OS News Archive

Nanos: a kernel designed to run one application in a virtualized environment

Nanos is a new kernel designed to run one and only one application in a virtualized environment. It has several constraints on it compared to a general purpose operating system such as Windows or Linux – namely it’s a single process system with no support for running multiple programs nor does it have the concept of users or remote administration via ssh. ↫ Nanos GitHub page The project has a website with more information and instructions, and the code’s on GitHub.

MenuetOS 1.50.00 released

MenuetOS has released two new versions recently, version 1.49.60 on 5 February, and 1.50.00 on 1 March. Aside from the usual bugfixes and updates, these two new versions bring, among other things, new screensavers, a musical chord calculator, and support for UEFI booting thanks to Easyboot. MenuetOS is a small operating system written entirely in assembly, available in both 32bit and 64bit versions for x86.

The Plop boot managers

I wrote different boot managers. Three boot managers are available as download. The Plop Boot Manager 5, PlopKexec and the new boot manager PBM6. The new boot manager is under development. ↫ Elmar Hanlhofer I had never heard of the three Plop boot managers, written by Elmar Hanlhofer, but they seem like quite the capable tools. First, Plop Boot Manager 5 is the most complete version, but it’s also quite outdated by now, with its last release stemming from 2013. That being said, it’s incredibly feature-packed, but since it lacks UEFI support, its use case seems more focused on legacy systems. PBM6, meanwhile, is the modern version with UEFI support, but it’s not complete and is under development, with regular releases. Finally, PlopKexec is exactly what the name implies – a boot manager that uses the Linux kernel. I’ve never encountered these before, but they seem quite interesting, and if it wasn’t for how much I do not like messing with bootloaders, I’d love to give these a go. Have any of you ever used it?

What is B-right/V release 4.5?

What if I told you there is an immensely popular operating system that you likely used it at least once, but did not realise what it was? In fact, it is so popular and important there is an IEEE standard based on it. It is uncanny how immensely popular AND immensely obscure this system is. It is scary that until today I have never even heard of its reference desktop implementation. The system is called “TRON”. ↫ Nina Kalinina This Mastodon thread is OSNews bait. Delicious.

SeaweedFS: a simple and highly scalable distributed file system

SeaweedFS is a simple and highly scalable distributed file system. There are two objectives: to store billions of files!, to serve the files fast! SeaweedFS started as an Object Store to handle small files efficiently. Instead of managing all file metadata in a central master, the central master only manages volumes on volume servers, and these volume servers manage files and their metadata. This relieves concurrency pressure from the central master and spreads file metadata into volume servers, allowing faster file access (O(1), usually just one disk read operation). There is only 40 bytes of disk storage overhead for each file’s metadata. It is so simple with O(1) disk reads that you are welcome to challenge the performance with your actual use cases. ↫ SeaweedFS’s GitHub page It’s Apache-licensed and the code is, as usual, on GitHub.

GNU Hurd’s 64bit port progress, porting started to Aarch64, POWER9

While GNU Hurd predates the Linux kernel, its hardware support has been woefully behind with very limited and dated hardware support compared to modern PC/server hardware. Not only that, its been largely x86 limited but during Q4’2023 the developers involved have made progress on x86_64 support and begun tackling AArch64 porting. Developer Samuel Thibault shared that the GNU Hurd 64-bit port now has enough packages in the debian-ports archive to be able to bootstrap a chroot. A 64-bit Debian + GNU Hurd build daemon is getting setup and the other infrastructure work is coming along. ↫ Michael Larabel In addition, work has started to port Hurd to POWER9, and someone is working on bringing the Ladybird web browser to Hurd, for a more modern browsing experience, among many other points of progress.

GodotOS: an operating system interface made in Godot

Welcome to GodotOS, an operating system interface created entirely in Godot! Browse folders, edit text files, view images, play games, and more in one cohesive polished interface that can even be used on the web! GodotOS is more of a toy than a serious project. It’s meant to push the limits on UI design in Godot while creating a desktop that is minimalist, distraction-free, and aesthetically pleasing. Aside from that, GodotOS is also meant to be a hub for small games and experiences that can easily be bundled in. ↫ GodotOS GitHub page You can try the online version right here, but also download it and use it that way instead.

Motūrus OS: microkernel operating system for the cloud written in Rust

Motūrus project builds a simple, fast, and secure operating system (Motūrus OS) for the cloud. In more specific terms, Motūrus OS (sometimes called Motor OS), is a new operating system targeting virtual machine-based workloads such as web serving, “serverless”, edge caching, etc. Motūrus OS is a microkernel-based operating system, built in Rust, that targets virtualized workloads exclusively. It currently supports x64 KVM-based virtual machines, and can run in either Qemu or Cloud Hypervisor. Rust is the language of Motūrus OS: not only it is implemented in Rust, it also exposes its ABI in Rust, not C. ↫ Motūrus OS GitHub page At this point, there are more alternative operating systems written in Rust than there are Linux distributions, but you’re not hearing any complaints from me. While not all of these will have a bright future, they’ll teach a lot of people valuable skills and introduce a lot of people to the concept of alternative operating systems.

