Not Every Open Source OS Needs to Be Based on Linux, and These Six Aren’t

Anyone who wants a break from Linux is usually told to try another distro. That advice, while good, leaves out those who want a break from Linux itself.

Every system listed below is open source and not powered by Linux. Each has an ISO or installer you can boot today, and many of the picks can even run Linux applications.

Think of it as a list of operating systems that are friends with Tux🐧 but not friendly enough to call him inside for a cup of tea.

📋

This list is not ranked. The order moves from the BSDs to the desktop-first systems and ends with the two newest kernels.

1. Vinix

If you own an Apple Silicon MacBook and want a system that is neither macOS nor a Linux distribution, Vinix is aimed at you. Only the original M1 is supported today, and Alexander Medvednikov, the author of V, maintains the project.

The kernel is monolithic and written mostly in V, while part of it is C and assembly. Because memory is managed by hand, no garbage collector can interrupt a system call, and the security model borrows certain concepts from OpenBSD.

On ARM64, it runs Alpine Linux binaries natively, and pkg installs packages from Alpine's aarch64 repositories. ISOs for both x86-64 and ARM64 are available for virtual machine use.

Vinix

⭐

A good pick if you enjoy poking at experimental kernels.

2. Asterina NixOS

Trying Asterinas NixOS means setting up a NixOS system and finding a Rust kernel where Linux should be. Asterinas is that kernel, and because it implements Linux's system call interface, apps for the Linux platform run on it.

The distribution is configured through Nix like regular NixOS, and unsafe Rust is allowed only inside a small framework called OSTD, while the rest of the kernel, along with its drivers, is safe Rust.

x86_64 is the fully supported platform, and ARM64 and RISC-V sit one tier below it. The project says the distro is not ready for production use and aims the installer ISO on GitHub at early adopters and enthusiasts.

Asterina NixOS

⭐

A good pick if you follow the implementation of Rust in operating systems.

3. FreeBSD

Source: Distrowatch

FreeBSD is a complete operating system derived from BSD, the Unix version developed at the University of California, Berkeley. A large community maintains it, and its license lets companies keep their own changes private.

ZFS, jails, and a hypervisor sit at the center of what it offers. OpenZFS is built into the base system, and boot environments let you roll back a bad update by snapshotting the system first.

Its recent release, FreeBSD 15.1, came out earlier this year, and the OS runs on hardware platforms like AMD64, AArch64, Armv7, PowerPC, and RISC-V.

FreeBSD

⭐

A good pick if you run servers, storage, or networking gear.

4. GhostBSD

GhostBSD is FreeBSD with the desktop work already done. The project pairs a FreeBSD base with the MATE desktop and offers a set of applications that make users feel familiar with using it.

The name started as shorthand for GNOME hosted by FreeBSD. MATE, the desktop it ships today, is a continuation of GNOME 2, and the old name still fits.

Updates arrive on a slow-rolling schedule, and the project says it values a stable cycle over chasing the newest software the way some Linux distros do. The current release, 26.1-R15.0p2, came out in April on a FreeBSD 15.0 base.

Also good to know is that Linux binary compatibility comes preconfigured, and an installer built on OpenZFS keeps setup approachable for newcomers.

GhostBSD

⭐

A good pick if you want FreeBSD as an everyday desktop.

5. Haiku

Haiku is an open source operating system inspired by BeOS that is aimed at personal computing. The same team writes the kernel and the desktop applications, with the project crediting that approach for the system's consistent interface.

Under that interface sits a kernel built for responsiveness, a system that is multithreaded throughout, and a BFS file system whose indexed metadata lets Tracker, the file manager, run database-style queries across a drive.

Software installs are handled via packages that mount into the system, and earlier states are kept for rolling back botched updates.

Haiku

⭐

A good pick if you are looking for a uniform desktop experience.

6. ReactOS

ReactOS comes with a warning label attached because the OS is still considered alpha-level software, and the download page promises nothing about stability, the safety of your files, or whether it would work on your hardware.

