OS Open: https://www.riscosopen.org/content/
MorphOS: https://www.morphos-team.net/
ArcaOS: https://www.arcanoae.com/arcaos/
AROS: http://aros.sourceforge.net/
Oracle Solaris 11: https://www.oracle.com/uk/solaris/solaris11/
Minix: https://www.minix3.org/
AmigaOS 4.1: https://www.amigaos.net/
TempleOS: https://templeos.org/

Sources used in this video:

The Computer Chronicles – New PCs (1996): https://youtu.be/cElVxDoCEsI
The Computer Chronicles – OS/2 Warp (1994): https://youtu.be/mmxabyk0S2M
ArcaOS (the new OS/2) Review” – Lunduke Hour (used with permission): https://youtu.be/0PZE_swqO5U
Terry A. Davis’ TempleOS YouTube Channel Archive: https://archive.org/details/TerryADavisTempleOSYouTubeChannelArchive
TempleOS | Down the Rabbit Hole: https://youtu.be/UCgoxQCf5Jg
BeOS Demo Video: https://youtu.be/BsVydyC8ZGQ
Acorn Archimedes – A Technical Introduction: https://youtu.be/KKTa54UikgE

#retrocomputing #operatingsystems #computing

50 Comments

  1. potorrero on January 27, 2021 at 8:16 pm

    If it opens pornhub, I wouldn’t mind giving it a try.



  2. Tuncay D on January 27, 2021 at 8:16 pm

    FreeBSD, an Unix compatible system, is missing here.
    Worth mentioning also: Remix OS
    Otherwise cool list. There was some interesting systems I wasn’t aware of. And a big plus for including TempleOS. 😉



  3. Dostayer on January 27, 2021 at 8:20 pm

    Most people want things to just work, preferably with the lowest amount of hassle, while having enough support and not niche or extraordinarily expensive.
    That’s why Windows is still the most popular OS for home use and non tech enterprises, Linux isn’t as intuitive and can be confusing (had an experience with it, didn’t went well, it’s great for tech though) and MacOS is expensive (the hardware, for no good reason) and has a specific niche which it occupies.
    All of these systems aren’t useful enough, while some of them do look good, I fear they’ve missed the train, MS has managed to solve almost all of Windows’ stability issues and its GUI is "the" way most people imagine a computer OS nowadays, it’s (relatively) intuitive and reliable and have a great user experience.

    Out of all of these, the Haiku and Reactos are the ones which have a great potential, but they do need to garner enough support before they can ever be a real alternative.

    TempleOS is actually quite sad when you learn the story behind it.

    Great video, learnt a lot.



  4. Erimani on January 27, 2021 at 8:20 pm

    "12 Alternative Operating Systems You Can Use In 2020" Yeah sure i’ll use 20 year old operating systems today



  5. leongt1954 on January 27, 2021 at 8:20 pm

    The Amiga OS 4’1 needs a computer that costs a fortune to run it so I’ll just stick to my OS 3.1 and my Amiga 1200



  6. Ariady Putra on January 27, 2021 at 8:20 pm

    Released in 2017
    Looked like 1997



  7. Joe Taylor on January 27, 2021 at 8:20 pm

    Deepin Linux is by far the best of them all.



  8. BAgodmode on January 27, 2021 at 8:23 pm

    I like Solaris. I tried haiku, it’s cool. I haven’t found BeOS ISO to use.



  9. gary hooper on January 27, 2021 at 8:24 pm

    I’m surprised FreeBSD isn’t on this list.



  10. R69NiX on January 27, 2021 at 8:25 pm

    You didn’t mention a very interesting OS that’s more useful and that people might have an actual genuine reason to actually use over Windows, Mac etc. for serious work not just playing around, though I guess it’s technically just Linux so probably why you didn’t mention it. Anyways Cubes OS is super secure because everything is isolated. Like each app you run has a different colour window bar to show in which sandbox/VM it runs. So if there is a vulnerability in an app, that app is isolated from everything else on the machine so even if it’s hacked the hacker only has access to what’s in that sandbox and nothing else. Edward Snowden uses this operating system.



