There are many contenders to the desktop crown, and a relative newcomer in that area is Whitix, an operating system which, despite what the name suggests, is not based on Linux. It comes with a fully pre-emptive multitasking kernel as well as ports of GCC, Python, and Mono. A bugfix release has just been posted on the website.

So, what makes Whitix different? Why should you try it out? Thoughtfully enough, the developers answered that question for us.

New kernel features. New features, like the information and configuration filesystem, a filesystem that lets system components expose information and configuration data about themselves (for an Ethernet card, /System/Config/Devices/Network/Ethernet0/macAddress, or /Devices/Network/Ethernet0/macAddress using SysConfRead, would be the way to edit and access its MAC address). Other features include a new network stack design that minimizes latency (netchannels) and a new thread scheduler. Clear filesystem layout. /bin, /etc and /usr/bin are replaced with /Applications, /System/Registry and other intuitive names; great for a clear view of the system internals.

This bugfix release fixes several bugs (really?) in the 0.2 release, some of which were rather show-stopping. Get it from their download page.