hvm-os

A purely functional operating system

Supported architectures

• x86_64 UEFI only, sorry :(

How it works

hvm-os will work by running on top a kernel written in assembly (to make it possible to self-host later). The kernel is just a program capable of reducing Interaction Nets. By adding some special nodes which interact and allow for outside communication and rewrite limiting, it should be possible to write the whole operating system as a single Interaction Net which is reduced by the kernel. Effectively, the whole system would be running inside a superfast and parallel virtual machine.

Running

make qemu in kernel should do the trick in GNU/Linux systems. You might have to install a few packages. Furthermore, there's a prebuilt UEFI image in main.img which you can just place into an USB stick and run. (SECURITY ADVICE: DO NOT EXECUTE RANDOM FILES YOU FIND ON THE INTERNET, MUCH LESS PUT THEM INTO USB STICKS.)

TO-DO list

• Kernel implementation
  • Basic inet implementation
    • Memory allocation
    • Redex pushing/popping
    • Annihilation/Commutation interactions
  • Debugging tools
    • Print memory buffer
    • List active pairs
    • Print net as λ-term
    • Tool to read hvm-like code and output code to load into EFI
    • Snapshots/Breakpoints
  • Multiprocessing
    • Atomic link() procedure
    • Query UEFI for processors
  • Interaction with environment
    • EXT nodes
    • Limit functions
      • Ensure provenance works well
    • Bracket and croissant DAT nodes? (feasible?)
    • Research how wide UEFI's IO API surface is
    • load_from_efi_file() function
    • load_binary() function that loads binary HVM code
• Userspace implementation
  • Self-hosting
    • Write an HVM parser in HVM
    • Write an assembler in HVM
    • ???
    • Profit?
• Documentation and outreach
  • Documentation
    • Write explanation for most concepts used by this
  • Post about this project on social media