Will we ALWAYS be stuck with windows, mac, linux and unix types OSes only?
 

hi

Will we ever see a different type of desktop operating system in the next ten years or more. Something unique and different and not a derivative using a windows, linux or unix kernel.

These already exist, they have for years...
DOS
OS/2
ReactOS
AmigaOS
CP/M
NEXTSTEP
BeOS

Should mention Haiku instead of BeOS. While BeOS is still used for a VERY small number of things, the OS as something usable for anything else is dead. Haiku at least is alive and well, even if it barely works on any real hardware.

I'm hoping that someone invents an operating system that is completely immune to hackers, and all corporate and government agencies!!

The short answer is that, for the foreseeable future (whatever that is, if there is any such thing), yes.

Remember, MacOS is BSD with extra added locked-downedness.

Actually, when I read the top post, I thought of these and realized that they were all gone as of around 2000. (Didn't think of ReactOS though).

To cut to the point of the question, what exactly are you wanting to see that "none of the above" have already tried? Something "new" and "completely different"? Something that has none of the attributes of previous operating systems? In the next ten years? Maybe. In all of eternity? Most certainly. Does that answer your question?

Yes, No, Maybe, Depends.

Some more experimental options:

Plan 9 from Bell Labs
EROS: The Extremely Reliable Operating System
The Coyotos Secure Operating System (successor of EROS)
MIT Exokernel Operating System
STEPS Toward the Reinvention of Programming (a project to write a full system in 20k lines of source code).

Experiments show that the Dvorak keyboard is more efficient than the QWERTY, AZERTY, etc ones. So why aren't we all using it? Because by the time that it was invented, everyone was used to the others and the world was already full of typewriters.

Similarly, the architectures of current Intel and AMD CPUs are different to that of the original 8086, but they use the same instruction set and decode the instructions internally: no-one ever wanted to switch to a new assembly language.

There might be a small advantage to replacing the Linux kernel with something else, but what of all the servers and their software that would have to be changed? What of all the administrators who'd have to be retrained?

Actually AFAIK, the present layout was invented to slow down the typewriter-operators -- that were so quick the mechanical machines jammed.

I don't know. Let me check my crystal ball.

Just FTR OS/2 should not be in that list since it became eComStation which afaik is still available and actually quite robust. That said it is something of a hybrid of Unix and DOS (has 100+ line config.sys) and has dedicated DOS and Win-OS2 (still based on Win 3.11) code included. Shortly after Warp 3, emx runtimes were written greatly increasing Unix implementation. It is still written primarily in Assembly so it is super fast on any machine and oddly, despite actual DOS code, is able to run nicely on 64bit CPUs. Because it was originally designed for ultimate scalability, including actual mainframes, the kernel is always SMP and can handle vast numbers of CPU cores.

Anyone finding this interesting is invited to try the demo LiveCD located here eComStation Demo CD

Yes and no, pending extinction... I remember one written purely with Ruby but that was "way back!" :)

Also, FreeDOS is a pretty specialized OS, but it is a currently-maintained desktop OS that isn't based on Windows, Linux or Unix.