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@MinecAnton209 MinecAnton209 released this 09 Feb 19:00
· 127 commits to main since this release
v0.23-beta.4
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🚀 Release Notes - NovumOS v0.23-beta.4

Date: February 9, 2026
Version: v0.23-beta.4

🌟 Highlights - The Kernel Protection & User Shell Update

This release marks a fundamental shift in NovumOS architecture. The Kernel is now fully isolated, and the primary System Shell has been moved to User Mode (Ring 3). This ensures that even a critical failure in the terminal or a user script cannot bring down the entire operating system.

🛡️ Kernel Protection & Privilege Isolation

  • User Mode Shell: The kernel entry point now hands off control to Ring 3 immediately after initialization. The shell operates in a restricted environment.
  • Hardware Abstraction: Direct I/O port access is now restricted. All hardware interactions from user mode are proxied through the kernel via verified system calls.
  • Instruction Guarding: Prevented #GP (General Protection Faults) by intercepting privileged instructions like hlt, cli, and invlpg at the driver level.
  • Demand Paging Safety: The Memory Manager now handles TLB invalidation (invlpg) exclusively in Ring 0, providing a safe MemoryMapRange API for user-mode memory tests.

📞 Enhanced System Call API (int 0x80)

The syscall interface has been nearly tripled to support full-featured user applications:

  • Hardware I/O: InB/OutB and InW/OutW (Syscalls 6-9) for safe peripheral communication.
  • Timer & RTC: Sleep and GetTicks (Syscalls 10-11) for precise timing.
  • System Control: Shutdown and Reboot (Syscalls 13-14), allowing the shell to safely manage power states.
  • Memory Management: MemoryMapRange (Syscall 15) for managing large memory buffers in Ring 3.

🏗️ Ring-Aware Driver Architecture

  • VGA & Console: The text-mode driver now automatically switches between direct memory access and syscall-based cursor management.
  • ACPI Power Management: Redesigned the shutdown sequence to prevent crashes when initiated from user mode.
  • ATA Storage: Disk identification and sector I/O are now compatible with Ring 3 privilege checks.
  • RTC (Clock): System time retrieval now uses the centralized I/O gateway.

🐞 Bug Fixes & Stability

  • Fixed #GP on Power Commands: Commands like shutdown and reboot no longer crash the kernel when typed in the shell.
  • Fixed #GP in Memory Tests: mem --test now correctly handles page mapping from Ring 3.
  • Shell Re-entry: Improved JumpToUser logic to allow safe re-entry into the shell environment after process exit.

Full changelog

v0.23-beta.3...v0.23-beta.4

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