OS News Archive
It’s been a while, but there’s a new release of Ironclad, the formally verified, hard real-time capable kernel written in SPARK and Ada. Aside from the usual bugfixes, this release moves Ironclad from multiboot to Limine, adds x86_64 ACPI support for poweroff and reboot, improvements to PTY support, the VFS layer, and much more. The easiest way to try out Ironclad is to download Gloire, a distribution that uses Ironclad and the GNU tools. It can be installed in both a virtual machine and on real hardware.
JotaleaOS is an open source, minimalistic, experimental operating system made by Jotalea, designed for extreme low-resource environments. It does not support external programs or games, as it lacks a standard application execution environment. The system is entirely self-contained, running only its built-in commands. ↫ JotaleaOS website Exactly what is says on the tin: a tiny operating system created entirely as a learning experience. That’s it.
During a weekend of tidying up – you know, the kind of chore where you’re knee-deep in old boxes before you realize it. Digging through the dusty cables and old, outdated user manuals, I found something that I had long forgotten: an old Plan 9 distribution. Judging by the faded ink and slight warping of the disk sleeve, it had to be from around 1994 or 1995. I couldn’t help but wonder: why had I kept this? Back then, I was curious about Plan 9. It was a forward-thinking OS that never quite reached full potential. Holding that disk, however, it felt more like a time capsule, a real reminder of computing’s advancements and adventurous spirit in the 1990s. ↫ Bill Dyer at It’s FOSS As the article notes, 9front is the way to go if you want to try Plan 9 today. Plan 9/9front appeals to a very specific type of person, but when you dive into the excellent – and incredibly entertaining – documentation, it really seems quite easy to grasp and get started with. There’s definitely things you’ll need to unlearn and some compromises you’ll need to make, but I think you’ll be able to get a lot more work done than you might think. Also, if you start adding software to 9front, you get to use the best GitHub alternative of all time: shithub. That alone makes it worth it to try 9front.
Snowdrop OS was born of my childhood curiosity around what happens when a PC is turned on, the mysteries of bootable disks, and the hidden aspects of operating systems. It is a 16-bit real mode operating system for the IBM PC architecture. I designed and developed this homebrew OS from scratch, using only x86 assembly language. I have created and included a number of utilities, including a file manager, text editor, graphical applications, BASIC interpreter, x86 assembler and debugger. I also ported one of my DOS games to it. After all, what kind of an operating system doesn’t have games? ↫ Snowdrop OS’ website It seems like every talented programmer will, at some point, think to themselves: I should write my own operating system. Most of these efforts strand pretty quickly – and that’s fine! – but Sebastian Mihai’s effort did not, and it has grown into a very capable operating system, especially given the constraints stemming from the chosen architecture – 16bit realmode x86 – and programming language – x86 assembly. Snowdrop OS is an incredibly impressive labour of love, and comes with a unique extra I haven’t seen before: a daily development log covering over 600 days of development. No, this won’t take over the world, but I love that is exists. More of this, please.
The operating system I’m not cool enough to run has pushed out a new release: 9front “THIS TIME DEFINITELY” is now available. 9front is a fork of plan9, created after plan9 languished at Bell Labs. This release enables gefs, the new file system, in the installer, “ip/ipconfig now support dhcpv6 dynamic allocations and handles prefix expirations”, and it comes with some smaller changes, too, of course. Despite every piece of evidence to the contrary, I am simply not cool enough to run 9front. Maybe one day they’ll notice me, and I get invited to the cool table where the Puffs eat lunch. Who doesn’t want to ring a bell in the headmaster’s office at midnight?
When someone says you’re biased against them because you object to their stated goal of removing you from society, they’re not actually asking for fairness — they’re demanding complicity. It’s the political equivalent of asking why the gazelle seems to have such a negative view of lions. Think about the underlying logic here: I’m biased because I don’t give equal weight to both sides of a debate about my fundamental rights. I’m biased because I notice patterns in political movements that explicitly state their intentions regarding people like me. I’m biased because I take them at their word when they tell me what they plan to do. ↫ Joan Westenberg OSNews and I will always stand for the right of transgender people to exist, and to enjoy the exact same rights and privileges as any other member of society. This is non-negotiable.
