Graphical Unix-like operating system for x86 computers.
I always wondered what it would be like to write my own operating system, but I never took it seriously. Until now.
Serenity is a love letter to '90s user interfaces with a custom Unix-like core. It flatters with sincerity by stealing beautiful ideas from various other systems.
Roughly speaking, the goal is a marriage between the aesthetic of late-1990s productivity software and the power-user accessibility of late-2000s *nix. This is a system by me, for me, based on the things I like.
If you like some of the same things, you are welcome to join the project. It would be great to one day change the above to say "this is a system by us, for us, based on the things we like." :^)
I regularly post raw hacking sessions and demos on my YouTube channel.
Sometimes I write about the system on my github.io blog.
There's also a Patreon if you would like to show some support that way.
- Pre-emptive multitasking
- Multithreading
- Compositing window server
- IPv4 networking with ARP, TCP, UDP and ICMP
- ext2 filesystem
- Unix-like libc and userland
- POSIX signals
- Shell with pipes and I/O redirection
- mmap()
- /proc filesystem
- Local sockets
- Pseudoterminals (with /dev/pts filesystem)
- Filesystem notifications
- JSON framework
- Low-level utility library (LibCore)
- Mid-level 2D graphics library (LibDraw)
- High-level GUI library (LibGUI)
- HTML/CSS engine
- Web browser
- C++ IDE
- Emojis (UTF-8)
- HTTP downloads
- SoundBlaster 16 driver
- Software-mixing sound daemon
- WAV playback
- Simple desktop piano/synthesizer
- Visual GUI design tool
- PNG format support
- Text editor
- IRC client
- Simple painting application
- DNS lookup
- Desktop games: Minesweeper and Snake
- Ports system (needs more packages!)
- Other stuff I can't think of right now...
Make sure you have all the dependencies installed:
sudo apt install build-essential curl libmpfr-dev libmpc-dev libgmp-dev e2fsprogs qemu-system-i386 qemu-utilsEnsure your gcc version is >= 8 with gcc --version. Otherwise, install it (on Ubuntu) with:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-toolchain-r/test
sudo apt-get install gcc-8 g++-8
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/gcc gcc /usr/bin/gcc-8 800 --slave /usr/bin/g++ g++ /usr/bin/g++-8Go into the Toolchain/ directory and run the BuildIt.sh script. Then source the UseIt.sh script to put the i686-pc-serenity toolchain in your $PATH.
Once you've done both of those, go into the Kernel/ directory, then run
./makeall.sh, and if nothing breaks too much, take it for a spin by using
./run.
You can vastly reduce the build time of successive rebuilds of Serenity by installing ccache and exporting PRE_CXX=ccache
Bare curious users may even consider sourcing suitable hardware to install Serenity on a physical PC.
Later on, when you git pull to get the latest changes, there's no need to rebuild the toolchain. You can simply rerun ./makeall.sh in the Kernel/ directory and you'll be good to ./run again.
Come chat in #serenityos on the Freenode IRC network.
- Andreas Kling - awesomekling
(And many more!) Feel free to append yourself here if you've made some sweet contributions. :)
Serenity is licensed under a 2-clause BSD license.