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xv6 is pretty much the best osdev beginner's ressource out there. Once you've mastered it, "Operating Systems: Design and Implementation" is still a worthwhile
by boricj 4y ago
xv6 is pretty much the best osdev beginner's ressource out there. Once you've mastered it, "Operating Systems: Design and Implementation" is still a worthwhile read even though it's getting a bit old.
After that, it depends on what you find interesting. Personally, I think Unix is a fossilized relic whose 50 year old design has been pushed far beyond its use-by date. I'm a fan of Fuchsia OS and especially its Zircon kernel, its design documentation is well worth a read just to shake off the idea that POSIX makes for a great syscall layer in the 21st century.
In the end, it doesn't matter too much, you'll always learn something no matter what the operating system you look into. Try things out and discover what you like instead of relying on what others find interesting. I just wish that people stop thinking that the traditional, monolithic Unix system design is some sort of holy scripture that shall not be questioned.
- eestrada 4y agoI'm guessing the stickiness of Unix is that a lot of useful software, espescially FOSS, just compiles and works on Unix-y operating systems, assuming the right syscalls are implemented. There is far less reinventing of the wheel by going that route.
- boricj 4y agoImplementing POSIX as a compatibility layer on systems not designed to be Unix-like is possible. You can even skip a fair number of the most problematic parts and still run useful programs. OpenVMS doesn't have fork(), just vfork() and it can run LLVM and modified versions of bash and GCC. Windows NT used to have a POSIX subsystem. Heck, IBM even managed to certify z/OS to be POSIX compliant. Just because you happen to need some level of POSIX compatibility for interoperability doesn't mean that POSIX has to be the basis for your syscall layer.
- snvzz 4y agoDid you look into Genode?
- pjmlp 4y agoThat is why I rather be bothered to look into other stacks, specially how mobile and cloud OS are being designed. UNIX had a couple of interesting design options and that is about it, time to move on.
- anta40 4y agoHmm.. what about Haiku (https://www.haiku-os.org https://www.haiku-os.org)? It's inspired by BeOS. I'm not old enough to use BeOS at its time, but at least from what I read, it's not "yet another Unix"