Illumos an open-source Unix-like kernel and operating system based on OpenSolaris. Its development coincided with the acquisition of Sun Microsystems, and therefore of OpenSolaris, by Oracle in 2010. Illumos development was formally announced in August of that year.

The core features of the illumos kernel are the ZFS copy-on-write file system, and kernel support for the DTrace analysis and troubleshooting tool.

Operating systems based on illumos

In addition to the mainline illumos operating system, the illumos kernel is the basis of several distributions:

  • DilOS (Dilos.org)
  • Dyson (Osdyson.ru)
  • Napp-it (Napp-it.org)
  • NexentaStor (Nexenta.com)
  • OmniOS (OmniOSce.org)
  • OpenIndiana (OpenIndiana.org)
  • SmartOS (Joyent.com/smartos)
  • Tribblix (Tribblix.org)
  • V9os (Milax.fi/v9os.html)
  • XStreamOS (Sonicle.com/xstreamos)

Capitalization

The illumos development team and contributors do not capitalize the “i” in illumos.

Operating System terms, Unix

  • The official illumos website.