ZenithOS is a from-scratch x86 kernel written in C and assembly — real Multiboot2 boot, its own memory manager, scheduler, filesystem, shell, and crypto. Boot it in your browser, or write it to a USB stick.
An honest project. Here's what runs today, not a wishlist.
Boots via GRUB (Multiboot2), sets up GDT/IDT, handles all 32 CPU exceptions and 16 hardware IRQs.
Preemptive scheduler with a genuine x86 context switch written in assembly.
In-kernel filesystem, inter-process messaging, and an interactive shell (ZSH).
AES-256-CTR, SHA-256, Argon2id password hashing, and a CSPRNG — implemented from scratch.
A TCP/IP stack with ARP, DHCP, and DNS exists — early-stage and not yet hardware-tested.
A transformer forward-pass is implemented; it ships without trained weights and falls back to rule-based responses.
Every module, graded truthfully. No green checkmarks it hasn't earned.
| Module | State |
|---|---|
| Boot (Multiboot2 + GRUB) | Working |
| GDT / IDT / interrupts | Working |
| Memory allocator | Working |
| Scheduler + context switch | Working |
| Filesystem / IPC / shell | Working |
| Crypto (AES / SHA / Argon2) | Working |
| Permissions / multi-user | Partial |
| TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP | Early / untested on HW |
| Tor, mesh networking | Scaffolding |
| AI inference (no weights) | Scaffolding |
| GUI compositor / window manager | Scaffolding |
| Windows / Android / iOS / macOS compat | Design stub |
Boot it safely in your browser first, or grab the ISO to run in QEMU or on real hardware.
To run locally: make iso && make run-iso — see the README for the full toolchain.
Get an email when milestones land — first GUI, first network ping, first release.