AloeVera OS 🌱

Welcome to AloeVera OS! This isn't your average operating system; it's a hobby project sprouting in the fertile ground of the Rust programming language. We're exploring the world of OS development with a specific focus on asynchronous operations and making consistent, understandable interfaces for interacting with the system's core components. Think of it as cultivating a unique digital plant, carefully nurtured from the kernel up.

Like our namesake plant, we aim for simplicity and resilience.

Documentation rustdoc for all crates used in the project are hosted on GitHub Pages.

Warning

This project is currently in very early development. Furthermore, the project has recently been renamed from QuantumOS and might still contain references to such.

Our Philosophy: How AloeVera Thrives 🪴

AloeVera's growth is guided by a few key principles:

Branching Out: A Fresh Approach

AloeVera isn't growing in the familiar soil of traditional Unix-based systems. We're intentionally branching out, seeking to fundamentally rethink how user programs interact with the operating system core.

Our approach is heavily inspired by Rust's powerful type system. We aim to cultivate interfaces between user space and the kernel that are more explicit, robust, and verifiable, potentially catching errors at compile-time that might only surface at runtime in other systems. This exploration moves away from mimicking standard POSIX interfaces towards potentially novel ways of requesting system resources and services.

This design philosophy is rooted in a core commitment to stability and security. By leveraging type safety and rethinking core interactions, we hope to build a more resilient and secure foundation from the ground up.

Consistent Structure: Like a Healthy Plant's Form

Nature often exhibits beautiful, repeating patterns. Similarly, AloeVera strives for consistency in its internal structure and interfaces. Interacting with different parts of the system (files, devices, IPC) should feel familiar and predictable. We achieve this by defining common traits and patterns, aiming to lower the learning curve and promote a robust, maintainable architecture.

Homegrown Ingredients: Nurtured In-House

One of the core tenets of AloeVera is its "built from scratch" philosophy. Like tending a garden with soil you mixed yourself, we rely almost entirely on in-house libraries for the core OS runtime, building directly upon Rust's core and alloc crates. You won't find external dependencies from crates.io powering the kernel's core logic (except, pragmatically, within the meta build system itself). This approach stems from a desire for deep learning and complete control over the system's foundations, ensuring it grows organically from known elements and providing a unique environment for exploring low-level concepts.

Getting Your Hands Dirty

AloeVera is currently a budding hobby project, so expect rough edges! If you'd like to try building and running it:

1. Prerequisites: You'll likely need a recent Rust nightly toolchain, QEMU or Bochs (for emulation), and core llvm libraries (for tools like objdump and objcopy).
2. Building and Running: cargo run is all you need to get up and running in QEMU! For more configuration options, check cargo run -- --help.
3. Exporting: Once built, meta can be used to generate a qcow2 disk image using cargo run -- build-disk.

Disclaimer: Building a large project for the first time can be tricky! Check build instructions first. Feedback via GitHub Issues is welcome as well!

Help Cultivate AloeVera

This project is cultivated with enthusiasm, and we warmly welcome fellow gardeners! Whether you're experienced with OS development or just starting with Rust, your contributions are valuable. This is a learning journey for everyone involved.

We appreciate contributions of all kinds:

• Implementing new features (drivers, syscalls, filesystem parts).
• Improving existing code and our internal libraries (refactoring, performance).
• Writing tests.
• Enhancing documentation (especially for our homegrown parts!).
• Reporting bugs and suggesting ideas.

Given our reliance on internal libraries and interfaces, contributions strengthening this core foundation are particularly helpful. Please check the GitHub Issues tab for tasks!

License 📜

AloeVera OS is freely available and licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE-MIT file for more details.

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Happy Planting! 🌱 We hope you enjoy exploring the roots and shoots of AloeVera!