Many moons ago, around the time when Andreas formally resigned from being Serenity’s BDFL, I decided that I want to get involved in the project more seriously. Looking at it from a perspective of “what do I not like about this (codebase)”, the first thing that came to mind was that it runs HERE points at QEMU and not THERE points at real hardware. Obvious oversight, let’s fix it. ↫ sdomi There’s no way for me to summarise this cursed saga, so just follow the lovely link and read it. It’s a meandering story of complexity, but eventually, a corrupted graphical session appeared. Now the real work starts.
IncludeOS is an includable, minimal unikernel operating system for C++ services running in the cloud and on real HW. Starting a program with #include <os> will literally include a tiny operating system into your service during link-time. ↫ IncludeOS GitHub page IncludeOS isn’t exactly the only one of its kind, but I’ve always been slightly mystified by what, exactly, unikernels are for. The gist is, as far as I understand it, that if you build an application using a unikernel, it will find out at compile time exactly what it needs from the operating system to run, and then everything it needs from the operating system to run will be linked inside the resulting application. This can then be booted directly by a hypervisor. The advantages are clear: you don’t have to deal with an entire operating system just to run that one application or service you need to provide, and footprint is kept to a minimum because only the exact dependencies the application needs from the operating system are linked to it during compilation. The downsides are obvious too – you’re not running an operating system so it’s far less flexible, and if issues are found in the unikernel you’re going to have to recompile the application and the operating system bits inside of it just to fix it (at least, I think that’s the case – don’t quote me on it). IncludeOS is under heavy development, so take that under advisement if you intend to use it for something serious. The last full release dates back to 2019, but it’s still under development as indicated by the GitHub activity. I hope it’ll push out a new release soon.
I’ve been dropping a lot of hints about my journey to rid myself of Google’s Android on my Pixel 8 Pro lately, a quest which grew in scope until it covered everything from moving to GrapheneOS to dropping Gmail, from moving to open source “stock” Android application replacements to reconsidering my use of Google Photos, from dropping my dependency on Google Keep to setting up Home Assistant, and much, much more. You get the idea: this has turned into a very complex process where I evaluated my every remaining use of big tech, replacing them with alternatives where possible, leaving only a few cases where I’m sticking with what I was using. And yes, this whole process will turn into an article detailing my quest, because I think recent events have made remocing big tech from your life a lot more important than it already was. Anyway, one of the few things I couldn’t find an alternative for was Google Pay’s tap-to-pay functionality in stores. I don’t like using cash – I haven’t held paper money in my hands in like 15 years – and I’d rather keep my bank cards, credit card, and other important documents at home instead of carrying them around and losing them (or worse). As such, I had completely embraced the tap-to-pay lifestyle, with my phone and my Pixel Watch II. Sadly, Google Pay tap-to-pay NFC payments are simply not possible on GrapheneOS (or other de-Googled ROMS, for that matter), because of Google’s stringent certification requirements. Some banks do offer NFC payments through their own applications, but mine does not. I thought this is where the story ended, but as it turns out, there is actually a way to get tap-to-pay NFC payments in stores back: Garmin Pay. Garmin offers this functionality on a number of its watches, and it pretty much works wherever Google Pay or Apple Pay is accepted, too. And best of all: it works just fine on de-Googled Android ROMs. Peope have been asking me to check this out and make it part of my quest, and ever the people-pleaser, I would love to oblige. Sadly, it does require owning a supported Garmin watch, which I don’t have. To guage interest in me testing this, I’ve set up a Ko-Fi goal of €400 you can contribute to. Obviously, this is by no means a must, but if you’re interested in finding out if you can ditch big tech, but keep enjoying the convenience of tap-to-pay NFC payments – this is your chance.
This is my hobby operating system written in C++. Currently supports x86_64 and i686 architectures. ↫ Banan-OS git page A hobby operating system as a learning experience, but for once not written in Rust, which in and of itself makes it more unique than you’d think. Despite being mostly a one-person hobby project, it’s ticked quite a few boxes already: SMP, network stack, copy-on-write memory, ELF loading, NVME and ATA support, PS/2 and USB peripheral support, a basic GUI, and a lot more. Contributions are welcomed, too.
VEKOS is an experimental operating system written in Rust that focuses on verification and security at its core. This is the first alpha release (v0.0.1) that demonstrates the basic architecture and key features of the system. ↫ VEKOS GitHub page Hobby and experimental operating systems written in Rust are not exactly a novel concept, but that doesn’t mean each new one that comes up isn’t cool. This one is still in its very early stages, but focuses on something quite interesting: every filesystem and memory operation is cryptographically verified using a proof system. It’s already got basic file system operations, signal handling and a scheduler, a shell, and more. Contributions are welcomed.
