Uses

Operating system-level virtualization is commonly used in virtual hosting environments, where it is useful for securely allocating finite hardware resources amongst a large number of mutually-distrusting users. It is also used, to a lesser extent, for consolidating server hardware by moving services on separate hosts into containers on the one server.

Other typical scenarios include separating several applications to separate containers for improved security, hardware independence, and added resource management features.

OS-level virtualization implementations that are capable of live migration can be used for dynamic load balancing of containers between nodes in a cluster.

OS Embedded

The Operating System Embedded (mostly known under the acronym OSE) is a real-time embedded operating system created by the Swedish information technology company ENEA. Bengt Eliasson, who at the time was a consultant from ENEA with an assignment at Ericsson, wrote the basic parts of the kernel. The early version for the Zilog Z80 processor was named OS80.

OSE uses events (named signals due to ENEA's Telecomms background) in the form of messages passed to and from processes in the system. Messages are stored in a queue attached to each process. A 'link handler' mechanism allows signals to be passed between processes on separate machines, over a variety of transports. The OSE signalling mechanism formed the basis of an open-source inter-process communication project called LINX .

The system exists in several revisions named OSE for ARM processors, PowerPC and MIPS, OSEck for various DSP's and OSE Epsilon for minimal devices(written 100% in assembly).

OSE supports wide range of processors:

1. ARM consortium family: ARM 7, ARM 9, ARM10, XScale
2. MIPS 32 consortium family
3. Freescale PowerPC family: MPC 5xx, MPC 5xxx, Host Processors MPC 7xxx, PowerQUICC I MPC 8xx, PowerQUICC II MPC 82xx and MPC 83xx, PowerQUICC III MPC 85xx, Host Processors MPC 8xxx
4. IBM PowerPC family (from AMCC): 405EP, 405GP, 440GP, 440GX
5. IBM PowerPC family (from IBM): 750, 750CX, 750FX, 750GX
6. INTEL ARM 5 family - XScale, PXA-25x
7. Intel Network Processor: IXP2400
8. Texas Instruments: OMAP (all chipsets, for OMAP DSP part see OSEck)

OS Advocacy

Operating system advocacy is the practice of attempting to increase the awareness and improve the perception of a computer operating system. The motivation behind this may be to increase the number of users of a system, to assert the superiority of one choice over another or out of brand loyalty, pride in an operating system's abilities, or to persuade software vendors to port specific applications or device drivers to the platform.Operating system advocacy can vary widely in tone and form, from published comparisons to heated debates on mailing lists and other forums. In its most extreme forms it can veer into zealotry. Advocates are often normal users who devote their spare time to advocacy of their operating system of choice; many have a deep and abiding interest in the use, design and construction of operating systems and an emotional investment in their favourite operating system.Operating system advocacy can be compared to advocacy in other fields, particularly browser and editor wars, but also advocacy of programming languages and video game consoles.

OS level virtualization

Operating system-level virtualization is a server virtualization method where the kernel of an operating system allows for multiple isolated user-space instances, instead of just one. Such instances (often called containers, VEs, VPSs or jails) may look and feel like a real server, from the point of view of its owner. On Unix systems, this technology can be thought of as an advanced implementation of the standard chroot mechanism. In addition to isolation mechanisms, the kernel often provides resource management features to limit the impact of one container's activities on the other containers.