Glidix

Glidix is an operating system for the x86_64 platform. The custom-made kernel and C library work together to implement the POSIX API, while cleaning up or removing the messy parts, and adding more high-level frameworks on top of that. It is a modernized, graphical operating system which tries to follow UNIX principles to a reasonable degree. It is designed to be easy to use for users, and easy to program for for developers.

Building

The easiest way to build the OS is to run ./build-dist.sh in the root directory. Note that it can be quite slow the first time you run it, as it will have to build the cross-compiler and then also build the native compiler. After that it should be a lot faster, because once the compiler is built is does not need to be re-built.

build-dist.sh performs a contained build, inside the build directory, where it will install the cross-compiler and make a sysroot for it, and add it to its own PATH. This means you don't have to set up anything else on your machine. The end result of this script is the file build/diskimg/glidix.img which is the bootable disk image of Glidix.

Running

Bochs

To run the disk image in Bochs after build-dist.sh, just run bochs in the root directory as bochsrc is already set up.

Status

The operating system is currently in alpha state. It is currently therefore not guaranteed to be ABI-compatible between versions. In fact, the ABI gets constantly revised, and recompilation is required a lot. We are hoping to move onto a beta version in the next few months, and from there onwards, ABI compatibility will be guaranteed, and binary releases of applications will be possible.

Requirements

• x86_64 (aka AMD64) CPU; SSE4.1 support is recommended.
• 64MB RAM (2GB recommended for GUI).

Hardware Support

• Basic hardware: PCI, VGA text mode, PIT, APIC (including timer). This is implemented in the kernel itself; all the things below are implemented as separate modules.
• Storage devices: IDE and AHCI; IDE is incomplete.
• Graphics: BGA. Hardware acceleration for various cards is planned.
• Input devices: PS/2 mouse and keyboard
• Ethernet cards: NE2000 (promiscous only), Intel 8254x (PRO/1000 MT Desktop, and T/MT Server), AMD PCNet (promiscous only).

Features

• Capable of booting via BIOS from a GPT using a custom bootloader; UEFI boot planned.
• A simple graphical interface, currently under heavy development.
• Network stack supporting IPv4 and IPv6, ICMP to some degree, UDP, DNS and TCP. Supports autoconfiguration with DHCP, ALIC (Automatic Local IP Configuration, for IPv4 link-local addresses when DHCP is unavailable), and SLAAC for IPv6.
• Supports the ISO 9660 filesystem, FAT32, and a custom filesystem called Glidix File System (GXFS), which can store Glidix-specific metadata such as application permissions.
• Implements the POSIX API using a custom C library.
• The GNU toolchain (binutils and GCC) can run natively on Glidix (the source code must be patched to support the x86_64-glidix target).

GCC

The source comes with GCC and binutils patches, and allows a cross-compiler to be built, targetting Glidix. A native compiler can also be compiled from this. The Glidix target for GCC (x86_64-glidix) supports some additional command-line options:

• -mconsole - link an executable as a console application (the default; really a no-op).
• -mgui - link an executable as a GUI application. This is done by linking against crtgui.o, which adds the appropriate annotation to the .glidix.annot section. By default, it also links against libgwm and libddi; to prevent this, use -mnoguilibs.
• -module - link as a Glidix kernel module. This avoids linking with libc and other system libraries, and outputs an object file (typically with .gkm extension), which can be loaded by the Glidix kernel.
• -mnoguilibs - when used with -mgui, do not link against GUI libraries.

Planned features

• USB support.
• Booting from UEFI.
• Hardware-accelerated graphics.
• More drivers and porting more applications.
• Audio support.