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Table of Contents
Conventional
Anything with ARM
Low Level Depth
box86
You NEED a 32-bit subsystem to run and build Box86. Box86 is useless on 64-bit only systems
Primarily targeted at ARM Linux implementations, this emulator allows the running of Linux x86-based applications on various non-x86 platforms. Works well on phones.
AOSC OS
High Level Depth
AOSC OS/Retro Branch
Strip down package features in interest of conserving storage and memory
A branch of AOSC/OS meant to run on particularly old or outdated devices, while still functioning as a modern Linux distribution. Used to great result on various particularly outdated pieces of hardware.
Debian
High Level Depth
alpha port
The Debian port to the alpha architecture, currently not by-release as of 5.0 “Lenny”.
arm port
The Debian port to the ARM architecture, with 32 and 64 bit versions.
avr32 port
The Debian port to the AVR32 architecture, not supported as of 2010 or so…
https://web.archive.org/web/20130326061253/http://avr32.debian.net/
hppa port
The Debian port to the PA-RISC architecture, currently not by-release as of 6.0 “Squeeze”.
i386 port
The Debian port to the i386 architecture, being the first port of Debian released.
ia64
The Debian port to the IA-64 architecture, currently not by-release as of 7.0 “Wheezy”.
m68k port
The Debian port to the m68k architecture, currently not by-release as of 4.0 “Etch”. Attempts are being made to revive this port up to by-release standards.
mips port
The Debian port to the MIPS architecture, with various endianness versions.
powerpc port
The Debian port to the PowerPC architecture, with various levels of bit support.
powerpcspe port
The Debian port to the “PowerPC SPE” architecture on certain IBM PPC processors.
RISC-V port
The Debian port to the RISC-V architecture.
sh4 port
The Debian port to the SuperH 4 architecture.
sparc/sparc64 ports
The Debian ports to the SPARC architectures.
Interactive Unix
Low Level Depth
Interactive Unix 3.0 in 86box
An interesting old 386-era X11 supporting Unix variant.
https://virtuallyfun.com/wordpress/2010/02/09/fun-with-interactive-unix/
KolibriOS
High Level Depth
KolibriOS latest
Forked from MenuetOS, it has a very similar purpose, but seemingly a much more active development cycle, plus more applications and games.
MenuetOS
High Level Depth
MenuetOS 1.39.60
An x86-based OS written entirely in assembly code, available in either 32 or 64 bit. Significant hardware compatibility on slightly older systems, may be worth considering for certain privacy or “obscure” reasons.
Mezzano
Low Level Depth
Mezzano git
This operating system is written entirely in Lisp, containing a reasonable amount of applications and functions for such a constraint.
MS-DOS
Low Level Depth
SEAL
“Graphical Environment similar to KDE; Multimedia Capabilities with the SFA API”
A graphical desktop environment for “DOS”, presumably MS-DOS with support for other variants in some capacity.
NetBSD
High Level Depth
aarch64 port
The NetBSD port for ARM’s 64-bit CPUs. Works on many boards, SoCs, and more. Forms the basis for many EOPs in this list.
http://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/evbarm/ (eval boards)
http://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/aarch64/ (normal systems)
alpha port
NetBSD runs on almost all of the existing alpha systems
The NetBSD port for DEC’s RISC-based “Alpha” architecture. Runs on many machines that are primarily for computing.
evbmips port
The NetBSD port for various MIPS evaluation boards. Stands out from other MIPS ports for it still standing as a “Tier 1” port.
evbppc port
The NetBSD port for various PowerPC evaluation boards. Like the MIPS evaluation port, this port is still Tier 1.
i386 port
The NetBSD port for the i386 architecture, and all of the clones released at the time.
ofppc port
The NetBSD port for generic OpenFirmware compliant PowerPC machines.
sandpoint port
The NetBSD port for the Motorola Sandpoint architecture. Originally found on evalulation boards, this PowerPC platform is now used in various types of networking hardware.
sbmips
The NetBSD port for the SiByte processor from Broadcom, found in some boards.
OpenBSD
High Level Depth
alpha port
The NetBSD port for DEC’s RISC-based “Alpha” architecture. Currently still supported.
arm64 port
The NetBSD port for the arm64 architecture. Runs on a bunch of boards and things.
armv7 port
The NetBSD port for the armv7 architecture. Runs on a bunch of boards and things.
i386 port
The OpenBSD port to the i386 architecture.
octeon port
The OpenBSD port to the octeon architecture, which has various network-based hardware and similar MIPS-based devices.
PalmOS
High Level Depth
Linux
a Linux kernel running directly on a palm pilot
An old attempt of putting the Linux kernel on various Palm devices, like the Palm Pilot, the Palm V, and Palm M500s. Apparently, it worked, at some time.
https://old.reddit.com/r/Palm/comments/qq0jr5/linux_2_on_palm_pilot/
Low Level Depth
Pumpkin OS
as it is not an emulator
A modern attempt to resurrect the PalmOS concepts, in the attempt to create a sort of compatibility layer which allows compiling classic PalmOS apps for this x86-based system.
QNX
Low Level Depth
Floppy Demo Disk
operating system, the “Photon MicroGUI”, and the HTML 3 capable Voyager Web
A version of QNX 1.4 that fits entirely on a single floppy. Remarkably capable for such a size.
Slackware
High Level Depth
Slackware 1.01-4.0
A blog-based exploration of various old Slackware versions, going back to 1.01. The 2.0 files below are tied into this exploration.
https://web.archive.org/web/20171113201053/http://www.nielshorn.net/slackware/slack_old.php
Slackware 2.0
A FTP archive containing all of the files within Slackware 2.0.1.
http://ftp.heanet.ie/mirrors/ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-2.0.1/slakware/
SLS
Low Level Depth
SLS 1.02/3
Even older than Yggdrasil, and it was known to be quite poor quality at times. It spurred the creation of Slackware from how bad it was.
tomsrtbt
Low Level Depth
tomsrtbt 2.0.103
Touts itself as the most feature-filled Linux distro that can fit on one bootable floppy disk. Implies itself as x86 only, across various architectures.
UEFI
High Level Depth
Console emulation (potential)
Whether these emulators support operating systems for these consoles is unknown; it must be looked into further. Consoles without meaningful OSes are not included.
Nintendo Entertainment System – unnamed & unreleased emulator
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhJOYLSDRLU https://firmwaresecurity.com/2018/07/03/super-mario-bros-nes-emulator-ported-to-uefi/
Nintendo Game Boy (Color) – UEFIboy (Plutoboy fork)
https://github.com/RossMeikleham/UEFIBoy https:%%//%%www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/bckjjc/uefiboy_game_boygame_boy_color_emulator_for_uefi/ https://firmwaresecurity.com/2019/04/07/uefiboy-gameboy-gameboy-color-emulator-uefi-subtree-fork-of-plutoboy/
Windows CE
High Level Depth
PalmOS emulator
Released during 1998, and a few versions appear to exist online.
https://old.reddit.com/r/Palm/comments/qur0in/palmos_emulator_runnning_on_windows_ce/
X11 Supported
Other
“Cool but Obscure X11 tools”
It’s very self explanatory; a bunch of interesting “retro” x11 utilities and tools.
Various lightweight DEs
A useful comparison for whomever wishes to reduce the memory load on a lower specification system.
https://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops/
Yggdrasil
Low Level Depth
Yggdrasil 1994-1995
One of the first independent Linux distributions, coming from the same era as SLS and Slackware.
https://archiveos.org/yggdrasil/
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/historic-linux/distributions/yggdrasil/