Since the early 2000s[update], there are four major BSD operating systems–FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and DragonFly BSD, and an increasing number of other OSs forked from these, that add or remove certain features; however, most of them remain largely compatible with their originating OS—and so are not really forks of them. This is a list of those that have been active since 2014, and their websites.
FreeBSD-based
FreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). FreeBSD currently has more than 200 active developers and thousands of contributors. Other notable derivatives include DragonFly BSD, which was forked from FreeBSD 4.8, and Apple Inc.'s macOS, with its Darwin base including a large amount of code derived from FreeBSD.
GhostBSD is a FreeBSD OS distro oriented for desktops and laptops. Its goal is to combine the stability and security of FreeBSD with OpenRC, OS packages and Mate graphical user interface. GhostBSD comes as livecd for users to test before installing.
HardenedBSD is a security-enhanced fork of FreeBSD. The HardenedBSD Project is implementing many exploit mitigation and security technologies on top of FreeBSD.
helloSystem
A desktop system for creators that focuses on simplicity, elegance, and usability.
ULBSD is a Unix-like, desktop-oriented operating system based on FreeBSD. It aims to be easy to install and ready-to-use immediately by providing pre-installed graphical KDE5 user desktop environment.
ravynOS (formerly airyxOS)
ravynOS is a FreeBSD-based OS aimed at providing "the finesse of macOS".
Discontinued. A "portable system administrator toolkit". It generally contains software for hardware tests, file system check, security check and network setup and analysis.
Discontinued in 2020. Paid homage to desktop BSD projects of the past like PC-BSD and TrueOS with its graphical interface and adds additional tools like a live, hybrid USB / DVD image.
Discontinued.[6] Successor is OPNsense. m0n0wall was an embedded firewall distribution of FreeBSD, one of the BSD operating system descendants. It provided a small image which can be put on Compact Flash cards as well as on CDROMs and hard disks. It ran on a number of embedded platforms and generic PCs.
Discontinued. A lightweight operating system that aimed to bring the flexibility and philosophy of Arch Linux to BSD-based operating systems. The Project has been inactive since 2017.
Discontinued. TrueOS (formerly PC/BSD) was a Unix-like, desktop-oriented operating system based on FreeBSD based on ZFS boot-environments, Lumina (desktop environment), and the sysadm administration framework; reinvented as Trident OS on top of Void Linux, retained many BSD aesthetics.
NetBSD is a freely redistributable, open source version of the Unix-derivative Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) computer operating system. It was the second open source BSD descendant to be formally released, after 386BSD, and continues to be actively developed. Noted for its portability and quality of design and implementation, it is often used in embedded systems and as a starting point for the porting of other operating systems to new computer architectures.
Name
Description
BlackBSD
NetBSD-based Live CD, with security tools on it and Mate as a window manager
NetBSD fork with main goal to be more modern in some aspects than NetBSD itself. Looks like some of the differences will be back-committed to the main project.
Force10 Networks FTOS
the operating system for Force10 TeraScale E-Series switches/routers
Discontinued. Gentoo/*BSD was a subproject to port Gentoo features such as Portage to the NetBSD operating system.
Jibbed
Live CD based on NetBSD
OS108
OS108 is a desktop-oriented operating system based on NetBSD.
PolyBSD / pocketSAN
Multipurpose framework for building embedded systems based on NetBSD.
SEOS
The operating system for the Ericsson SmartEdge router series
OpenBSD-based
OpenBSD is a Unix-like computer operating system descended from Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), a Unix derivative developed at the University of California, Berkeley. It was forked from NetBSD in 1995. OpenBSD includes a number of security features absent or optional in other operating systems and has a tradition of developers auditing the source code for software bugs and security problems.
Name
Description
ÆrieBSD
OpenBSD fork which tends to be free from GPL-licensed software.[10]
Distribution of OpenBSD for Spanish speakers,[11] since 2005 new versions are released around 3 months after OpenBSD's releases, source in GitHub,[12] to learn how to install there is a challenge with badge on P2PU[13]
Discontinued.[15] Was an OpenBSD fork with main goal to be more modern in some aspects than OpenBSD.
BowlFish
Customized OpenBSD installation script for embedded systems, intended to make OpenBSD fit into small media like compact flash cards.
BSDanywhere
Live CD featuring the Enlightenment DR17 window manager
ComixWall
A firewall with UTM features
ekkoBSD
ekkoBSD was a Unix-like operating system based on OpenBSD 3.3, also incorporating code from other BSD-like operating systems. Its focus was on security and easy administration.
EmBSD
FabBSD
OpenBSD fork with main application in CNC field. It is almost inactive.
Fork of the UNIX-like BSD operating system descendant OpenBSD 3.0, begun in July 2002. The project's objective to produce a free and fully secure, complete system, but with a small footprint.
Core system based mostly on OpenBSD and some NetBSD code for 32-bit i386 and SPARC, updated via infrequent snapshots and by following "current". Additional packages via MirPorts and pkgsrc are no longer updated.
SONaFR is a small system with router/NAT/firewalling capabilities that fits on a single floppy.
UTMFW
Successor of ComixWall, a firewall with UTM features
LiveUSB OpenBSD
LiveUSB OpenBSD is a project started around 2009 for creating OpenBSD based bootable USB flash images. There are 3 variants, one with Gnome, a minimal text only version and an XFCE desktop image.
LiveCD OpenBSD
LiveCD OpenBSD is sister project of LiveUSB-OpenBSD and this gives users a Live CD/DVD bootable distribution where the user gets to experience OpenBSD without installing to disk. There are 3 flavors, one with XFCE, one with MATE desktop and one with KDE.
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 US 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 Revision 4 (SVR4), released circa 1992, contained much code which was ported from BSD version up to and including 4.3BSD.
BSD-like Systems
There are various operating systems, particularly GNU/Linux distributions that attempt to imitate the design of BSD, but do not use the code base of any BSD Operating System.
Void Linux is a Linux distribution created in 2008 by Juan Romero Pardines, a former developer of NetBSD. It uses its own independent package manager, XBPS. It also has elements inspired by NetBSD, such xbps-src, a source package management system inspired by pkgsrc, an adaption of NetBSD's wtf utility, and also uses runit as its init system instead of systemd.
CRUX is a Linux distribution mainly targeted at expert computer users. It uses BSD-style initscripts and utilizes a ports system similar to a BSD-based operating system.
Chimera Linux is a Linux distribution created by Daniel Kolesa, a semi-active contributor to Void Linux. It uses a userland and core utilities based on FreeBSD.
