List of BSD operating systems

There are a number of Unix-like operating systems under active development, descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) series of UNIX variants developed (originally by Bill Joy) at the University of California, Berkeley EECS department. Currently, there are four major BSD operating systems, and an increasing number of other OSs derived from these, that add or remove certain features but generally remain compatible with their originating OS — and so are not really forks of them. This is a list of those that have been active in the last couple of years, and their respective websites.

Active major BSD operating systems

* Dragonfly BSD
* FreeBSD
* NetBSD
* OpenBSD

Derivative BSD operating systems

Based on FreeBSD

* DragonFly BSD - Originally forked from FreeBSD 4.8, now developed in a different direction
* ClosedBSD
* DesktopBSD
* FreeSBIE
* FreeNAS
* Frenzy Live CD
* Debian GNU/kFreeBSD
* Ging
* Gentoo/FreeBSD
* IronPort AsyncOS - security appliances
* Juniper Networks JunOS - Juniper routers
* MidnightBSD - Midnight BSD has now forked away from FreeBSD 6.1 Beta
* Nokia IPSO - Nokia IP security appliances
* PC-BSD
* PicoBSD
* RofreeSBIE
* The Dark Star
* TrueBSD
* m0n0wall
* pfSense
* Paxym FreeBSD for Octeon Cavium_Networks

Based on NetBSD

* OpenBSD - Originally forked from NetBSD 1.0, now focuses on proactive security and integrated cryptography
* BlackBSD
* Force10 Networks FTOS, the operating system for Force10 TeraScale E-Series switches/routers
* Debian GNU/NetBSD
* Gentoo/NetBSD
* Jibbed
* PolyBSD/pocketSAN
* Redback Networks SEOS, the operating system for the Redback SmartEdge router series

Based on OpenBSD

* Quetzal
* Anonym.OS
* FuguIta
* Gentoo/OpenBSD
* MirOS BSD
* OliveBSD
* ComixWall

Based on Dragonfly BSD

* Firefly BSD

Historic BSD Unix

BSD was originally derived from Unix, using the complete source code for Sixth Edition Unix for the PDP-11 from Bell Labs as a starting point for the First Berkeley Software Distribution, or "1BSD". A series of updated versions for the PDP-11 followed (the 2.xBSD releases). A 32-bit version for the VAX platform was released as 3BSD, and the 4.xBSD series added many new features, including TCP/IP networking.

For many years, the primary developer and project leader was Bill Joy, who was a graduate student at the time; funding for this project was provided by DARPA. DARPA was interested in obtaining a programming platform and programmer's interface which would provide a robust, general purpose, time-sharing computing platform which would not become obsolete every time computing hardware was or is replaced. Such an operating system would allow Department of Defense software, especially for intricate, long-term finance and logistics operations, to be quickly ported to new hardware as it became available.

As time went on, code was later ported both from and to Unix System III and still later Unix System V. Unix System V Revison 4 (SVR4), released circa 1992, contained much code which was ported from BSD version up to and including 4.3BSD.

ee also

* Comparison of BSD operating systems
* Commercial products based on FreeBSD

External links

* [http://www.bsdrouter.org/ bsdrouter.org - List of small BSDs for routers]
* [http://www.seattlewireless.net/MiniOs MiniOS - List of small OSes, with a section on BSD-based ones]