Behind the warning is a full operating system with a Windows-style desktop that the project says was written from scratch, while most of its user-mode code is based on Wine, the ubiquitous compatibility layer.

By default, it installs only onto a FAT16 or FAT32 partition, and Btrfs support is experimental.

ReactOS

⭐

A good pick if you want to see how far an open source Windows reimplementation can go.

A suggestion

Try these operating systems in a virtual machine before switching. I say that because it’s a good habit to test out such non-standard pieces of kit before committing to them on your hardware.

First see what works for you. Then see if your workflow and usage habits align with what the OS offers. Once you settle on one, keep it updated so you never miss critical patches.

Air-gapped setups are better protected from such risks, of course.

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Valve’s Steam Client for Linux Goes 64-bit in Beta and Moves Into a Container

Valve's October 15 Steam Client Beta changes how the Linux client is built and run. It moves the client to a 64-bit build and runs it inside a Steam Runtime container. Alongside that, a fix for the updater window failing to show up is included, as is the new Achievement Sets feature.

According to Valve, the client has run in an older setup that layers Steam Runtime libraries over the ones on the host system. The runtime documentation adds that this only works while the host is newer than the runtime.

Games on Steam can already run in containers, which give an application its own set of libraries rather than blending them with the host's. The tool behind those containers, pressure-vessel, still takes graphics drivers from the host system.

Valve says running the client in a container should make it behave more consistently across distros. Its games already run on the same technology.

The release notes for the beta client do not name the container, but its runtime release notes tie the 64-bit client to one called steamrt3c. The README describes it as a variant of the sniper runtime made for use inside the Steam client.

The groundwork for this can be traced back to March, when Valve put the container and the early 64-bit client out as the Linux SteamRT3 Beta.

And don't assume that opting for a 64-bit client removes the need for 32-bit libraries.

The requirements for the beta client still call for both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the required libraries and graphics drivers on x86_64 systems.

They also list 64-bit-only setups as unsupported. The steamrt3c README from earlier notes that its containers ship i386 libraries for compatibility with older software.

Test it now

I switched to the beta on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, and it only took me four steps. If Steam is not already on your system, you need to get the official DEB package for the client and install it.

Next, follow these steps. 👇

1. Open Steam, click Steam at the top left, and choose Settings.
2. Go into the Interface tab and find Client Beta Participation.
3. Open the dropdown and select Steam Beta Update.
4. Click Restart Now when Steam asks you to restart.

That is all it takes, and Steam is now on the beta channel. Valve welcomes bug reports from testers, so if you run into an issue, use the "Report a bug" button in the Interface page.

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Suggested Read 📖: Epic Games is looking to entice Linux gamers with its anti-cheat move.

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FOSS Weekly #26.42: AI in Kernel, Ubuntu 26.10 Firefox Business, Mint Release Changes and More Linux Stuff

AI's role in kernel work is looking more apparent now. Linus Torvalds' use of Claude Code has tripled read speeds for concurrent file access, while Sasha Levin proposed an agents directory to house AI skills for kernel work.

And that's just the way AI is progressing, for good or bad. Last week's most popular news was an open source project that used AI to reverse engineer Adobe's Photoshop and other tools. Now the same project has used AI to 'clone' Microsoft Office.

These days, 9 out of 10 new open source software I come across is created with AI assistance. My inbox is flodded with new software review requests. One glance and I can 'feel' that both software and the coverage request email used AI.

So, like Linus Torvalds, I have made my peace with it. Until now, I was trying not to recommend open source tools that were openly developed with help of Claude or other AI tools. I don't see the point of it anymore now. If an open source software is good and I feel that readers would find it useful, I will feature it regardless. You can then decide on your own if you want to use it or not.

And this is also the time to get moving towards local AI. Where AI and models live in your system locally instead of a cloud. Sure, it won't match the performance of Claude and other frontier models, but some smaller tasks can still be achieved with local AI. Ubuntu's AI-based voice input tool Myna is a proof of that.

