UnixLite is a lightweight unix/linux compatible operating system written in c++, it is open source and released under the GNU General Public License.The complete operating system is made up of kernel and applications, just like linux, unixlite is only the kernel. The kernel itself is written from scratch and the most part is written in c++, however, the library used by unixlite comes from uClibc and applicaitons running on unixlite comes from GNU project.
UnixLite kernel implements some frequently used system calls of linux, furthermore, it is binary compatible with linux, and some GNU software have been ported to unixlite.
Currently, the objective of the unixlite project is to design and to implement a small UNIX based architecture operating system for educational purposes. In the future, unixlite maybe targeted at soft-realtime embedded systems. The advantage to have a small but complete UNIX-like operating system, accompanied by a detailed documentation, can as much be a great benefit for students and programmers who want to know how an operating system works.
Compared with the famous educational operating system—Minix, the major difference between unixlite and minix lies in that unixlite support paging while minix not.
Due to the small size(the kernel is made up of about 20000 lines of code) and the object oriented programming using the c++, the kernel becomes more modular and easy to understand. We hope those who are interested in the internals of unix/linux kernel find this site to be of value. We have spent a lot of time on it. If a few people find the site to be useful, our efforts will have been rewarded.
Technical Features
- Support paging and flat memory model, nearly same as linux
- Implements about 80 posix compliant system call
- Binary compatible with linux
- Able to run bash/gcc, and some other common UNIX tools
- Very rudimentary TCP/IP support, able to run a simple http server
- Very small, about 20000 lines of code
- Written in c++, highly modular and extensible
- Minix's 32-bit file system
Original Article at: http://www.unixlite.org/
