Gregory Kurtzer, a founding member of the CentOS and Rocky Linux distributions, introduced the Ginux project, which develops the operating system kernel in Rust, aiming for compatibility with the Linux kernel. The published research prototype is already capable of booting the system environment of Alpine distributions with BusyBox and Rocky Linux 10 with systemd in a multi-user console mode. The project's code is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license and is supported on x86-64 architecture systems.
The prototype was created in 11 days as part of an experiment using the HDAE (Human-Directed Agentic Engineering) development technique to create complex projects at the Linux kernel level. Using the HDAE method, the code is generated by an AI agent (Codex with the GPT-5.6 Sol model), while humans focus on developing architecture, making decisions, coordinating work, forming development plans, and defining readiness criteria for the components being developed. AI agents are also involved in testing, reviewing, and diagnosing issues.
The project does not attempt to copy technologies from the Linux kernel but creates its own compatible implementations while keeping them in mind. Ginux provides an independent memory management system, task scheduler, boot process, process model, file systems, network stack, device drivers, and a layer for compatibility with the Linux ABI. The Ginux kernel boots directly through UEFI without involving a host Linux system.
Ginux does not yet claim to replace Linux and is not ready for use in production systems, but it is suitable for experimentation and testing. In the long term, the project is seen as an operating system for running isolated containers of components for AI infrastructure. The name Ginux is formed as a combination of the words GPT/Gregory and Linux. The testing platform is a virtual machine running on the hypervisor. KVM the Q35 virtual machine (Intel Q35/ICH) with OVMF (Open Virtual Machine Firmware), Intel IOMMU, and virtio devices.
A Linux kernel 6.12 375 system calls are fully implemented, 82 are partially implemented, and 48 are blocked for security reasons. To identify failures that cannot be detected in synthetic tests, the kernel's performance is evaluated when running real applications and libraries such as musl, glibc, BusyBox, and systemd.
A tervek között:
- A Linux disztribúciók felhasználói térben lévő komponenseinek indítása anélkül, hogy a Linux kernelt használnánk.
- Izolált környezetek létrehozásának lehetősége domainok saját folyamatkészletekkel, címtartományokkal, fájlrendszerekkel, eszközökkel, erőforrásokkal és független életciklusokkal.
- Önálló betöltési image előkészítése.
- Minimális felhasználói térbeli vezérlőfelület biztosítása, amely lehetővé teszi a kernel kezelését anélkül, hogy kódot futtatnánk a nullás védelmi gyűrűn.
- Névre szóló objektumok szintjén működő hozzáférés-vezérlő rendszer.
- OCI formátumú konténerképek izolált indításának támogatása.
Forrás: opennet.ru