Today is “Black Friday”, which is the day where a lot of retailers, both online and offline, pretend to have massive discounts on things they either raised the prices for a few weeks ago, or for useless garbage they bought in bulk that’ll end up in a landfill within a year. Technology media happily partakes in this event, going full-mask off posting an endless stream of “stories” promoting these discounts. They’re writing ads for fake discounts, often for products from the very companies they’re supposed to report on, and dress them up as normal articles. It’s sad and revealing, highlighting just how much of the technology media landscape is owned by giant media conglomerates. OSNews does not partake. We’re independent, answer to nobody, and are mostly funded directly by you, our readers. If you want to keep it this way, and keep OSNews free from the tripe you see on every other technology site around this time, consider supporting us through Patreon, making a one-time donation through Ko-Fi, or buying some merch. That’s it. That’s our extra special discount bonanza extravaganza Black Friday super coverage.
Every now and then, news from the club I’m too cool to join, the plan9/9front community, pierces the veil of coolness and enters our normal world. This time, someone accidentally made a package manager for 9front. I’ve been growing tired of manually handling random software, so I decided to find a simple way to automate the process and ended up making a sort of “package manager” for 9front¹. It’s really just a set of shell scripts that act as a frontend for git and keep a simple database of package names and URLs. Running the pkginit script will ask for a location to store the source files for installed packages (/sys/pkg by default) which will then be created if non-existent. And that’s it! No, really. Now you can provide a URL for a git repository to pkg/add. ↫ Kelly “bubstance” Glenn As I somehow expected from 9front, it’s quite a simple and elegant system. I’m not sure how well it would handle more complex package operations, but I doubt many 9front systems are complex to begin with, so this may just be enough to take some of the tedium out of managing software on 9front, as the author originally intended. One day I will be cool enough to use 9front. I just have to stay cool.
VMS Software, the company migrating OpenVMS to x86 (well, virtualised x86, at least) has announced the release of OpenVMS 9.2-3, which brings with a number of new features and changes. It won’t surprise you to hear that many of the changes are about virtualisation and enterprise networking stuff, like adding passthrough support for fibre channel when running OpenVMS in VMware, a new VGA/keyboard-based guest console, automatic configuration of TCP/IP and OpenSSH during installation, improved performance for virtualised network interfaces on VMware and KVM, and much more. Gaining access to OpenVMS requires requesting a community license, after which OpenVMs will be delivered in the form of a preinstalled virtual disk image, complete with a number of development tools.
It’s been less than a week, and late Friday night we reached the fundraiser goal of €2500 (it sat at 102% when I closed it) on Ko-Fi! I’m incredibly grateful for each and every donation, big or small, and every new Patreon that joined our ranks. It’s incredible how many of you are willing to support OSNews to keep it going, and it means the absolute world to me. Hopefully we’ll eventually reach a point where monthly Patreon income is high enough so we can turn off ads for everyone, and be fully free from any outside dependencies. Of course, it’s not just those that choose to support us financially – every reader matters, and I’m very thankful for each and every one of you, donor/Patreon or not. The weekend’s almost over, so back to regular posting business tomorrow. I wish y’all an awesome Sunday evening.