Maestro: UNIX-like kernel and operating system written in Rust, compatible-ish with Linux

Maestro is a lightweight Unix-like kernel written in Rust. The goal is to provide a lightweight operating system able to use the safety features of the Rust language to be reliable. ↫ Maestro’s GitHub page The state of this project is actually kind of amazing – roughly 31% of Linux systemcalls are more or less already implemented, and it also comes with a daemon manager, a package manager, and can already run musl, bash, various core GNU utilities, and so on. It has kernel modules, a VGA text mode terminal, virtual memory, and a lot more.

Porporo: an experimental operating system specification for Varvara

Porporo is an experimental operating system specification for Varvara, written in TAL and ANSI C. This is a work in progress, for more details follow the development during december. ↫ rabbits So, what is Varvara? Varvara is a specification for devices communicating with the Uxn CPU intended to run little audio and visual programs. ↫ Varvara official website …so, what is the Uxn CPU? This one-page computer, programmable in Uxntal, was designed with an implementation-first mindset and a focus on creating portable graphical tools and games. It lives at the heart of the Varvara personal computer. ↫ Official Uxn CPU website I have no idea what any of this means, but I feel like there’s something incredibly cool going on here.

Launching brand new BeOS, Mac OS X, and MS-DOS T-shirts in the OSNews Merch Store!

The holidays are coming, there’s a chill in the air (literally for me, I live in the Arctic), so it’s time for a few new additions to the official OSNews Merch Store. Do you live in the terminal, breathe the terminal? We’ve got new shirts just for you. The opening message of the terminals of Mac OS X, BeOS, and MS-DOS (let’s be generous and call MS-DOS a terminal), with a command to call an osnews directory on the file system, printed on the front of the shirt. They sport the correct fonts, background colours, and exact verbiage used in the operating systems themselves. For the Mac OS X one, I had to choose a last login date and a username, so I opted for the exact time and date of birth of my oldest son, and a username that’s a bit of an Easter egg. These shirts of the organic cotton variety, and all proceeds go to supporting OSNews’ continued existence so we don’t have to resort to SEO crap, “AI”-generated garbage, and malvertising. Every item sold on the store generates around $10 for us, with the rest going to our partner Bonfire for producing the items and running the store. You can also support OSNews through individual donations on Ko-Fi, by becoming a Patreon, and by supporting us through LiberaPay.

OpenVMS 9.2 for x86 installation guide for VirtualBox

OpenVMS on x86 is now available for hobbyists! Almost a year after the official release. This is a part 1 of my getting started guide, showing you how to install OpenVMS on VirtualBox on Windows 10/11. More parts will follow, documenting license installation, network setup, ssh, application installation etc. If you want to give OpenVMS for x86 a try, this is the series of articles to read and follow along with. Excellent work by Remy van Elst.

Ironclad 0.5.0 released

Ironclad is a formally verified, hard real-time capable kernel for general-purpose and embedded uses, written in SPARK and Ada. It is comprised of 100% free software, free in the sense that it respects the user’s freedom. Version 0.5.0 has been released. This release brings a lot of improvements to mainly the scheduling, time keeping, userland, and networking subsystems. The easiest way to try Ironclad, either virtually or on real hardware, is to use a distribution that uses it – Gloire seems to be the recommended option. Gloire is an OS built with the Ironclad kernel and using GNU tools for the userland, along with some original applications like gwm. This repository holds scripts and tools to build the OS from the ground up. I had never heard of this project before, but it seems incredibly cool.

Want to name my Wi-Fi network and computer? Want to troll me with stickers on my PC? Now’s your chance!