Do subscribe to the Local AI Weekly newsletter if you want to stay updated and use the AI on your system in true open source spirit.

This edition of FOSS Weekly is supported by PrivacyNotes, an open source, zero knowledge note management app.

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📰 Linux news that matters

Ubuntu 26.10 is going to be released today. While we wait for Ubuntu 26.10 ISOs to appear, the next interim release already has a codename, "Tenacious T-Rex," marking the first time Ubuntu has ever used a dinosaur-themed mascot.

ONLYOFFICE Docs 10.0 brings AI assistance to every editor for text summarization and formula drafting, while adding collaboration features, spreadsheet speed improvements, and modular apps for forms and file management.

Strata is a new keyboard-first file manager for Omarchy and Arch that just hit 1.0, offering column view browsing, vi-key navigation, and a clever feature that remembers each folder’s sort order and icon size.

LibreOffice has come to the rescue after Microsoft's discontinuation of Publisher for 365 users. Using the Document Liberation Project’s reverse-engineered library, users can now open PUB files and migrate them to open standard formats.

Mozilla is targeting the commercial market with Firefox Enterprise, a product that would let organizations manage Firefox installations across employee devices through a self-hosted console.

Linux Mint has moved to an annual release cycle, with the next one, Linux Mint 27 "Adrien" arriving on Christmas. There won't be a Mint 23.x

The CachyOS team recently announced that Framework is increasing its support for the project, going from $250 per month to $850, taking the total figure up to $10,200 a year.

Open source boot firmware LibreBoot has a new release supporting more hardware now.

🧠 What We’re Thinking About

Six open source vendors have launched Open Productivity Software to expand openDesk from government use into the enterprise market.

🧮 Linux Tips, Tutorials, and Learnings

My Computer is a Shell extension that restores the unified "Computer" view that GNOME dropped from Files (Nautilus) in the GNOME 47 release. It displays drives, network locations, and removable media in one place rather than them being scattered across the sidebar.

Arch users run pacman -Syu for updates because it prevents dependency mismatches when the local package database is stale. Running just -S on an outdated system can leave you with incompatible package versions.

👷 Homelab and Hardware Corner

Pebble completed the full open source release of software, hardware schematics, and mobile apps in 2025, paving the way for its resurrection. Now the Pebble Round 2 smartwatch has entered production and begun shipping to preorders.

Zima, brand behind ZimaOS, ZimaBoard, and ZimaCube, is organizing a self-hosting event on Reddit where you can win homelab gadgets and AdGuard and PhotoPrism licenses just by sharing your self-hosting story. If you already self-host, why not try your luck? Or, at least explore how other people are self-hosting.

Self-hosting Day Event by Zima

✨ Apps and Projects Highlights

BentoPDF is a privacy-first, open source PDF toolkit that processes files locally in your browser instead of uploading to servers.

A new open source GIS tool is here; it lets you chat with an AI Assistant about map data and geographic workflows.

If you like what we do and would love to support our work, please become It's FOSS Plus member. It costs $49 a year (less than the cost of a McDonald's burger a month), and you get free ebooks, an ad-free reading experience with the satisfaction of helping the desktop Linux community.

Join It's FOSS Plus

📽️ Videos for You

For people who are working extensively with git, this terminal-based git client is worth a try.

Subscribe to It's FOSS YouTube Channel

💡 Quick Handy Tip

0:00

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In the Nautilus file manager, you can carry out a search in the current folder using Ctrl+F or search everywhere using Shift+Ctrl+F. When you find the item you were looking for, you can use the shortcut Ctrl+Alt+O to open its location.

Going further, you can also use the shortcut Ctrl+. to open a terminal at that location.

🎋 Fun in the FOSSverse

Call yourself a true Arch Linux fan? Are you bold enough to prove it?

