SchOS/docs
Repository files (latest commit first)
Filename Latest commit message Latest commit date
Nexoniarz 75ccf9841c errno: -1 is EPERM, and four places were saying it by accident
Ctrl-C killed the shell. consoleread() breaks off the read in progress when
SIGINT arrives and returned -1 to do it -- and -1 is -EPERM by the time it
reaches a program, so every program that handles SIGINT by carrying on saw a
permanent error instead of an interrupted call:

    zsh: error on TTY read: operation not permitted
    schinitd: restarting os.schos.console-shell

and the next Ctrl-C did it to the replacement. EINTR now, which is what a
signal-interrupted read is required to give. Verified: Ctrl-C an interruptible
command, shell survives, zero restarts.

Same mistake, same file family: link, unlink, rename and renameat returned -1
on every error path. Callers branch on errno -- `if (unlink(p) < 0 && errno !=
ENOENT)` is the standard shape, and against EPERM it always complains -- which
is why zsh reported failures for things that had worked. They return ENOENT,
EEXIST, EXDEV, EISDIR, ENOTEMPTY and EFAULT now. About ninety other `return -1`s
remain in sys_fs.c; these four are done because these four were what a program
tripped over. /dev/mem's unknown minors return ENODEV rather than -1 too.

/dev/urandom was a linear congruential generator seeded with a **constant**, so
every boot produced the same bytes in the same order -- not weak, the same. A
key, a nonce, a temporary filename: shared with every SchOS machine that had
ever run. Seeded at boot from RDRAND where the CPU has it, from the cycle
counter and the wall clock where it does not, and re-stirred per byte. Still an
LCG and still not a CSPRNG; what changed is the part that was dangerous rather
than merely poor.

**Not fixed, and recorded as such:** rename() still will not replace an existing
target, so zsh's history save fails on every exit after the first. An attempt to
unlink the target first was reverted -- the directory is an HTree, dirunlink
followed by dirlink of the same name did not behave, and it panicked in
filewrite with the old file already gone. Losing both files is worse than
refusing, so it refuses until the HTree's slot reuse is understood.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01VQ7Qx8E1q1M1bbCq8QLHS2
2026-09-14 22:12:28 +02:00
..
architecture errno: -1 is EPERM, and four places were saying it by accident 2026-09-14 22:12:28 +02:00
branding ldls: the plan for running someone else's drivers 2026-09-14 01:51:30 +02:00
guides docs: the tree moved and the documentation did not 2026-09-13 20:05:06 +02:00
history kernel: processes have an environment now, and zsh is the shell 2026-09-12 23:26:50 +02:00
plan debugger: D5, the network transport -- and the plan closes 2026-09-14 15:33:53 +02:00
Website hybrid: H4 withdrawn -- USB is not a peripheral 2026-09-14 01:45:58 +02:00
licensing.md userland: 268 applets, an editor, names that resolve, and a web server 2026-09-14 19:24:55 +02:00
README.md freeze: one register for everything half-built, and the corners cleared 2026-09-13 20:28:05 +02:00

SchOS documentation

Four kinds of document, kept in four directories, because they answer four different questions and go stale at four different rates.

architecture/ What SchOS is Present tense. Describes what is built and working.
plan/ What SchOS will be Future tense. Everything here is unbuilt.
guides/ How to work on it Imperative. Build it, test it, add to it.
history/ Why it is the way it is Past tense. Bugs whose cause is not visible from the fix.

Plus two that belong to no category and apply to everything: licensing.md — read it before copying anyone else's code in — and branding/, which holds the marks and the rules for using them.


The rule that keeps this from rotting

When something is finished, it moves from plan/ to architecture/ and is rewritten as a description of the thing rather than a record of building it.

A completed item is not a ticked checkbox. A ticked checkbox says the work happened; it does not say what the work produced, and six months later the checkbox is the only thing left and it explains nothing.

So finishing a piece of work has three steps, and the third is not optional:

  1. The code works and is tested.
  2. The plan entry is deleted.
  3. A description exists in architecture/ written for somebody who was not there — what it does, what shape it has, what it costs, and what it still does not do.

This is not bookkeeping. The tree has already proved it necessary: the network stack was finished, verified end to end, and for a month afterwards the only description of it anywhere was a checkbox in a roadmap, four levels of indentation deep, written in the past tense of somebody arguing for the work rather than explaining the result.

The "what it does not do" section is the one that pays. Every description in architecture/ ends with one. A document that only lists a subsystem's strengths is marketing, and the reader who most needs the document is the one about to trip over a limitation nobody wrote down.


Start here

New to the tree → architecture/README.md, the system layer by layer, then guides/layout.md for where the files are.

Trying to build it → guides/building.md.

Wondering what happens next → plan/1.0.md, which is the finish line and the register of everything half-built. Then plan/README.md for the order.

About to start something new → the register, first. Nothing new starts while it has rows in it, and a row leaves only by being finished or deleted.

Something is broken and it feels familiar → history/. There is a good chance it is in there.


architecture/ — what SchOS is

README The system, layer by layer. Read first.
boot.md Firmware to the first userspace process.
kernel.md SchIFT: memory, processes, scheduling, traps, signals, SMP.
syscalls.md The call table, and the Linux personality that lets real software run.
filesystem.md The VFS, the buffer cache, procfs, mounts.
schfs.md SchFS: the copy-on-write root filesystem.
devices.md The device model, driver binding, the class vtables.
usb.md xHCI, the USB core, and the class drivers.
graphics.md Framebuffer, text rendering, console, and the crash screen.
terminals.md The six virtual terminals, and how one is switched to.
networking.md Drivers, lwIP, sockets — Unix and INET.
init.md schinit, PID 1 as a role, and the job manifests.

plan/ — what SchOS will be

README The three current decisions and the order they happen in.
1.0.md The finish line, and the freeze. What 1.0 contains, what is deferred, and the register of every half-built thing in the tree.
foundations.md The kernel work everything else is blocked on.
wayland.md The GUI stack, and what gets deleted to make room.
hybrid.md Moving drivers out of the kernel.
schapi.md The long-term API layering, and the compatibility promise.
roadmap.md Everything else still open.

guides/ — how to work on it

building.md Prerequisites and the build, per host.
testing.md The harnesses, and what each one actually proves.
layout.md Repository map, and how to add a program or a port.
adding-a-driver.md Writing one, binding it, publishing its class vtable.

branding/ — the marks

README Shift the logo, Guru the icon, SchCotie the mascot: what each is for, the colour rule, and why a raster is committed next to its SVG.

history/ — why it is the way it is

README What belongs in here and what does not.
kernel.md Bugs whose cause was nowhere near their symptom.
schfs.md The filesystem's own, from the same period as its design.
moving-to-linux.md The Windows-to-Fedora move, kept for the parts that recur.

Writing one of these

Four conventions, all of them observable in the existing files:

State the cost. Every design choice gave something up. A document that does not say what is a document that will be argued with later by somebody who only sees the downside.

Prefer the measured number to the remembered one. "500 of 3565 files carry the advertising clause" is worth more than "some do", and it was worth the minute it took to count.

Write down the bug that shaped it. Half the non-obvious code in this tree is non-obvious because something failed once. If a design is strange, the strangeness is load-bearing and the reader deserves to know why before changing it.

No dates in headings. A date in a heading turns a description into a changelog, and the description is the thing with a long life. Dates belong in history/, where they mean something.