If I were to build a new operating system, what kind of features would it have? [closed]

Question

I am toying with the idea of creating an completely new operating system and would like to hear what everyone on this forums take is on that? First is it too late are the big boys so entrenched in our lives that we will never be able to switch (wow - what a terrible thought...). But if this is not the case, what should a operating system do for you? What features are the most important? Should all the components be separate installations (in other words - should the base OS really have no user functionality and that gets added on by creating "plug-ins" kind of like a good flexible tool?)

Why do I want to do this... I am more curious about whether there is a demand and I am wondering, since the OSes we use most today (Linux, Windows, Mac OS X (Free BSD)) were actually written more than 20 years ago (and I am being generous - I mean dual and quad cores did not exist back then, buses were much slower, hardware was much more expensive, etc,...), I was just curious with the new technology if we would do anything differently?

I am anxious to read your comments.

Answer 1

To answer the first question: It's never too late. Especially when it comes to niche market segments and stuff like that.

Second though, before you start down the path of creating a new OS, you should understand the kind of undertaking it is: it'd be a massive project.

Is it just a normal programmer "scratch the itch" kind of project? If so, then by all means go ahead -- you might learn alot of things by doing it. But if you're doing it for the resulting product, then you shouldn't start down that path until you've looked at all the current OSes under development (there are alot more than you'd think at first) and figured out what you'd like to change in them.

Quite possibly the effort would be better spent improving/changing an existing open source system. Even for your own experimentation, it may be easier to get the results you want if you start out with something already in development.