SchOS/docs
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Filename Latest commit message Latest commit date
Nexoniarz f395c39704 net: AF_NETLINK, so getifaddrs() works for everything and not just one program
fastfetch reported "getifaddrs(&ifAddrStruct) failed", and the right answer to
that is not a patch to fastfetch. Asking what interfaces a machine has is
something every networked program does, and on Linux there is exactly one way:
a NETLINK_ROUTE socket. musl implements getifaddrs() over it, so a libc call
that looks like a syscall is really a small protocol conversation -- and without
this side of it every caller fails the same way.

kernel/net/netlink.c is a responder rather than a general socket family. No
event stream, no multicast groups, nothing subscribes to link state: a request
arrives, the whole answer is generated into the socket's buffer, and reads drain
it. That shape is chosen, not a shortcut -- getifaddrs sends a dump and reads
until NLMSG_DONE with MSG_DONTWAIT, so generating at send time means a read
never blocks and the non-blocking flag is honoured for free.

RTM_GETLINK returns one RTM_NEWLINK per interface with IFLA_IFNAME and
IFLA_ADDRESS; RTM_GETADDR returns one RTM_NEWADDR per address with IFA_ADDRESS,
IFA_LOCAL and IFA_LABEL. Anything else gets a bare NLMSG_DONE, because the
caller's next move is a read either way and an unexpected error message is worse
than nothing to read.

The data is not netlink's. Interfaces come from the netdev class and addresses
from lwIP's netifs, exactly as /proc/netif reads them; nothing in the file knows
what an e1000 is. Interface indices matter more than they look -- getifaddrs
matches address records to link records by index, so the two dumps have to
agree. Loopback is 1, netdevs follow from 2.

Verified by reading it back through musl rather than by inspecting the bytes:

    lo     flags=0x49    fam=-1
    eth0   flags=0x1043  fam=17                    (AF_PACKET, the MAC)
    lo     flags=0x49    fam=2  addr=127.0.0.1  mask=255.0.0.0
    eth0   flags=0x1043  fam=2  addr=10.0.2.15  mask=255.255.255.0

Correct flags, addresses and netmasks, and the link records pair with the
address records.

One thing this does not close: fastfetch's Local IP module defaults to
default-route-only, which calls ffNetifGetDefaultRouteIfName() and reads
/proc/net/route. SchOS has no routing table and no such file, so the module
still shows nothing -- now for a reason that is about routing rather than about
enumeration. That is the next file to provide.

socktest still passes; the AF_UNIX and AF_INET paths are untouched.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01VQ7Qx8E1q1M1bbCq8QLHS2
2026-09-12 19:23:34 +02:00
..
architecture net: AF_NETLINK, so getifaddrs() works for everything and not just one program 2026-09-12 19:23:34 +02:00
branding net: AF_NETLINK, so getifaddrs() works for everything and not just one program 2026-09-12 19:23:34 +02:00
guides build: a nix shell, because the loader is the one thing gcc cannot build 2026-09-12 18:31:34 +02:00
history boot: the loader jumped into the framebuffer, because rbx was not clobbered 2026-09-12 18:44:24 +02:00
plan schfs: records at arbitrary offsets are packed, and the compiler is told 2026-09-12 17:56:36 +02:00
licensing.md docs: four directories, and a rule for when a thing leaves the roadmap 2026-09-12 17:13:35 +02:00
README.md docs: a branding folder, and the three marks are not interchangeable 2026-09-12 18:19:09 +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, then plan/README.md for the order.

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.
networking.md Drivers, lwIP, sockets — Unix and INET.
init.md schinit, PID 1, 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. What 1.0 contains, and what is explicitly deferred past it.
foundations.md The kernel work everything else is blocked on.
init.md PID 1 becomes a role rather than a process.
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.
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.