SchOS/projects
Repository files (latest commit first)
Filename Latest commit message Latest commit date
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
..
schcom Rename Schunix to SchOS; the kernel becomes SchIFT 2026-08-09 14:09:59 +02:00
schde Rename Schunix to SchOS; the kernel becomes SchIFT 2026-08-09 14:09:59 +02:00
schfs-linux Initial commit: Schunix as it stands before the SchOS rename 2026-08-09 13:47:01 +02:00
schinst Rename Schunix to SchOS; the kernel becomes SchIFT 2026-08-09 14:09:59 +02:00
schwm Rename Schunix to SchOS; the kernel becomes SchIFT 2026-08-09 14:09:59 +02:00
README.md Rename Schunix to SchOS; the kernel becomes SchIFT 2026-08-09 14:09:59 +02:00

projects/

Things that run on SchOS rather than things that are SchOS.

Everything above this directory — kernel/, boot/, lib/, cmd/, include/ — is the operating system: it boots, it owns the hardware, and it is one program that either works or does not. Everything in here is an ordinary program that talks to it through syscalls, exactly as toybox does.

The split exists because the alternative gets bad quickly. A compositor, a window manager and a desktop are each larger than the kernel will be for a long time. Grown inside the OS tree they would blur into it: a compositor would start reaching into kernel headers because they are right there, the build would grow a dependency from the kernel to a GUI, and "does SchOS boot" would stop having a clear answer. Keeping them separate forces the boundary to be a real interface — syscalls and protocols — rather than a shared header nobody meant to share.

Concretely, code in here:

  • links against the sysroot's libc, never against kernel headers
  • talks to the kernel only through syscalls and /dev
  • can be built, run and debugged without rebuilding the kernel
  • may be split into its own repository later without untangling anything

What lives here

Directory What it is
schcom/ SchOS Compositor. Owns the display, composites clients, routes input.
schwm/ SchOS Window Manager. Window placement, decoration, focus, on top of Schcom.
schde/ SchOS Desktop Environment. Panel, launcher, settings, file manager.
schinst/ The installer, the installation environment, and .sip tooling.
schfs-linux/ SchFS as a filesystem for Linux. FUSE first, a kernel module later.

schfs-linux/ is written to stand on its own. It does not mention SchOS anywhere, and that is deliberate rather than an oversight: it is intended to be the first piece released, and it has to make sense to somebody who has never heard of the OS it came from — a filesystem is judged as a filesystem. The connection can be made later, once there is a finished system to connect it to.

Practically, that means anything added there needs its own licence header, its own README framing, and no cross-references into this tree. It shares the format with kernel/fs/schfs/, not the prose.

They stack: SchDE needs SchWM needs Schcom needs the kernel. Nothing points the other way, and nothing here is a dependency of the kernel build.

Status

All four are scoped and none is started. What each is waiting on is written in its own README, and the ordering is in docs/roadmap.md.

The short version: Schcom cannot start until the kernel has unix domain sockets (for the client protocol and for passing buffer handles) and raw input events (a /dev/input that bypasses the tty line discipline). Shared memory and framebuffer mmap are already done.