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DistroDB

SmartOS

intermediate

SmartOS is an open-source UNIX-like operating system based on illumos, a community fork of OpenSolaris. It features four technologies - ZFS (a combined file system and logical volume manager), DTrace (a dynamic tracing framework for troubleshooting kernel and application problems), Zones (a lightweight virtualisation solution), KVM and bhyve (two full virtualisation solutions for running a variety of guest operating systems, including Linux, Windows, BSD and Plan9).

Technical Specs
Base
Solaris
Package Manager
pkgsrc
Init System
other
Latest Version
Release Model
fixed release
Release Date
June 11, 2026
Architecture
x86_64
Desktop Environments
No Desktop

About SmartOS

SmartOS is an open-source UNIX-like operating system based on illumos, a community fork of OpenSolaris. It features four technologies - ZFS (a combined file system and logical volume manager), DTrace (a dynamic tracing framework for troubleshooting kernel and application problems), Zones (a lightweight virtualisation solution), KVM and bhyve (two full virtualisation solutions for running a variety of guest operating systems, including Linux, Windows, BSD and Plan9). SmartOS is designed to be particularly suitable for building clouds and generating appliances.

Highlights

  • -Hypervisor that runs from RAM. OS-level containerization (Solaris Zones) + KVM.