  11. Roman Jeremiejew on January 27, 2021 at 8:25 pm

    Amigar OS!



  12. Lord Trollalot on January 27, 2021 at 8:27 pm

    beos exists now quit a long time … btw did you know audacity comes from beos..



  13. Dainius Zaidotas on January 27, 2021 at 8:29 pm

    All Useless OS that is stuck in 90s LOLZ what games this OS can run??????? Solitaire????? Rename video to Legacy Operating Systems



  14. Mustafa Strk on January 27, 2021 at 8:29 pm

    Menuetos. missed.



  15. Willem Kossen on January 27, 2021 at 8:30 pm

    Freedos anyone?



  16. Nesty CB on January 27, 2021 at 8:31 pm

    Except Friend OS, the rest look old and their concepts are old. They aren’t alternative, they are just bad.



  17. Karl Burnett on January 27, 2021 at 8:32 pm

    Holy crap this was informative. I wanna chuck half of these on my old Intel iMac for a play. Hahaha.



  18. Lord Trollalot on January 27, 2021 at 8:32 pm

    yeeeees! temple os … good replacement for win10!



  19. Kyosanim on January 27, 2021 at 8:37 pm

    Really wish OS/2 could have survived to be around much longer.



  20. Amiga 500 on January 27, 2021 at 8:37 pm

    Amiga Workbench 1.3 works fine for me on my A1500HD. I’ve also have a couple of Macbooks running Chromium. I might replace them. Thanks for the tip.



  21. Pete Smith on January 27, 2021 at 8:38 pm

    Fredrik Knudson – Down the Rabbit Hole on youtube did a very good video on Temple OS and its creator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCgoxQCf5Jg&t=7s



  22. h lynn keith on January 27, 2021 at 8:41 pm

    The problem with OS/2 was that it was a 32-bit operating system at a time when most users ran 16-bit machines.



  23. Karl Burnett on January 27, 2021 at 8:49 pm

    My reaction to 13:08 means I’m going straight to Hell.



  24. vidville vid on January 27, 2021 at 8:49 pm

    Templeos is a piece of crap.



  25. Root Potato on January 27, 2021 at 8:49 pm

    Okay, there are alternatives, but why would you use these over Windows, Linux or Mac OS?… Just to be different?



  26. Ayuki Aoip on January 27, 2021 at 8:50 pm

    how dare you claim that linux is too mainstream!



  27. Kevin Mills on January 27, 2021 at 8:50 pm

    Glad you are not of those idiota qho ignore the Amiga



  28. mnoxman on January 27, 2021 at 8:54 pm

    Lots of "dead end" operating systems with ‘point and drool’ interfaces. The release schedule of ReactOS is similar to GNUOS. Clocked not by the ebb and flow of Glaciers but by galactic arm movements. Why not include OS-9 (not from apple). Did you miss FreeDOS?

    VM/MVS on Hercules, MUSIC/SP, MTS/370 they are all just as "DEAD" as the amiga OS’s but have WAY more productivity apps if you can program in Cobol and Fortran.
    Oracle has "unpublished" road maps and had withdrawn the name ‘Solaris 12’ from their literature. Like AIX Solaris is ABD.

    More or less these OS’s are EOL.



  29. DMSProduktions on January 27, 2021 at 8:56 pm

    Most of these are all shite! Reactos has potential as a Windoze substitute.
    I have tried it a few times, but I could not get it to run on any computer I tried it on! Even this 1, an I7! So, idk…



  30. Broccoli Cheddar on January 27, 2021 at 8:57 pm

    This is a big deal for me because I don’t post comments… they’re pointless in most instances lol
    Seriously though, having just spent $190 OTD on a controller, Bluetooth syncing, and then trying to go into game play only for an "Xbox Game Bar" to pop up when I hit "A" is an absurd default from Microsoft. This video solved the issue that should have never been an issue and ultimately got me to hit the like button… also very rare to get me to do. Thank you Dan Wood. -Broccoli Cheddar



  31. stereohisteria on January 27, 2021 at 8:58 pm

    Wow! GNU/Linux is already in the "main three"!



