The r/osdevel logo combines the >_ terminal prompt with concentric CPU privilege rings, representing the interaction between developers and the low-level systems they build. The terminal symbol keeps the design immediately recognizable as a computing/development community while the rings give it a specifically OS-development meaning.
We're looking for ideas for a good icon for r/osdevel.
Feel free to suggest anything you think would represent the community well — whether that's something terminal/OS-related, a symbol, or something completely different.
We're open to ideas, so drop your suggestions below!
I just checked the moderators page for r/osdev and it currently says “No moderators found.”
As far as I know, u/timschwartz has been the only moderator of the subreddit for quite a while. I don't actually know whether he has completely left, was removed, or if this is some Reddit-side issue, so I don't want to claim that he is definitely gone.
But if he has stepped down, I think we should acknowledge something uncomfortable: we may have pushed the criticism too far.
There was a huge amount of backlash and pressure surrounding the moderation of r/osdev recently. A lot of the criticism was legitimate, and I still think some of the issues people raised needed to be addressed. But there's a difference between holding a moderator accountable and putting so much pressure on one person that they eventually just walk away.
If Tim really did leave because of all of this, then honestly, that's not something I'd celebrate.
The subreddit now appears to have zero moderators, which is arguably an even bigger problem than having one controversial moderator.
I don't know what actually happened behind the scenes, and I'm not going to pretend I do. But seeing the community go from one moderator to none is pretty damn surreal. i am getting vibes that something is pretty damn serious or its just my imagination and it is a reddit side glitch.
The first two removed posts were accidental duplicates. I didn't realize I had posted them twice, and I completely understand why they were removed. That's on me. What I'm confused about is the removal of my most recent post. It wasn't meant to farm karma or be a low-effort post. I made it to show support for the moderator( u/emexos ) of my own subreddit after an incident involving their project, and I posted it here because I thought it was relevant to the broader kernel development community. I know some people assumed it was AI-written, and that's fair because I do use AI to help fix my grammar and vocabulary since English isn't my strongest language. The words may have been improved, but the message and intention were genuinely mine. I wasn't trying to advertise my community, gain karma, or spam the subreddit. If I misunderstood a rule or the post wasn't appropriate for this community, I'd genuinely appreciate knowing what I did wrong so I can avoid making the same mistake in the future. I enjoy being part of this community and want to contribute in a way that follows the rules.
Hey everyone,
I wanted to make sure everyone is aware of what has happened to u/emexos.
EmexOS recently went through a devastating repository takeover after someone who had previously been granted write access abused that trust, snatched control of the GitHub repository, removed the original developers and contributors, and took ownership of years of hard work.
They also illegally relicensed the source code, stripped the original developer of access to their own project, and forced u/emexos into the heartbreaking position of having to rebuild large parts of the kernel from scratch.
This is one of the worst things that can happen to an open-source developer. It serves as a reminder to all of us to be extremely careful about who we grant write access to and to rely on pull requests whenever possible.
I want to make it absolutely clear that I stand with u/emexos. I'll do everything I can to help—whether that's spreading awareness, helping rebuild the project, reviewing code, testing, contributing, or supporting them in any other way possible.
I hope all of us can come together to support u/emexos during this difficult time and help them get back on their feet. No developer deserves to have years of passion and dedication taken away like this.
Hello everyone,
We have officially renamed r/well_maintained_osdev to r/osdevel.
This was a deliberate decision to give the community a shorter, more memorable name before it grows too large. We believe it's better to establish a strong identity now rather than rename it later.
Going forward, r/well_maintained_osdev will no longer be maintained or actively moderated. All future development, discussions, announcements, and moderation efforts will take place in r/osdevel
Please join r/osdevel and make all future posts there.
Thank you for your support, and we look forward to building the community together!
Hello everyone,
We have officially renamed r/well_maintained_osdev to r/osdevel.
This was a deliberate decision to give the community a shorter, more memorable name before it grows too large. We believe it's better to establish a strong identity now rather than rename it later.
Going forward, r/well_maintained_osdev will no longer be maintained or actively moderated. All future development, discussions, announcements, and moderation efforts will take place in r/osdevel
Please join r/osdevel and make all future posts there.
Thank you for your support, and we look forward to building the community together!
Thanks to everyone who's joined and started posting already. It's awesome to see people sharing their projects so quickly.
Our goal is simple: build a friendly OS development community with fair moderation where people can share projects, ask questions, and help each other learn.
If you've got ideas for the subreddit or things you'd like to see, let us know. We're just getting started, and your feedback will help shape the community.
Thanks for being here.
the requirements are : you should respect everyone and have some experience in operating system development
hi i am a novice dev from r/osdev . i see a lot of ai slop OS's in this sub reddit . you guys believe that a ai slop os is a real working OS . how to find out if it is a AI slop OS : first obvious hint is their posts are written by a AI like chatgpt and if they are careless we can find ?utm_source=chatgpt(or other ai) in their given links . if they give a repo link then check the kernel , most AI generated OS's kernels are dumped in one file. another hint is they look highly polished than they should be . A README that makes huge claims ("Windows compatible", "Linux compatible", "AI-powered kernel", "fastest OS ever") but shows almost no technical details or architecture. Every commit is massive instead of small incremental changes. Real OS projects usually grow through hundreds of focused commits.The commit history is suspiciously short. A "kernel" with 30k lines appearing in one or two commits deserves skepticism or their project is dumped in one huge commit . another obvious giveaway is there is agents.md in .gitignore file. Lots of comments explaining obvious code while the complicated parts have no explanation. these are few things on how to identify AI generated or written operating systems. these are just the basic points, there are so many things to check but they are too advanced to be written in a reddit post . These points can't be 100% sure .the projects can be either really handmade
i see a lot of posts nowadays building real microkernels, getting real errors and seeking help from the community to debug them. r/osdev is healing from AI slop. i like that. those few posts saying "No AI bullshit" already tells that the community is slowly healing from AI slop.
Maybe it's just me, but lately scrolling through OS dev spaces has been kinda depressing.
A while back you'd see people posting tiny kernels, bootloaders that barely worked, screenshots of ugly text mode consoles, asking dumb questions, celebrating getting into protected mode, crashing for 6 hours because of a paging bug... you know, actual progress.
Now half the posts feel like "I made a next-gen operating system" and it's a polished UI that turns out to be an AI-generated mockup. Or some random guy who doesnt even know the basics of c claims they built something insane, and after five minutes you realize it was mostly generated.
Dont get me wrong, AI is a useful tool. I use it too. But there is a huge difference between using AI to understand something or speed up development and using it to pretend you've built an entire operating system.
The worst part isn't even the AI itself. It's that beginners get a completely warped idea of what OS development actually looks like. Real OS dev is slow. Its frustrating. It's spending hours chasing one stupid bug because you forgot to set a flag somewhere. It's ugly code, triple faults, reboot loops, and tiny victories that feel huge.
Honestly I'd rather see someone's VGA text mode "Hello World" than another flashy fake desktop claiming to be "Windows killer v1.0".
Maybe Im just getting old (even though I'm definitely not lol), but I miss seeing genuine progress instead of polished AI slop. Seeing people actually learn is way more inspiring than seeing something that was mostly generated.
Curious if anyone else feels the same, or if Im just yelling at clouds.