A reality check for big names like Adobe. 🤭

🗓️ Tech Trivia: Long before IT became the industry we know today, British computing professionals were organizing themselves. On October 14, 1957, the British Computer Society was formally incorporated following a merger of two computing groups.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 From the Community: A very interesting thread surrounding NixOS and Nix has popped up, featuring replies from supporters and skeptics.

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Epic Games Wants Linux Gamers. It's Rebuilding EAC For Fortnite

Linux gamers have gotten used to hearing that yet another multiplayer title is cutting off the platform due to a variety of reasons, though most of their arguments usually sound lazy to me.

Take Ubisoft, for instance. They recently stopped For Honor from being playable on Linux and the Steam Deck, saying that they could not meaningfully deploy protection for the platform.

Now we have Epic Games swaying the other way, rebuilding its Linux anti-cheat under a new name while also offering a preview release for the long-requested native Epic Games Launcher.

Anti-cheat on Linux isn't some pipe dream

Easy Anti-Cheat has supported native Linux games since 2014 and Windows games running through Wine or Proton since 2021. Epic is now rebuilding that Linux implementation into EAC Linux v2, aiming to get much closer to Windows by leaning on security features Linux already has.

On Windows, EAC relies on a kernel driver that is active only during play. On Linux, EAC Linux v2 won’t have such a module acting in one of the most sensitive parts of the system.

That matters because kernel-level anti-cheat is a common sticking point for Linux gamers.

EAC Linux v2 runs a systemd service that stays active just for the length of a protected game session, alongside eBPF programs written by Epic that watch for tampering and cheats.

For players, this means a stricter boot setup, so Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 need to be on, the kernel has to be signed with a key Epic recognizes, and several other boot and kernel settings come into play.

EAC checks all of this only when a protected game launches, and failing the check brings up an error, not a ban. Players can also keep a separate boot entry for protected games and run their own keys elsewhere.

Testing the waters

Fortnite will be the first game to test EAC Linux v2, with plans to open it to other developers once the system is validated. Developers with games already on EAC for Linux can stay on the older version or switch.

Getting Fortnite itself onto Linux depends on distro support. It will arrive through the new launcher (shown below) once enough maintainers meet the security requirements.

Epic Games Launcher (preview)

The preview officially supports Ubuntu 22.04 LTS or newer, Fedora 43 or newer, and Debian 12 or newer, while other distros may work but are not officially tested.

The launcher itself runs natively, but many games are Windows-only, so they may need a compatibility layer like Wine or Proton to run.

The community needs to step in

Epic is reaching out to Linux community leaders and inviting distro maintainers to get in touch since protected games will only launch on systems booted with keys from a trusted list.

It is maintained in-house for now, with the goal of going open source sometime down the line.

They already seem to be in touch with Fedora, as a panel scheduled for later this year names Fedora Project Leader Jef Spaleta as a co-host, with the talk centered on enabling fair competitive gaming on Linux.

SteamOS is the next obvious name to bring up, but the Steam Deck doesn't meet the requirements yet. Talks with Valve are ongoing, with the aim of supporting the handheld later.

While it's still early, this is good news for gamers on Linux, as this is a platform that keeps getting shown the proverbial middle finger when it comes to gaming.

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Suggested Read 📖: Last month, I spent some time with GeForce NOW on Linux to see if it's gameable.

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A Joint Venture of Open Source Proportions! Open Productivity is Here

Collabora Productivity, Element, Nordeck, Open-Xchange, Univention, and XWiki have put their names behind a new Berlin-registered company called Open Productivity Software GmbH.

Leading the firm are the two managing directors, Dr. Gerald Pfeifer and Peter Ganten, who are tasked with making it all work. Pfeifer held leadership roles at SUSE before taking the job, while Ganten is the CEO of Univention.

If you were wondering what openDesk is, it is a suite of office and collaboration tools made up of open source apps from different vendors. The new company is meant to market it to critical infrastructure operators and businesses internationally.

