Free desktop operating software for linux

Athene is a commercial operating system developed by Rocklyte Systems for use in the home and office. Athene combines years of Rocklytes R&D with the latest Linux technology to create one of the fastest operating systems available today.
With boot times as fast as five seconds and advanced graphics technology not available in standard Linux distributions, Athene is the best low-cost alternative to Windows for your computer desktop.
Main features:
- Optimised for Intel Pentium and compatible processors.
- Uses SNAP graphics technology from SciTech Software instead of X11.
- Graphics throughput is 17% faster than Microsoft Windows and at least 25% faster than X11.
- Backwards compatible with all Linux X11 applications.
- Linux Kernel 2.6.9
- Fast booting - between 5 to 15 seconds on modern hardware.
- Editable XML based interface.
- Live CDROM allows you to run Athene without installing to a hard drive.
- Discounted upgrades between major versions and free upgrades for minor releases.
- Free online support and no ongoing maintenance or subscription fees.
- Included software:
- Konqueror & Firefox Web Browsers
- GIMP, MPlayer, K3b CD Burner
- GAIM, GFTP, XChat
- KDE 3.2.3 with KDE Application Suite
- KDE Office 1.3
- Open Office 1.1
- Games: Barrage, Exodus, LBreakout 2, LTris, Patience, Mahjongg and more.
- CUPS Printer Support
- The GCC 3.3.3 compiler, plus tools and applications for developers.

This project comprises a library for developing thin client application frontends using a browser. It helps developers creating (neat) application interfaces (GUI) for inter/intra- and extranet applications.
Main features:
- 100% Browser based & no plugins required
- Supports all Operating Systems providing a DOM2 / Javascript Support Browser
- Simple, well documented Object Interface
- Customizable desktop & window skins
Following Browsers are currently supported:
- Mozilla 1.2+
- Firefox
- K-Meleon 0.7+
- Netscape 7.0+
- Avant 7.0+
- Microsoft IE6.0+
- Galeon 1.2+
- OSX: Camino 0.7+
A note to Konqueror / Safari users: We do respect the work of the Open Source community, especially the K-Teams. However we did not have the time to dig too much into why Konqueror does not work as the others. But because Mozilla 1.x does work and comes with most Linux boxes, we focused on development of the supported browsers, rather than finding the key issues of this problem.
A note to Opera fans: Unfortunately the css and javascript support of all current versions does not allow many operations we do need (like dynamic clipping etc.) We did hope that the upcoming Opera 7.x version can be included as well. But so it is not the case.
Despite the success of NS 4.x it is clearly in excess of age. Therefore we are sorry to inform that NS 4.x or any prior versions of above mentioned browser cannot be used. In addition, the javascript engine of NS7.x seems to be very slow when moving or resizing desktop windows.

DesktopBSD aims at being a stable and powerful operating system for desktop users.
DesktopBSD combines the stability of FreeBSD, the usability and functionality of KDE and the simplicity of specially developed software to provide a system thats easy to use and install.
The main goal of the DesktopBSD project is to provide a desktop operating system thats easy to use, but still has all the functionality and power of BSD.
In the long term, DesktopBSD wants to build an operating system that meets most requirements desktop users have, like installing software, configuring power management or sharing an internet connection.
To be better able to fulfill this goal, we strongly rely on users that send in feature requests, ideas for improvements or participate in development.
DesktopBSD is free software, which means it is free of charge. Also, if youre a developer and want to find out how DesktopBSD works or modify it to fit your needs, you can download the full source code.
Main features:
Stability
- DesktopBSD is based on FreeBSD, which is one of the most reliable and robust operating systems in the world.
Usability
- The KDE Desktop Environment and specially developed tools provide a maximum of usability to our users. KDE features such as KIO slaves or remote desktop sharing and DesktopBSD features like network profiles, easy mount procedures and many other convenience features make life easier and increase productivity.
Performance
- The development of FreeBSD (and therefore DesktopBSD) is highly focused on performance. The system manages resources efficiently and reacts fast even when many processes are running simultaneously. This also affects networking, so DesktopBSD tries to optimally use the available bandwidth.
Security
- Concerning security, the BSD operating systems are world-class. For example, OpenBSD had only one remote in the default install in more than eight years. DesktopBSD benefits from the work of other BSDs such as OpenBSD and passes that advantage on to you.
Enhancements:
- This release candidate is considered a large step towards a final release 1.6 with major changes such as: X.Org release 7.2, improving support for modern graphics hardware; NVIDIA graphics driver, providing hardware 3D acceleration for NVIDIA video cards; Latest FreeBSD 6-STABLE as base system with High Definition Audio (HDA) support... Upgrades from 1.0 and previous release candidates are supported. An additional language CD and 64-bit (AMD64) DVD will be released soon.

desktop-data-manager includes a clipboard history for many different types of content (text, images, ...) and an application to take screenshots from a single window/subwindow, rectangle of the screen or the whole desktop.