  32. Joey Ellis on January 27, 2021 at 8:58 pm

    You forgot to mention BSD which is still around



  33. iSamyt backup on January 27, 2021 at 8:58 pm

    Windows 7 it is



  34. Brpwn dood on January 27, 2021 at 8:58 pm

    Both amazingly mainstream and alternative at the same time is also Chrome OS which can even run linux and android apps out the box on some hardware and based on the open source Chromium project



  35. D EMIL on January 27, 2021 at 8:58 pm

    A very interesting overview. To me it’s /MICRO computers/ not /micro COMPUTERS/, /ALPHA software/ instead of /alpha SOFTWARE/ etc.
    What would have interested me though is application availability. It’s nice to use an uncommon OS but how much you can do with it depends on how many applications are made for it.
    And security is another issue: Are there vulnerabilities, security fixes etc.



  36. Максим Задворнов on January 27, 2021 at 8:59 pm

    where are MenuetOS & Kolibri ?



  37. Daniel Eccleston on January 27, 2021 at 8:59 pm

    You forgot hannah montana linux



  38. Hazardteam on January 27, 2021 at 8:59 pm

    "Alternatives" for nothing…. toys



  39. Shannon Smith on January 27, 2021 at 9:02 pm

    I was a user of Be in the day, but have not tried haiku because it seems to be "similar" but it is not really aligned to the same philosophies.



  40. Ahmad Alalwani on January 27, 2021 at 9:04 pm

    none of these operating systems is usable in 2020.. or 2021 👎



  41. Adam Lucas on January 27, 2021 at 9:05 pm

    @Dan Wood
    I was really interested in the FriendOS concent and just installed from source (very unstable) and then deployed the Docker container (very stable). I’ve been trying to reach devs for a few questions / features that aren’t working but haven’t had much luck. Since you said you’re directly involved I thought I might shake the trees here.



  42. MysticCrazy TV on January 27, 2021 at 9:05 pm

    which one doesn’t use that many resources yet can still run games like Minecraft smoothly and still record it.



  43. ZoneCracker on January 27, 2021 at 9:06 pm

    BeOS for life!



  44. Dale Atchison on January 27, 2021 at 9:11 pm

    Thanks for the info on AROS. I have a box of floppies a friend’s late father created on an Amiga; I’ve been unable to open them on any Windows, DOS, or Linux box I’ve tried. Now I’ll see if AROS solves my problem. All it will cost me is time… it’s GOOD to be retired.



  45. Dan Wood on January 27, 2021 at 9:12 pm

    If you’d like to see more videos like this, please consider supporting the channel on my new Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/danwooduk



  46. dehJP on January 27, 2021 at 9:12 pm

    uefi and legacy



  47. Pip Santos on January 27, 2021 at 9:12 pm

    If all you do is surf the net, watch movies and listen to music on your pc, try puppy linux. You don’t have to worry about viruses and fear you might have messed up your pc. Because everything will be running from the ram. At boot up, it copies the operating system and pretty much everything to the ram and works from there after. So when you turn off your pc everything in the current session is erased. Then the next time you boot up it’s like starting fresh again. Booting is fast. About 30 seconds on old pc.



  48. Tim Roach on January 27, 2021 at 9:14 pm

    and before minix was cp/m I used a DEC PDP11 running cp/m to play many hours of star trek the text version on rolls and rolls of teletype paper!



  49. gEpWxAqd FsiDseSG on January 27, 2021 at 9:14 pm

    Write your own OS with Ultibo Core.



  50. Void Byte on January 27, 2021 at 9:15 pm

    hehe… that ARM Statement "Yes its the same ARM plattform that you have in your Smartphone" sounds a bit fishy.
    I am pretty sure my Huawei P40 Pro Plus does NOT have an 20 Year old ARM-Processor ^^