Do you want OSNews to continue to exist? Do you like the selection of news items I manage to scrounge up almost every day? Do you want OSNews free from corporate influence, “AI”-generated nonsense, and the kind of SEO-optimised blogspam we all despise? Consider supporting OSNews financially, so I can keep running the site as an independent entity, free from the forces that make the web shittier every day. There are several ways you can support OSNews. First, you can become a Patreon. Being an OSNews Patreon means no more ads on OSNews, access to the OSNews Matrix room, and some fancy flair on your comments. The goal is to eventually have enough Patreons supporting us to make us independent even from regular ads, which means we’ll need to hit at least €1500-€2000 a month. Once we achieve that, we will turn off ads for everyone. OSNews is my job, and thus my only source of income, so we can only turn off ads once community support is high enough to do so. This is obviously a long-term goal. To help us all get there, I’ve added a brand new, even higher Patreon tier. If being a Platinum Patreon isn’t enough for you, you can now move on up and become an Antimatter Patreon for €50/month. You’ll get all the same benefits as the Platinum tier, but on top of that, you can opt to have your name permanently displayed on the frontpage in our sidebar. This tier is really specifically designed for the most hardcore supporters of OSNews, and can even be used as a bit of a marketing tool for yourself. By the way, I do not know where to go after antimatter. What’s rarer and more expensive than antimatter? Second, you can make an individual donation to OSNews through Ko-Fi. Recently, my wife, two kids, and I were all hit with, in order, bronchitis, flu, and then a minor cold. With all of us down and out, unable to work, our finances obviously took a bit of a hit. My wife works in home care for the elderly, which isn’t exactly a job with a fair wage, so any time we can’t work it hits us hard. Individual Ko-Fi donations have proven to be lifesavers. As such, I’ve set up a Ko-Fo donation target of €2500, so my wife, kids, and I can build up a bit of a buffer for emergencies. Creating such a buffer will be a huge load off our backs. Third, we have official OSNews merch! Our merch store is filled with a ton of fun products for the operating system connoisseurs among us, from the basic OSNews T-shirt and mug, to the old-school ASCII-art OSNews T-shirt and sweatshirt, and finally three unique terminal T-shirts showing the terminal of MS-DOS, BeOS, and Mac OS X. Each of the terminal shirts sport the correct colour schemes, text, and fonts. The pricing has been set up in such a way that for each product sold, we receive about $8. OSNews has always been a passion project for everyone involved, and I’d like to continue that. By making sure we’re independent, free from the forces that are destroying websites left, right, and centre, OSNews can keep doing what it’s always done: report on things nobody else covers, without the pressure to post 45 items about every new iPhone, stupid SEO blogspam nonsense about how to plug in a USB cable or whatever, or “AI”-generated drudgery. The people making that possible are all of our Patreons, Ko-Fi donors, and merch customers. You have no idea how thankful I am for each and every one of you.
In case you missed it at the 2024 Samsung Developer Conference today, our partners at Samsung Visual Display discussed the work they have been doing to port the Tizen operating system to RISC-V. Tizen is an open-source operating system (OS) that is used in many Samsung smart T.V.s and it makes sense that they would look to the fast growing, global open-standard RISC-V to develop future systems. The presentation showed the results of efforts at both companies to expand the capabilities of the already robust Tizen approach. At the event they also demonstrated a T.V. running on RISC-V and using a SiFive Performance P470 based core. ↫ John Ronco The announcement is sparse on details, and there isn’t much more to add than this, but the reality is that of course Samsung was going to port Tizen to RISC-V. The growing architecture is bound to compete with the industry standard ARM in a variety of market segments, and it makes perfect sense to have your TV and other (what we used to call) embedded operating systems ready to go.
Just want to let y’all know that my family and I have been hit hard with bronchitis these past two weeks, and especially my recovery is going quite slowly (our kids are healthy again, and my wife is recovering quite well!). As such, I haven’t been able to do much OSNews work. I hope things will finally clear up a bit over the weekend so that I can resume normal service come Monday. Enjoy your weekend, y’all!
There’s been a few new releases since the last time we talked about MenuetOS, back in March of this year when version 1.50.00 was released, so I figured it was time to take a look at what the project’s been up to. And just in case you don’t remember – MenuetOS is 64 bit operating system written in assembly that fits on a single 1.44 MB floppy disk. There’s also a 32 bit version that’s no longer being developed – I think. Weirdly enough, the 1.50.00 released is no longer listed, but recent changes include Mplayer being part of the disk image, further updates to the included X-Window Server, the usual bugfixes, and a few more things. The X server is quite cool – with it, you can run, say, Firefox on your Linux installation, but have the MenuetOS X server render the UI. In addition, thanks to MenuetOS now including a basic POSIX layer, it’s possible to create basic applications that run unmodified on both MenuetOS and a Linux distribution like Ubuntu. Neat.
It’s been busy in the world of hobby and teaching/learning operating systems these past few months, and today we’ve got another one – SpecOS. SpecOS is a 64 bit operating system kernel for x86-64 processors, still in quite early stages, written in (questionable quality) C. It is (not very) powerful. This used to be 32 bit, but has been transferred to a 64 bit operating system. It uses a monolithic kernel, because I like having everything in one place. This may take some inspiration from other operating systems, but it is not UNIX based. ↫ SpecOS GitHub page It’s got the basics covered with PS/2 keyboard and VGA support, a real-time clock driver, a basic hard disk driver, and physical and virtual memory management, among other things. We’re clearly looking at a hobby project, and the author is very clear about that. A virtual machine is highly advised, as running it on real hardware is… Well, you’re on your own, basically.
