AtheOS currently run on Intel, AMD and other compatible processors and support the Intel Multi Processor architecture. The native AtheOS file system is 64-bit and journaled.
AtheOS is not meant to be a new Unix clone (like Linux and *BSD) but a new clean desktop OS. It does support large parts of the POSIX standard and hence are able to run most of the UNIX CLI tools and it comes with a standard UNIX shell (BASH) but this does not compromise anything in AtheOS as a desktop OS. AtheOS have a integrated GUI that works in conjunction with the kernel and various other components to create a complete and consistent system.
The GUI is server/client like X11 but communicate through the native messaging system and the protocol is private to the server and client library and entirely hidden from the applications. Both the client library and the server is heavily multithreaded. The fine-grained multithreading and the low latency messaging system make the GUI much more responsive than X11.
The kernel was written from scratch. It supports SMP (Symmetric Multi Processing), has a built-in network TCP/IP stack. It supports loadable device-drivers and file-systems. It provides threads and processes with several powerful communication systems that makes it easy, efficient and safe to create server/client implementations where both the server and the client run on the same machine. Threads can communicate through message ports (most common), shared memory, posix signals, semaphores, named and anonymous pipes, pty's, TCP/IP, and probably a few other methods as well.
