dr'ex / News: Recent posts

A new murgiahack version has been released today. There are no visible changes, but lot of rewriting in internals.

I think the kernel is now ready to do some user visible task, so expect some more syscall and userland examples in the next days.

Happy Hacking!

A new version of drex has been released today.

No externally visible improvements, except for creating a fast path in syscalls.

The major improvements is the support for kernel tasks that you can push your thread into.

Happy Hacking!

Added the Page Global Extension and Makefile infrastructure for further processor specific speedups.

With PGE bit enabled (it's supported only in pentium or newer processors) context switching rate shows a +40% improvements.

As ever, I suggest you trying the kernel with the init files you find in the drex kernel userland page at http://drex.sf.net/userland .

Have fun!

This new drex release fixes a bug in the capability system and in the uthread syscall.

Thanks to the INIT_CLONE temporary functionality, you can test and benchmark the proper full thread migration, address space switching involved.

Benchmark!

This release adds the capability system and implements the first basic syscall of drex--murgiahack: thread_push and thread_pop,the capability-protected sycalls providing thread migration.

Kernel internals are almost complete. Kernel tasks (will be used for drivers) and the scheduler are the only missing parts.

Don't forget to check the dr'ex userland page at http://drex.sf.net/userland/ for some init file to boot the kernel with.... read more

dr'ex has a new mailing list for developement and questions: 'drex-hackers'.

For more information and for subscribing, check the sourceforge's lists page of the project at:

http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/drex-hackers

See you there!

drex--murgiahack is a small kernel based on migrating threads and capabilities that keeps an exokernel-like approach on having a low-level user interface

This release is still incomplete. Mechanisms for migrating threads and switching are fully implemented.
Scheduler and capability model system have to be implemented still.

If you want to test this kernel, don't forget to check http://drex.sf.net/userland for some init file.... read more

At http://drex.sourceforge.net/userland/ you can find some example code that can be used with the drex--murgiahack kernel.

Enjoy.

drex--murgiahack is a branch of drex that contains lot of new code. All the existing code has been checked for bugs and made more costumizable.

Curious will notice function for migrating threads (thread_push and thread_pop) fully implemented, but still not usable.
Infact, it is still unfinished. Userspace's API and scheduler has still to be implemented.

New dr'ex website is online.
It is integrated with Sourceforge's news services and further improvements are going to come in the near future.

And that's not all. A new major version of drex is coming, featuring a completely new architecture.
Stay tuned.

drex is an exokernel written for the x86 architecture.

Its design priciples are to have a low level user interface without sacrificing system security.
Within this release, almost all kernel interface and device driver system is completed, providing ramdisk support and minix filesystem awareness (complete support is done in userspace).

The included userspace tools contains a kernel logger and a embedded shell that already uses many library that form a core for future libOSes.... read more

I know, I know, long time is passed since last time, but here is another release of drex.

It is almost a complete rewriting of core components, such as interrupt handlers and task switcher, resulting in a more stable kernel. Filesystem support, block devices and ring buffer device support has been added, too.

Moreover, the kernel and the userland tools have been separed.

You can download now the drex-000b-gotslab. It uses now a slab allocator, it has an example user mode process, and some other little enhancement.

The first release of the dr'ex kernel has been released.
It's in early developement stage and it has a boot, a kernel memory allocator, a scheduler and something else more.
You can't see anything of the future architecture but the code is really reusable.

Hi!
i just created this sourceforge account for my project (dr'ex).
Soon (tomorrow maybe) I'll put code in the cvs repository and I'll prepare some documentation too.
In the meanwhile, if you are interested or just curious, feel free to mail me.