Update 2: At a staggering 176% of the original goal within 2 days, I think it’s time to end this crazy ride. Rests me to thank all of you – donor or not – for the incredible support and generosity. This will enable me to go far beyond “mid-tier” and build something that’s going to set me for close to a decade. I’m absolutely stunned. Update: I did not expect this to take off, but within a few hours we’ve already reached the goal! Thanks, everyone – I’m stunned and at a loss for words, which, I can assure you, is a rather rare occurrence. The goal sits at 110% now, and I’ll leave it up for the night so this story doesn’t suddenly stop making sense (it’s 02:26 where I live). I’ll also contact the two largest donors privately and work out the details with them. Since we started our more visible push for donations to ensure we can keep OSNews running as an independent technology news website without having to resort to SEO spam, ad overload, and worse, a number of people have expressed interest in donating to specific goals instead of donating generically. A possible goal for this has recently come up, so I’m stepping out of my comfort zone (this whole thing terrifies me): you can now donate specifically towards a much, much-needed upgrade for my PC – and troll me along the way. Read on! After almost 8 years of loyal service, my PC, with a 7700K and GTX 1070, is starting to show some serious signs of old-age and constant use. This machine is the main computer I have, used for both my work on OSNews as well as gaming, and it’s getting long in the tooth. As such, I’m planning a relatively conservative, mid-tier upgrade for the machine, retaining as many parts as possible to keep costs down. I will retain the case, power supply, CPU cooler, and the various SSDs and hard drives. My intention is to purchase the following parts: In Sweden, this would add up to SEK 10900 (incl. all applicable taxes), or €921/$978, so I set the goal at an even €1000. With the state of the world as it is, as well as having a family with two young children, investments like this simply aren’t something I can do out of pocket, and that’s why people have been suggesting for months to take this step. However, I want to make things a bit more interesting, and provide you lovely nerds with some ways to troll me. As such, I will give the two largest combined donations (as in, you can donate multiple times and it’ll count) some extra perks, designed to give you the opportunity to mess with me: Obviously, there are some ground rules here – no pornography, no hateful stuff like racism, no gore, stuff like that. We’re all adults here, and I’m pretty sure we all instinctively know what I mean. Other than that – anything goes! Any required stickers I’ll buy myself, as long as you can provide me a link. Any donation made through our Ko-Fi will count towards this goal, and you can keep track of the progress there as well. Since I have absolutely no idea how this will go (like I said, I’m terrified), I haven’t set a time limit on the goal. So, hop on over to our Ko-Fi page and donate away! In the meantime, I’m going to curl up in a corner because I have no clue how anyone is going to respond to this.

Sculpt OS release 23.10 available

Modern PCs provide plenty of metering and power-management options. Version 23.10 of the Genode-based Sculpt operating system makes these features available via an interactive user interface. One can watch the temperature of each CPU core, monitor the individual CPU frequencies, switch between power profiles, and reveal details about power draw. Go to the download page to get started with Sculpt OS. It’s used as the day-to-day operating system by Genode developers, so it’s quite capable.

Oberon System 3 compatible with the Oberon+ compiler and IDE

This is a version of the Oberon System 3 (also known as ETH Oberon), compatible with the Oberon+ compiler, IDE and runtimes and the OBX Platform Abstraction Layer (PAL), and thus truly cross-platform (runs on all platforms where LeanQt is available). The migration is still work in progress, but sufficiently complete and stable to explore the platform. The latest commit is tested on both the Mono CLI and as a native executable built with the generated C code. I have to admit that while I’m aware of the Oberon System, I know far too little about it to make any meaningful statements here.

OpenZFS 2.2.0 released

The primary new feature of this latest release is this one: Block cloning is a facility that allows a file (or parts of a file) to be “cloned”, that is, a shallow copy made where the existing data blocks are referenced rather than copied. Later modifications to the data will cause a copy of the data block to be taken and that copy modified. This facility is used to implement “reflinks” or “file-level copy-on-write”. Many common file copying programs, including newer versions of /bin/cp on Linux, will try to create clones automatically. There’s many more new features and fixes, of course, so head on over to the release page for more information.

SerenityOS celebrates its 5th birthday

Happy fifth birthday to SerenityOS! The alternative operating system project just posted its fifth birthday summary covering the preceding year, and it’s been yet another good one. The number of contributors keeps rising, and interest remains solid. The Serenity browser, spun out as a cross-platform browser project called Ladybird, has picked up considerable funding and even a few employed developers. SerenityOS itself went 64-bit-only this year, and added support for VP9, WebP, JPEG, JPEG XL, and TinyVG. The post also contains several short stories from Serenity developers, so head on over to give it a read.

Visopsys 0.92 released

It’s been a while, but Visopsys has had a new release, 0.92, with all the details in the changelog. There is a longer-term project to bring the operating system into the modern era, with things like 64-bit support, UEFI booting, and so on. In the meantime, this maintenance release features stability and usability improvements, bug fixes, and multitasker portability changes designed to further unshackle it from the x86 processor architecture. Visopsys has been in development since 1997, and one of its unique features is a focus on a partitioning tool built atop Visopsys, Partition Logic, to make partitioning changes without booting into any other operating system.

86Box v4.0 released

This is the August 2023 update to 86Box, bringing many improvements, bugfixes (especially for non-Windows users) and some new hardware. Mouse and keyboard support has been completely reworked, and should perform much, much better on all platforms, while also fixing a slew of bugs. Support for the ATI Mach8/32 was added, which is a first for the world of emulation, and VDE networking has been implemented as well (but not on Windows yet).