SkyOS Forum

My first thought of SkyOS was "A modified / compatible linux kernel using the same driver modules, running using X11 and a modified KDE with a bunch of new tools all nicley integrated and hiding the 'dirty' parts from the user, making it a 'windows' running on linux."
At this point I was really getting my hopes upp, as this was the kind of project the linux community needs to rob Microsoft of a couple of million users... Though being unable to find sufficient info in FAQ's and searching the forums for answers to all my questions is going to be tedious. I now ask my questions here.

I see the os is free, will it remain free ?

I read in the forums that SkyOS uses its own windowing code, will / does X11 compability exist?

What developer tools are availiable, and for what languages ? (IDE's etc, gcc, c++ / c / java?)

Are hardware drivers provided by skyos or by the vendors ?

Do hardware vendors show intention to support skyos with drivers ?

Will there be a .net application compability layer ?

What are all these requests for a firewall I saw ? I never needed a firewall in linux, bringing me to a vital question ? how are user rights handled ? unix compatible ? windows compatible ? homebrew ? Can other users than 'root' install programs (if such a user exists) ?

Will the OS be designed with security in mind ? Minimizing risk of viruses etc.

Are there support for internationalized input ?( I read there was support for displaying intarnationalized applications, using UTF-8. Is the entire system built based on the UTF-8 charset ?

I guess thats it for now.
If I hear the answers I want I'll give it a shot

1) the Os is entering commericalism meaning there is a $30 cost for the Os

2) There is no compatibility for X Server AFAIK, as SkyGI is totally original code.

3) SkyOS features SkyDeveloperStudio, GCC, and dotGNU IDE's YES dotGNU gives skyOS 5.0 .NET support

4) drivers are provided by skyos and any 3rd aprty programmers who wish to write them

5) hardware vendors do not see skyos at this moment it time as a profitable venture to produce drivers for

6) every Os needs a firewall even linux maybe not to stop trojans but to stop hackers from logining in as root or attempting to login as root.

7) Rights are security contexts meaning every file can have its own contexts SkyFS supports unlimited contexts for files. you could say the system is similar to CHMOD

8 ) anyone with rights can install software if you like you can make this only one user can install

9) SkyOS with multiuser does have some form of security in mind but essentially an OS is only as strong as its weakest link and with every Os that is the end user.

10) on terms of internationalisation i am not sure

i hope i have helped answer some of your questions[/list]

That was a fast reply, indeed.

My concern would be, that I've recently droped windows in favour of (gentoo) linux, and some of my favourite applications went with windows. So I've found replacements in linux and I'm quite settled with them. Moving to SkyOS (which seems promising from screenshots and info), would make me have to drop most of my current applications again. And I would have to search for replacements in (the presumably) meager supply of applications for SkyOS.

Regarding the security question, I know the weakest link is the user. but I was refeering to design wise. like a root access being required to do any harmfull changes to the filesystem. And for troyans they have to spread, and to spread they have to have a common target exposed on every system, (rpc , outlook, iexplore etc )... minimizing this 'target area' was what I was refeering too with security design. Also not allowing programs to install themself as they please (spyware) and so on.

well you could make folders accessable to admin only

I'm not sure if you were still confused about this, but SkyOS is in no way related to Linux. It does not use a modified kernel, X11, or any of the other modules that Linux uses.

SkyOS will initially only offer support for the most common desktop computer uses; Internet, e-mail, chat, word processing, music, video, etc. As more users and developers become interested, we will be able to start branching out into more areas.

i think its because of all the *nix apps that are available for the SkyOS platform e.g. BASH, GCC, MAKE which make people think its a *nix based system, although i could be wrong.

Yea, the use of gnu software etc (and KDE icons in the screenshots ) makes it look like a *nix variant...

Actually, they think it's a linux based OS because most alternative OSes out there are linux based (Syllable, Lindash/ows, etc). Not many projects make it as far as SkyOS has with it's own ground-up written kernel.

thought syllable was based on a unique kernel which the creator of AtheOS wrote?

indeed, syllable is a atheos fork. another project using it's own kernel is openbeos (a.k.a. haiku) which uses the NewOS kernel. i'm not 100% but i think ReactOS uses it's own kernel as well.

ReactOS I'm pretty sure does have it's own kernel, but it isn't really all that featurefull quite yet. Maybe a few years of development will produce something usable.

And fast, and usable... But I doubt it, they're focus to being 100% compatible with NT 4.0 may be a bit too much. If they succeed, that would be nice though.

Well, they seem to be doing some pretty amazing work over at ReactOS, and I really hope they succeed, although their relative slow progress (which is completely understandable since their goals are way more advanced and difficult than most other OS's) could kill them.