The project itself is an offering by the German ZenDiS, which has focused on public administration so far and launched a private-sector partner program for the suite last month.

Two of the founding members, XWiki and Open-Xchange, are also part of the Euro-Office initiative, the ONLYOFFICE-based document project we covered earlier this year.

What's inside openDesk?

Each founder supplies a piece of the suite. Here's a brief summary of who does what:

• Collabora Productivity handles document editing with its online office suite.
• Element brings real-time communications on top of Matrix.
• Nordeck adds communication tools built around Jitsi and its NeoBoard whiteboard.
• Open-Xchange covers email, calendars, and collaboration.
• Univention looks after identity and access management.
• XWiki supplies the wiki system for knowledge management.

Nextcloud and OpenProject are part of openDesk too, handling files and project planning, but they are not among the founders. The company also names Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace as its competition, pitching openDesk as a flexible alternative that gives users full control of their data.

How the partner model works

Customers are meant to deal with a single contact per project, who covers everything from consulting and migration to day-to-day operations. Hosting on a customer's own infrastructure or in the cloud is still something that's being worked on.

Three launch partners are backing the newly formed company. Adfinis is a Swiss-headquartered open source firm, the msg group has served critical infrastructure operators, while the French firm Smile brings integration expertise.

Open Productivity has not disclosed whether more partners will be onboarded following the launch.

Speaking during the launch, Pamela Krosta-Hartl, the Managing Director of ZenDiS, added that:

We welcome the initiative of several openDesk vendors to support openDesk’s path into the enterprise market through Open Productivity. Open Productivity enables the distributors and systems integrators that ZenDiS is now addressing with its new partner program.

You can go through the press release to learn more about their intentions with this joint venture.

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Suggested Read 📖: openEuler wants Linux to treat AI clusters like a standalone machine.

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This Dev Built an Office Suite Because His Wife Kept Going Back to Microsoft Office

Gaël Duval has already put out two beta releases of ElixirOffice, a desktop app and a self-hosted server version, and he is asking early testers for feedback.

His wife, a teacher, has been facing a predicament many people usually face when using open source office suites. For her, the editors offered at school felt unfamiliar, the menu items and shortcuts felt out of place, and not to mention colleagues' documents also looked off.

ElixirOffice follows the Microsoft Office-style ribbon, menus, and shortcuts, and it opens OOXML document formats as well as their OpenDocument counterparts. It targets Linux, Windows, and macOS, with a server version aimed at teams.

This is what's in the beta

Both of those versions use the AGPL-3.0 license, where the desktop app works offline, while the server version runs through Docker on a machine you host.

ElixirOffice offers substitutes for the usual Microsoft Office apps. The document editor takes the place of Word, the spreadsheet editor of Excel, and the presentation editor of PowerPoint.

Each one opens the Microsoft format and its OpenDocument equivalent, so .docx and .odt files go to the document editor, .xlsx and .ods to the spreadsheet editor, and .pptx and .odp to the presentation editor.

The server version also lets you connect Murena Workspace and Nextcloud accounts through an optional start page, which stays disabled unless you switch it on, and the desktop editor has no support for accounts, mail merge, co-editing, version history, or password-protected files.

On Linux, the desktop beta comes as an AppImage and a DEB for Debian and Ubuntu, whereas Windows gets an installer and macOS a disk image for Apple Silicon devices only.

ElixirOffice

How did this come about?

Gaël started and supervised the project, while large language models handled the coding via AI agents, with tests and reviews being run on every change. ElixirOffice also has optional AI features that stay off until you connect a model of your own.

To keep layouts close to Word without Microsoft fonts, it ships free metric-compatible ones, plus Marelle, a font commissioned by the French Ministry of Education. The README file on the project's repo also claims that no telemetry is collected and sent.

Its roots

ElixirOffice is not written from scratch. It sits on top of Euro-Office, which itself comes from ONLYOFFICE, and the project's changes live inside the forks of the Euro-Office components.

