Operating systems

I love using macOS as my personal OS.

And I like NixOS and it's nix package manager.

Interesting OSes

  • MirageOS - Library operating system that constructs unikernels. (Docs) (Docs code) (mirage-solo5) (The road ahead for MirageOS in 2021)

  • QubesOS

  • Fuchsia

  • DahliaOS - Modern, secure, lightweight and responsive operating system, combining the best of GNU/Linux and Fuchsia OS. (GitHub) (HN) (Pangolin Desktop UI) (ISO releases)

  • Redox - Unix-like Operating System written in Rust. (Web)

  • Toddler - Well-designed usable and portable microkernel OS.

  • OS67 - Unix-like toy kernel.

  • SerenityOS - Graphical Unix-like operating system for x86 computers. (Web)

  • Resea - Pure microkernel-based hackable operating system written from scratch in C and Rust.

  • Rux - Hobbyist microkernel written in Rust, featuring a capability-based system similar to seL4.

  • redshirt - Experiment to build some kind of operating-system-like environment where executables are all in WASM and are loaded from an IPFS-like decentralized network.

  • Spectrum - Step towards usable secure computing. (Developer manual) (Discussions)

  • mikado - RISC-V Experimental OS.

  • mkernel - Minimalist kernel which prints "my first kernel" on the screen and then hangs. (HN)

  • Barebones - Barebones multiboot kernel for beginners.

  • xv6 - Re-implementation of Dennis Ritchie's and Ken Thompson's simple, Unix-like teaching operating system. (PDF) (HN) (HN 2) (Lobsters)

  • Orange Slice - Research kernel and hypervisor attempting to get fully deterministic emulation with minimum performance cost.

  • Cloud Hypervisor - Open source Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) that runs on top of KVM.

  • RancherOS - Tiny Linux distro that runs the entire OS as Docker containers.

  • Bottlerocket OS - Free and open-source Linux-based operating system meant for hosting containers.

  • XNU kernel - Part of the Darwin operating system for use in macOS and iOS operating systems.

  • Haiku - Open-source operating system that specifically targets personal computing. (HN)

  • Pebble - Microkernel and userspace written in Rust, with first-class message passing.

  • RustyHermit - Rust-based, lightweight unikernel.

  • Distaff - Zero-knowledge virtual machine written in Rust.

  • zCore - Reimplement Zircon microkernel in Rust.

  • lilith - POSIX-like x86-64 kernel and userspace written in Crystal.

  • Genode - Operating System Framework.

  • Shrine - TempleOS distro for heretics.

  • Subgraph OS - Desktop computing and communications platform that is designed to be resistant to network-borne exploit and malware attacks. (Handbook)

  • Mezzano - Operating system written in Common Lisp.

  • Collapse OS - Bootstrap post-collapse technology. (HN)

  • LegoOS - Disseminated, Distributed OS for Hardware Resource Disaggregation.

  • CuBitOS - General-purpose, formally-verified, 64-bit operating system in SPARK/Ada for x86-64.

  • Demikernel - Library operating system architecture designed for use with kernel-bypass I/O devices.

  • Drone - Embedded Operating System for writing real-time applications in Rust. (drone-core)

  • Manticore - Research operating system, written in Rust. (Web)

  • CyanOS - x86 monolithic kernel operating system, coded in C++ 17 and few lines of x86 Assembly.

  • ChaiOS - Modular multi-platform hobby OS. Hybrid kernel, largely monolithic. Kernel C library is dynamically linked.

  • Tails - Portable operating system that protects against surveillance and censorship. (Intro)

  • EmuTOS - Free operating system for Atari ST computers, and more. (Web)

  • HalideOS - Experimental operating system written entirely from scratch. It supports a basic shell with some commands including a command line calculator.

  • Biscuit - Monolithic, POSIX-subset operating system kernel in Go. (HN) (Code)

  • illumos - Unix operating system which provides next-generation features for downstream distributions, including advanced system debugging, next generation filesystem, networking, and virtualization options. (Rise and Development of illumos)

  • Managarm - Pragmatic microkernel-based OS with fully asynchronous I/O. (Fully Asynchronous OS Based on Modern C++ - Alexander Grinten (2020))

  • EggOS - Go unikernel running on x86 bare metal. (HN)

  • KnightOS - Third-party operating system for TI calculators.

  • eduOS-rs - Teaching operating system written in Rust. (Web)

  • Stupid Operating System - Simple, tiny toy OS implemented in Rust.

  • Theseus OS - New OS written from scratch in Rust to experiment with novel OS structure, better state management, and how to shift OS responsibilities like resource management into the compiler. (HN)

  • TempleOS - Talk to God on up to 64 cores. (Web) (TempleOS on real hardware)

  • CactusOS - Simple operating system that is aimed to not be anything like linux.

  • Zephyr - New generation, scalable, optimized, secure RTOS for multiple hardware architectures. (Docs)

  • Cosmos - Operating system "construction kit". Build your own OS using managed languages such as C#, VB.NET, and more. (Web)

  • MollenOS - Modern operating system that is built with focus on abstraction and a modular design.

  • Azure RTOS ThreadX - Advanced real-time operating system (RTOS) is designed specifically for deeply embedded applications.

  • HelenOS - Portable microkernel-based multiserver operating system written from scratch. (Web)

  • bootloader - Experimental x86 bootloader written in Rust and inline assembly.

  • Cyjon - Simple, clean, multi-tasking operating system written in pure assembly language for 64-bit processors from the AMD64 family.

  • Contiki - Open source operating system that runs on tiny low-power microcontrollers.

  • OSv - Modular unikernel designed to run applications securely on micro-VMs . (Code) (HN) (HN 2)

  • Rumprun - Uses rump kernels to provide the Rumprun unikernel. Rumprun works on not only on hypervisors such as KVM and Xen, but also on bare metal.

  • Rump Kernels - Enable you to build the software stack you need without forcing you to reinvent the wheels.

  • mOS - Unix-like operating system developed from scratch and aims to POSIX compliant.

  • pdp7-unix - Project to resurrect Unix on the PDP-7 from a scan of the original assembly code.

  • core-os-riscv - xv6-like operating system on RISC-V with multi-core support.

  • rCore - Rust version of THU uCore OS. Linux compatible.

  • dgOS

  • Eltanin - Free, simple, and complete general-purpose operating system.

  • skiftOS - Simple, handmade, operating system with a graphical user interface. (Web)

  • ChrysaLisp - Parallel OS, with GUI, Terminal, OO Assembler, Class libraries, C-Script compiler, Lisp interpreter and more. (HN)

  • Pluto - x86 kernel written in Zig.

  • LeOS Kernel - Kernel project for operating system for ARM 64bit (AArch64) written in Rust. (Web)

Notes

Links