Short Bytes: ToaruOS 1.0, the first stable release of hobby OS/kernel Toaru, has been finally released. This open source operating system is mostly written from scratch. It comes with composited GUI, dynamically linked ELF binaries, Python applications, networking, etc. The interested users can grab the source code from GitHub and download the Live CD for testing purposes.
Hobbyist operating systems are seen as one of the more advanced projects taken up by the computer enthusiasts. While some developers use some existing kernel and other resources, others design everything from the scratch. ToaruOS is also one such hobby operating system/kernel, which is mostly written from the scratch.
Now, after spending six years in development, operating system’s first release, i.e., Toaru 1.0, is finally here. In the announcement post, ToaruOS developer wrote that it’s the time to declare a stable release. He also called it a work in development with so much work left to be done.
The GitHub page of the ToaruOS describes itself as “a hobby operating system built mostly from scratch, including both a kernel and userspace.”
ToaruOS is written from scratch, but it supports GCC, Mesa, Python, and more. It can be run as a virtual machine for easy hardware support.
The nice folks at Phoronix have been following the progress of ToaruOS for a long time. According to them, it currently supports 32-bit non-SMP systems, EXT2 file system, lots of Unix utilities, and other open source software packages ported over like Vim, Quake, SDL, etc.
As ToaruOS 1.0 arrived about two weeks ago, there has been a couple of point releases with some bug fixes and audio improvements.
The code of ToaruOS is publicly available on GitHub, grab it here. Also, for trying it out, you can get a Live CD build of the OS.
Did you find ToaruOS interesting? Are your planning to try it out? Don’t forget to share your views and feedback.