The original copyright notices and license files are kept in place, and the project states that it is not affiliated with Ascensio System, the company behind ONLYOFFICE, or the Euro-Office project.

To provide you with some context, Euro-Office is an editor that European companies, led by Nextcloud and IONOS, are building to run inside other platforms. It launched on March 27, 2026, and shipped its first stable release on June 9.

Around that time, ONLYOFFICE had raised licensing and attribution concerns about Euro-Office and suspended its partnership with Nextcloud, which disputed the claims.

Who's Gaël Duval?

Gaël is best known as the creator of Mandrake Linux, a distro that later became Mandriva. He left the company in 2006 and went on to start Ulteo.

Later, he began work on eelo, which is now called /e/OS. It is a de-Googled, Android-based mobile OS from the nonprofit e Foundation, where Gaël is listed among the founding board members.

He is also the CEO of Murena, the company that sells phones running /e/OS and runs the Murena Workspace cloud service, which was previously called eCloud.

Could it end up in Murena Workspace?

Nothing in the project's documents or Gaël's announcement says Murena plans to offer ElixirOffice as part of Murena Workspace, so any such move can only be called speculation at this point.

The server version connecting to Murena Workspace accounts is a promising sign, but that doesn't really mean anything right now.

Back in 2022, ONLYOFFICE said that Murena Cloud used its editors, and the e Foundation's landing page for the service says Murena Workspace is powered by ONLYOFFICE too.

So my thinking is that, if ElixirOffice does mature to the level of ONLYOFFICE, there's not much stopping it from being adopted as the in-house base for Murena Workspace.

For now, the source code and the releases for ElixirOffice can both be found on GitHub. 👇

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Suggested Read 📖: Seeing that we are on the topic, ONLYOFFICE Docs 10.0 is out now with many upgrades.

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Linux Mint 23 is No More. A New Release Takes its Place

In the project's September monthly update, Linux Mint lead, Clement Lefebvre (clem), says that the distro's version number now reflects the upcoming year and that point releases aren't a thing anymore.

Releases will come once a year, so 28 follows this one, and users upgrade from the current year's to the next. This ought to make it simpler for the many beginners who use Linux Mint as a gateway to the Linux platform.

The codenames change too, as the girls' names Mint has used since 2006 give way to boys' names. Linux Mint 27 "Adrien" is the first release to follow these new conventions, though it did not start off that way.

Where did LM 23 go?

You see, the devs had no name or version number ready for the next release when work on it began earlier this year, so they picked temporary ones. This way, "Alfa" became the codename and "23" the version.

That was because the release strategy was unclear. The cycle length, the handling of minor releases, and the question of alpha releases were all undecided, and the strategy would also dictate how releases got numbered and named.

It all goes back to the January update, when Clem said shipping a new release twice a year while also looking after LMDE was leaving them with less time to actually build features.

By March, the team had locked in a longer development cycle and a Christmas 2026 target for the next release. The move we have been talking about so far marks the end of that long decision-making process.

Clem also points out that using the girls' names for releases all these years, from Ada to Zena, had made them run out of alphabet just as the schedule changed, which he found a funny coincidence.

He says the project has never spent a full year on one release before, and while the move away from six-month cycles was a tough decision, it is working out.

A year of development

The longer cycle gives the team room to attempt projects that would once have felt out of reach. The Clockenstein project, which gave Mint a calendar app in the August update, now has an alarm app called Clocks too.

Alerts from Clocks run through the Clockenstein daemon and agent that already handle the calendar's notifications, so they go off even with the app shut. It handles repeating alarms and lets you pick your own sounds, while its look and behavior are borrowed from Android.

Three more projects, Superlight, Unfold, and Velocitty, are also getting their finishing touches. The next update blog will feature them.

If you need a refresher of the development work carried out so far, then you can read about Linux Mint's kernel removal feature and how Wayland support has been achieved.

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