r/unix
what do you think about my Unix-like operating system?
Pureunix running on my macbook thru QEMU
I’ve been quietly working on a hobby operating system called PureUNIX for the past few months, mostly as a way to learn how Unix-like systems actually work under the hood.
This week I finally hit a milestone that felt worth sharing.
The latest version now has a real Unix-style process model with protected user mode, per-process virtual address spaces, fork(), exec(), and waitpid(). Seeing a process fork, replace itself with a new ELF image, and return control to the shell was one of those “okay, this actually feels like an operating system now” moments.
A few other things it has at the moment:
- EXT2 + FAT16 through a VFS
- Interactive shell with pipes and redirection
- A small vim-like editor
- User accounts and login
- Around 215 regression tests covering everything from the VFS and permissions to symlink loops, large files, and process management (currently all passing)
It’s written almost entirely in C99 with a bit of x86 assembly and targets 32-bit x86. I know it’s still missing plenty of things—preemptive scheduling, networking, mmap(), and lots more—but getting to this point has been a ton of fun.
I’m posting here because I’d genuinely love feedback from people who know Unix well. If you see something that’s particularly Unix-like, or something that makes you think “that’s not how Unix would do it,” I’d love to hear it. Those discussions are honestly the most valuable part of building a project like this.
u/Signal_Reference746 — 2 days ago
▲ 264 r/unix
You are not expected to understand this
(the famous bit of source code in unix v6)
And indeed I don't, not really. But I can compile it, that's something already :-)
u/Acceptable_Ant_3608 — 4 days ago
Blueberry Linux - Looking for contributors
Blueberry is a self-hosted, source-built Linux distribution: a minimal, rolling CLI server system in the BSD tradition. A single source tree produces the base (a pinned prebuilt kernel, glibc, the bpm package manager, the build system) and every package is a recipe in packages/, built from source and served from the project's own signed repository. There are no upstream binary mirrors.
Here is the repo: https://github.com/zsigisti/blueberry
Here is the discord: https://discord.gg/GPfBnbDPHE
u/Healthy_Swimming5175 — 3 days ago
BSD-based Web Office Software?
Are there any web office software projects that natively run on a *BSD server? I'm not talking about software that relies on Linux-based shims to run on any of the BSDs, I'm specifically talking about web office software that is either specifically written for the BSD ecosystem, or is at least has *BSD as a first tier platform.
u/demetrioussharpe — 5 days ago
Complete IBM AIX Sendmail & Email Administration Series
I recently documented a complete IBM AIX Sendmail & Email Administration series based on a production implementation and published it on my AIX-focused website, which I've been building in my free time. I thought I'd share it here in case it's useful to others managing AIX.
I started the website to document practical IBM AIX knowledge, test and practice learning, and real-world implementations because I found there wasn't much up-to-date, hands-on AIX content available online.
It covers:
- Email architecture in AIX
- Understanding Sendmail
- Installing and upgrading Sendmail
- Configuring Sendmail as an SMTP client
- AWS SES SMTP authentication
- Troubleshooting common Sendmail issues
- Automating email notifications
The guides include real AIX terminal output, screenshots, dependency troubleshooting, and production best practices. All articles are freely available and don't require registration.
Complete Series: https://aixosquiz.com/articles/
I'd appreciate any feedback or suggestions. If you're managing Sendmail on AIX differently, or notice anything that could be improved about the articles or my own free web portal for aix os, I'd be interested to hear your approach and feedback.
u/LoveKush925 — 5 days ago
POSIX everywhere
What a typical old guy who doesn't play with colors, rice, shadows and dependencies on Python, Node.js, Rust, Go and so on and go on, I use every device with MirBSD, but I probably wanted to be the only one to show you a piece of code on the attached image of my portable UNIX terminal.
For many it will definitely be a cognitive dissonance, because there are no fountains here. Nor wasted time on an idiotic compilation. For those who know how a shell works without plugins, helpers and a lot of gadgets, this is an example of a tool to check the disk on the device.
Unfortunately, there is no neofetch to show what a hacker I am (joke)... Indeed, this script written on your knee in 2 minutes will work everywhere, on any system, on any distribution, on the washing machine, on the refrigerator even on the toaster if it has a processor :)
I invite you to the discussion, I will be happy to read about those pythons, rust or other toys that die every quarter.
Greetings
u/Pegasusw404 — 7 days ago