The Lions Operating System
lionsos.org100 points by plunderer 6 hours ago
100 points by plunderer 6 hours ago
Presumably named after Associate Professor John Lions[0], of A Commentary on the UNIX Operating System[1] fame.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lions
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Commentary_on_the_UNIX_Opera...
The mascot it super cute lion too. How can a project do everything so right? I was browsing some popular python libraries and they just slapped on the first image they got out of ChatGPT. It's nice to see care in the craft.
It's developed by UNSW Sydney, whose mascot is a Lion. (Specifically, "Clancy the Lion"), so I am guessing it's probably that.
Not presumably, but explicitly. Both in documentation and presentations by seL4 they consistently make a point to mention so.
On recent news, LionsOS, as of about a week ago (I got notified via their announcement maillist), includes a router/firewall scenario[0].
Do not miss Gernot Heiser's recent talk[1] at the seL4 Summit, where among other things he shows seL4 massively outperforming Linux in a web server scenario.
Mountain Lion is calling and wants its name back.
Very cool! I’m a huge fan of Genode, another OS that runs on SeL4. Does anyone here know how they compare?
Genode is a framework that can run on many places and on higher level has its own abstractions. Lion OS is based on Microkit the framework developed by the seL4 people that will also be verified. So Lion OS/Microkit is basically the outgrowth of the original seL4 research.
Oh no, it's written in C and not Rust. The blasphemy!
I'm trying to picture in my mind a person who is a fan of Rust and somehow against an OS with a formally-verified kernel no matter the language. I'm not having much success.
Rust, an immature language with fluidly evolving specification / reference implementation, is not suitable for high assurance nor formal verification.
> To be successful, many more components are needed.
What is the purpose of this OS ? Can it mint Bitcoin ? Can it do fluid dynamics simulation ? Can it act as an interface to a database ? Can it host a database ? Is it interactive ? What kind of interface it presents to the user ?
That’s a rather luridly practical view that’s entirely out of sync with academia and basic research that provides tangible benefits much further down the line.
Those are applications, not operating systems. With occasional exceptions, you can run any application on any operating system.
There is an example of interface in the docs: https://lionsos.org/docs/examples/kitty/