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diosix

Build Status

This is a lightweight and secure 64-bit multiprocessor microkernel operating system written in Rust for x86, ARM and MIPS systems. It's a work in progress: I'm starting from scratch after previously writing a working microkernel for 32-bit SMP x86 computers in C and assembly.

I learned a lot from that first iteration, and this is the second iteration of diosix, codenamed Menchi. Crucially, it will be written in Rust, a C/C++-like programming language that has a fierce emphasis on guaranteed memory safety, threads without data races, and other security features.

Check out the wiki for documentation on how it all works internally.

Building

These are the tools I've got installed on Debian "Jessie" GNU/Linux server for building diosix; other versions of the software are probably fine, too:

  • GNU ld 2.25
  • GNU make 4.0
  • grub-mkrescue 2.02
  • nasm 2.11.05
  • multirust 0.7.0 (for installing Rust)
  • qemu 2.1.2 (for testing)
  • rustc 1.6.0-nightly
  • vim ;-)

To build the software, open a terminal, check out the source code in the usual way, and change into its directory:

git clone https://github.com/diodesign/diosix.git
cd diosix

Then pick a hardware platform to build a kernel for. Let's start with 64-bit x86, aka a standard PC machine. Change into its directory:

cd platform/x86

Next, make sure you're using a suitable Rust toolchain: you'll need a nightly build as we need features not present in the stable edition:

multirust override nightly

Now build a bootable ISO image suitable for burning to a CD/DVD or throwing at an emulator or hypervisor to test:

make iso

The ISO should be saved in the platform's release directory - in this case: diosix/release/x86/boot.iso. To fire up the ISO image in QEMU:

make run

If I haven't broken the kernel, the emulator will start up in your ncurses-friendly terminal, and boot the tiny operating system. You'll have to kill QEMU to end the emulation. This bit is a little awkward, so I'll be improving this part. Finally, make clean removes the debris left behind by the build process.

Screenshot

Here's a very early build of diosix booting on x86.

Screenshot of QEMU running diosix

Contact

Feel free to email me, Chris Williams, if you have any questions or want to get involved. You can also find me, diodesign, on Freenode IRC in the #osdev channel, or on Twitter.

Copyright, license, and thanks

© Chris Williams and contributors, 2015. See LICENSE for source code and binary distribution and use.

With thanks to Philipp Oppermann for his guide to linking Rust code to low-level bare-metal assembly, and to the OSdev community for its notes and documentation.