The two applications are designed to work well together. For more details please visit my homepage.

Notes: If you find some bugs/problems with the application please contact me at einki(at)users.sourceforge.net. The Program is programmed to work in a GTK/GNOME environment but at least the basic functionalities will work in KDE too.

NicE Desktop is a Debian-based, live Linux distribution. Being a live distribution, it runs from portable storage, such as a CD/DVD or USB flash drive. This operating system can be run in both text mode and graphical mode.

NicE Desktop comes with many programs for both recreational and administrative purposes. Its main goals are to be useful and entertaining while maintaining user-friendliness, as well as to provide a "complete" temporary operating system for any PC user.

Inferno is a compact operating system designed for building distributed and networked systems on a wide variety of devices and platforms.
Inferno was originally developed at Bell Labs (the research division of Lucent Technologies).
Inferno Operating System is a well-designed, economical operating system particularly suitable for use in networked devices such as advanced telephones, hand-held devices, TV set-top boxes, and many other embedded applications.
Inferno can run in native mode on an embedded system or in emulation mode under many different operating systems. Inferno has many features in common with Plan 9.
Cross-Platform Portability
Inferno can run as a user application on top of an existing operating system or as a stand alone operating system. Most of the popular operating systems and processor architectures are supported:
Host Operating Systems:
- Windows NT/2000/XP
- Irix
- Linux
- MacOS X
- FreeBSD
- Solaris
- Plan 9
Supported Architectures:
- Intel x86 (386 & higher)
- Intel XScale
- IBM PowerPC
- ARM StrongARM (ARM & Thumb)
- Sun SPARC
Inferno also runs as a plug-in under Internet Explorer version 4 and higher. Each Inferno system presents an identical environment to the applications, irrespective of the underlying host OS or architecture, allowing the developer to work with a truly homogeneous environment across multiple different platforms.
Portable Applications
Inferno applications are written in Limbo, a modern, safe, modular, concurrent programming language with C-like syntax. It is more powerful than C but considerably easier to understand and debug than C++ or Java. Limbo code is compiled into architecture independent byte code which is then interpreted (or compiled on the fly) on the target processor. This means that any Inferno application will run identically on all Inferno platforms.
Transparent Resources
Inferno offers complete transparency of resources and data using a simple but powerful namespace system. By representing resources as files and having one standard communication protocol, resources such as data stores, services and external devices can easily be shared between Inferno systems. A resource interface may be imported to the local system and used by the applications without them knowing, or needing to know, whether it is local or remote.
Security
High level security is an important part of the Inferno system. By using one standard protocol for all network communication, security can be focused on one point and provided at a system level. Inferno offers full support for authenticated, encrypted connections using a certificate based user identification scheme and variety of algorithms including:
- IDEA, 56 bit DES, 40, 128 and 256 bit RC4 encryption algorithms
- MD4, MD5 and SHA secure hash algorithms
A Complete Solution
Inferno is not only an operating system, it is also a complete development environment, providing all the tools necessary for creating, testing and debugging the applications that run within it.
- Acme IDE: includes editor, shell, advanced pattern matching tools & more
- Fast Compiler: with full syntax and compile time type checking
- Graphical Debugger: with full stack trace for currently executing threads
- Powerful Shell: with sophisticated scripting capabilities
- UNIX like commands: including bind, grep, gzip, mount, ps, tar, yacc...
Enhancements:
- New licence terms (a `dual licence scheme allowing use as Free Software)
- Styx revision based on 9P2000, and consequent changes to Sys
- Authentication changes
- Improved colour graphics support, including compositing
- Scalable fonts using Freetype
- Revamped Tk implementation
- Window management moved out of Tk to a separate window manager in Limbo
- Limbo: exception handling and fixed-point
- Limbo: other possible changes
- Dis VM changes
- More commands and library modules
- Better network service configuration
- /net/dns served by host and native DNS resolver
- Hosted kernels configured from a parts list as for native kernels
- Signed modules
- Internet Explorer plug-in revised and in source form
- Expanded documentation