SchOS/projects/schcom/README.md
Nexoniarz e04ca28812 Rename Schunix to SchOS; the kernel becomes SchIFT
Removes the "-unix" element and with it any trademark exposure to The
Open Group.

The split follows the ecosystem layout: SchOS is the system, and the
kernel has its own name. Kernel-identity strings are the only places
that take SchIFT -- uname(2) sysname, /proc/version, and the two licence
sentences that say "kernel" outright. That is what every Unix does here:
`uname -s` on Linux reports the kernel, not the distribution. Everything
a user reads as the product -- panic screen, boot menu, error prefixes,
docs, LICENSE, NOTICE -- is SchOS.

schunix.img is schos.img, the logo assets and the musl TLS patch are
renamed, and __SCHUNIX__ is __SCHOS__ (the define and the patch that
consumes it moved together).

Two things the rename broke, both found by the bootcheck suite:

  - shmtest wrote "SCHUNIX-MMAP-OK" with a hardcoded length of 15 and
    compared it back by hand-counted offsets (m[3]=='U', m[14]=='K').
    The shorter marker left the write running two bytes past the literal
    and the compare reading past the data, failing a file-backed mmap
    that was working correctly. Now written and compared through one
    constant with sizeof.
  - bootcheck asserted a 31-byte file after appending to
    "hello-from-schunix"; the shorter string makes it 29.

Both are the same mistake: a string literal whose length is written out
somewhere else. Full suite green -- base, Tty, Ps, Sock, Fb, Usb, Evdev.
2026-08-09 14:09:59 +02:00

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# Schcom — the SchOS Compositor
Owns the display. Every pixel that reaches the screen goes through it.
Clients do not draw to the framebuffer; they draw into their own buffers and
hand them over. Schcom decides what is on top of what, composites the result,
and presents it. It also owns input: it reads the raw event devices and sends
each event to whichever client should have it.
That is the whole job. Window *placement* is not part of it — that is SchWM's,
and Schcom exposes a protocol for it rather than implementing policy itself.
## Status
Not started. Scoped only.
## What it needs from the kernel first
| Need | State |
|---|---|
| Shared memory (`shmget`/`shmat`/`shmdt`) | done |
| `mmap` of `/dev/fb0` | done |
| Framebuffer geometry via the fbdev ioctls | done |
| **Unix domain sockets**, with `SCM_RIGHTS` | **missing** — `socket()` is a `NO_LINUX` stub |
| **Raw input events** — key down/up with modifiers | **missing** — input only arrives cooked, through the tty line discipline |
| Mode setting and double buffering | **missing** — needs the virtio-gpu driver |
The two marked missing are hard blockers, not inconveniences. A client and
the compositor have to pass a buffer handle between them, and a pipe cannot
carry one. And a compositor that reads the tty gets line-buffered text
delivered to a single foreground process, which is not input in any sense it
can use.
## Design notes, so far
- **Buffers are shared memory, not pipes.** A pipe means copying every frame;
at 800×600×32 that is 1.9 MB per frame per client. shm exists for this.
- **One protocol, versioned from the start.** SchWM and SchDE are separate
programs, so the protocol is a real compatibility surface from day one, not
after the fact.
- **Policy belongs to SchWM.** If Schcom starts deciding where windows go, the
split has already failed.