---
title: Guests support
description: 
published: true
date: 2022-01-20T13:19:24.027Z
tags: 
editor: markdown
dateCreated: 2022-01-12T14:25:25.960Z
---

# Guest operating system

> *Phyllome OS 🤎 other operating systems. It is meant to be a cozy platform for almost any modern operating systems to thrive.*

Although Phyllome OS would like to support as many operating systems as possible, due to limited resources and the intent to be forward compatible with the Cloud Hypervisor, it will mainly focus on modern, UEFI-compatible operating systems that are shipping with at least some support for `virtio` devices. If favors free and open-source software operating systems.

## Category of operating systems

As of today, without accounting for Linux distributions, there are dozens of production-ready operating systems. There are two families of operating systems that dominate this space, the Unix family and the Windows family. Everything else will be categorized as independent. 

### UNIX-family

When it comes to its longevity and number of variants, the UNIX family is by far the most prolific family of all.

* **Linux**
	* Debian, Fedora, Android, Chromium OS, etc.
* **BSD** 
	* OpenBSD, FreeBSD, etc.
  * Darwin-based operating systems, such as macOS
* **Solaris**
	* OpenSolaris, Illumnos, etc.

### Windows-family

* **Windows**
	* Windows and [ReactOS](/virt/guest/reactos)

### Independent

* **SculptOS**
* **FuschiaOS**

## Support matrix

> *Support for guest systems differs widely. In general, free and open-source operating systems such as Linux distributions are better supported than proprietary operating systems*.
{.is-info}

* *The table below only show support for the latest operating systems.*

| | Linux | Darwin | Windows |
| :- | :-: | :-: | :-: |
| *[Chipset](/virt/chipset)* | `i440fx` `Q35` `virt` | `Q35` | `i440fx` `Q35` `virt` |
| *[Platform Firmware](/virt/firmware)* | `SeaBIOS` `OVMF` `RHF` [^1] | `OVMF` | `SeaBIOS` `OVMF` `RHF` |
| *`virtio-gpu`* | **Yes** | No | No |
| *`virtio-video`* | *Upcoming* | No | No |
| *`virtio-snd`* | *Upcoming* | No | No |
| *`virtio-blk`* | **Yes** | **Yes** | **Yes** |
| *`virtio-scsi`* | **Yes** | No | **Yes** |
| *`virtio-fs`* | **Yes** | No | **Yes** |
| *`virtio-net`* | **Yes** |  **Yes** | **Yes** |
| *`virtio-keyboard`* | **Yes** | No | **Yes** |
| *`virtio-tablet`* | **Yes** | No | **Yes** |

[^1]: RHF stands for the Rust Hypervisor Firmware

## Resource

* **Distrowatch**: 
	* [All active operating systems and Linux distributions](https://distrowatch.com/search.php?ostype=All&category=All&origin=All&basedon=All&notbasedon=None&desktop=All&architecture=All&package=All&rolling=All&isosize=All&netinstall=All&language=All&defaultinit=All&status=Active#simple) listed on Distrowatch
	* [List of other operating systems awaiting validation](https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=links#new), still on Distrowatch
* **OSDev.org**
	* [OSDev.org](https://wiki.osdev.org/Main_Page), a great place to learn about Operating System Development.
	* [List of active operating systems](https://wiki.osdev.org/Projects) on OSDev.org
  
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*[**Go to parent page**](/virt/)*