HelenOS

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
HelenOS
Example applications
Written inC
OS familyMultiserver operating systems
Source modelOpen source
Initial releaseJune 11, 2006; 17 years ago (2006-06-11)
Latest preview0.12.1[1] Edit this on Wikidata / 16 December 2022
Repository
BSD-3-Clause[3]
Official websitewww.helenos.org

HelenOS[4][5][6][7] is an operating system based on a multiserver microkernel design.[8] The source code of HelenOS is written in C and published under the BSD-3-Clause license.[3]

The system is described as a “research development open-source operating system”.[9]

Technical overview

The microkernel handles

threads and supports symmetric multiprocessing
.

Typical to microkernel design, file systems, networking, device drivers and graphical user interface are isolated from each other into a collection of user space components that communicate via a message bus.

Each process (called task) can contain several

threads (preemptively scheduled by the kernel) which, in turn, can contain several fibers
scheduled cooperatively in user space. Device and file-system drivers, as well as other system services, are implemented by a collection of user-space tasks (servers), creating thus the multiserver nature of HelenOS.

Tasks communicate via HelenOS IPC, which is

connection oriented and asynchronous
. It can be used to send small fixed-size messages, blocks of bytes or to negotiate sharing of memory. Messages can be forwarded without copying bulk data or mapping memory to the address space of middle-men tasks.

Development

HelenOS development is community-driven. The developer community consists of a small core team, mainly staff and former and contemporary students of the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at

ESA Summer of Code in Space 2013 program.[14]

The

free software licenses, making HelenOS free software
.

Hardware support

HelenOS runs on several different

ARM, x86-64, IA-32, IA-64 (Itanium), MIPS, PowerPC (32-bit only), SPARC V9 and RISC-V.[16] At some point in time[further explanation needed
], various versions of HelenOS ran on real hardware from each architecture (as opposed to running only in a simulator of that architecture).

HelenOS supports

Intel HDA
audio devices, serial ports, keyboards, mice and framebuffers.

Research and academic use

HelenOS is being used for research[17][18] in the area of software components and verification by the Department of Distributed and Dependable Systems, Charles University, Prague. Besides that, HelenOS has been used by students as a platform for software projects and master theses.[19]

References

  1. ^ "Release Notes for HelenOS 0.12.1". 19 December 2022.
  2. ^ "HelenOS". GitHub. 22 April 2022.
  3. ^ a b c "License – HelenOS". Archived from the original on 2016-03-10. Retrieved 2021-06-18.
  4. ^ hpr1447 :: HPR Coverage at FOSDEM 2014 Part 1/5
  5. ^ HelenOS Micro-Kernel OS Still Marching On
  6. ^ HelenOS - the operating system that launched a thousand processes, DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 350, 19 April 2010
  7. ^ HelenOS nikdy nebude dokončený, říká jeho autor Jakub Jermář
  8. ISBN 9783642135569
    .
  9. user-generated source
    ]
  10. ^ HelenOS Contributors measured by Ohloh
  11. ^ List of projects accepted into Google Summer of Code 2011
  12. ^ List of projects accepted into Google Summer of Code 2012
  13. ^ List of projects accepted into Google Summer of Code 2014
  14. ^ "Selected mentoring organizations". Archived from the original on 2017-07-16. Retrieved 2020-01-11.
  15. ^ HelenOS analysis by Ohloh
  16. ^ FOSDEM (2019-02-11), Lessons learned from porting HelenOS to RISC-V Pros and cons of RISC-V from a microkernel OS point …, archived from the original on 2021-12-22, retrieved 2019-02-25
  17. ^ Institutional research plan MSM0021620838 - Modern methods, structures and systems of computer science (2005-2011, MSM)
  18. ^ Research @ D3S
  19. ^ Defended HelenOS theses at Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University in Prague[permanent dead link]

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=HelenOS&oldid=1210000831"