FreeBSD and other members of the BSD family have binary compatibility with the Linux kernel in usermode by translating Linux system calls into BSD ones. The ReactOS OS development effort, seeks to create an open source, free software OS that is binary compatible with Microsoft's Windows NT family of OSes using Wine for application compatibility and reimplementing the Windows kernel for additional compatibility such as for drivers whereas Linux would use Linux drivers not Windows drivers. Additional software, Wine, is available that does that to some degree. This does not mean that Linux can't be binary compatible with Windows applications. Otherwise, programs can be employed within a CPU emulator or a faster dynamic translation mechanism to make them compatible.įor example, the Linux kernel is not compatible with Windows. As the job of an OS is to run programs, the instruction set architectures running the OSes have to be the same or compatible. This means that they are ABI-compatible (for application binary interface). Well, let me just copy and paste what wikipedia says:īinary compatible operating systems are OSes that aim to implement binary compatibility with another OS, or another variant of the same brand.
