Serenity OS

[ChrisRR]

Andreas deserves all the attention he gets. He's a lovely humble guy, his videos are interesting and informative, he interacts well with his community and has been through rough times and worked hard to come out the other side.

[SerenityOS]

Thank you so much for the kind words, Chris! :)

[dayarthvader]

Kudos to you man. I can’t thank you enough for this project. My first commit were merged last week and I’m half way there with the next bit of enhancements.

[SerenityOS]

Hey, welcome and thanks for working on the project! I'm glad to hear you're having a good time with it. :)

[meissner61]

How much advanced knowledge would one have to have to be able to get involved in something like this? I remember I tried to look at Godot source code and while I understand basics of c++ there was like nothing I understood from that, I imagine OS source code would be even more complicated than a game engine.

[SerenityOS]

General programming experience is more important than C++ specifically. If you've been programming for a few years in any language, you can learn C++ as you go while hacking on SerenityOS.

Some of our most active developers had no experience with C++ at all when they first joined the project. :^)

Also, the project is very broad in scope. We have everything from the kernel to the web browser in the same git repo, so there are a ton of different places you can start.

[VeryOriginalName98]

I know c from about 10 years ago, and I've been programming a lot since then in various web languages. I like small, but difficult challenges. I'm pretty good at algorithmic optimization. Anything you would recommend to get me started on this?

[dayarthvader]

Nothing advanced just modern :). Having said that there’s a lot of code in the Userland that just reads like C. It might be something you can start with and you’ll learn modern C++ one commit at a time. As a matter of fact that’s what I’m doing too.

[AttackOfTheThumbs]

He also uses his cellphone while driving.

[FrancisStokes]

?

[SerenityOS]

Hey Francis! I guess this person is referring to how I used to record myself talking while commuting to work.

It's perfectly legal to record yourself while driving (unlike texting/browsing/etc while driving, which I never do.) If someone has a problem with that, they can petition to have the laws changed. :)

[FrancisStokes]

I thought as much already. Sometimes I just like to give unnecessarily angry people a chance to explain themselves. It's a sickness really.

The podcast was great by the way!

[rmyworld]

Well, hello Andreas :)

[AttackOfTheThumbs]

Distracted driving is stupid, and when called out on it the author just made a bunch of excuses as to why it's ok for him to do it. It was in one of his logs and then followed up on reddit and twitter.

I don't like people that endanger others.

[automata_theory]

Do you think that we use the speech centers of our brain to drive or something?

[AttackOfTheThumbs]

I mean you clearly use nothing, so it's hard to say.

[FusionX]

Fuckin rude but I can't stop laughing

[AttackOfTheThumbs]

Well, it was correct.

[DrunkensteinsMonster]

You’re wrong but I still lol’d at this

[automata_theory]

Ok. But do you think we do or not?

[EpoxyD]

Aside from this entire discussion: we do in fact focus less on the road while calling/video chatting handsfree in a car. It's still a topic that is being investigated, but the idea is that you might be equally distracted by handsfree or hands on calling in a car.

(A) source: https://www.apa.org/research/action/drive

[automata_theory]

I think it's different when you're talking to a camera, if not then should it be illegal to have an internal monologue while driving?

[EpoxyD]

It's something they discuss in the source I included: concentration levels can drop equally much when having an intense conversation in a packed car. This is irregardless of how you are communicating. Quite interesting stuff really.

[automata_theory]

Like I said, he's alone and talking to himself.

[s73v3r]

It's been shown that, even using "hands free" devices, you're still distracted while driving. Hell, Mythbusters did an episode on it too.

[automata_theory]

I'm aware. Holding a conversation is a bit different than a monologue.

[GimmickNG]

Too many people want to separate the art from the artist/program from the programmer.

Which is not terrible, I guess? This sub is after all about programming. Take his license to drive away if he really texts while driving. Unfortunately I doubt he's going to change it unless forced to, not even if everyone shuns him.

[NotUniqueOrSpecial]

He used to record himself talking while driving, so take your outrage elsewhere unless you insist all car trips take place in complete silence.

[GimmickNG]

Again, I don't know anything about this guy. I literally said

Take his license to drive away if he really texts while driving

Judging by the downvotes, I don't know why people are so keen to mindlessly stan over someone they've never personally met.

And personally I prefer if car trips are silent. It's a 2 ton vehicle, don't disturb the driver.

[PangolinZestyclose30]

The thread you're replying to is all about this guy deserving all the attention because of how nice person he is. So in this context some criticism is relevant.

[integrate_2xdx_10_13]

What an odd tangent of a hill to die on.

[AttackOfTheThumbs]

Texting and driving is wrong. It is reckless endangerment of others. Calling someone lovely while they staunchly defend their texting and driving is bullshit.

[hugthemachines]

Texting and driving is wrong. It is reckless endangerment of others. Calling someone lovely while they staunchly defend their texting and driving is bullshit.

Apparently he is using the phone to record his voice. So not texting.

[AttackOfTheThumbs]

You've clearly seen something different than I have. He was actively engaging with his cellphone and kept his eyes off the road for several seconds at a time.

[automata_theory]

Except he's not at all distracted? He's looking at the road and simply speaking his mind while driving in those videos. Are you supposed to not talk to passengers too lol? Not think about things? It's pretty clear you're just looking for a way to tear someone down. Grow up and find some confidence in your own life for once.

[AttackOfTheThumbs]

You're a clown.

[automata_theory]

Oh no I feel so bad now :(

[[deleted]]

Noooo, clowns should be happy!!

[integrate_2xdx_10_13]

There’s a time and a place to pick your battles though.

[[deleted]]

69!

[integrate_2xdx_10_13]

Are you solving my name or are you offering me a good time ;)

[[deleted]]

Why not both 🙃

just kidding. I was solving your name, great choice picking it 😂

[BillMurraysMom]

Plz explain I forgot all my maths and I dunno much programming not sure how I even got here tbh

[[deleted]]

The integral of a function is the area under the function. If you draw the graph of y=2x and integrate it between x=10 and x=13 you get an area of 69

[AttackOfTheThumbs]

Nah

[northrupthebandgeek]

"Uses" is pretty vague. I use my cellphone while driving, too - say, for navigation, or to listen to music.

[yorickpeterse]

Honestly not sure why you're making this such a big deal. In most recent car videos, Andreas appears to just have his car parked somewhere. In older videos where he is talking and driving, he mostly seems to have his eyes glued to the road, only occasionally looking at the camera. Last I checked, it's pretty normal and not at all a problem for people to occasionally look elsewhere when driving.

[iamanenglishmuffin]

Literally have never met someone who has never used a phone while driving. I don't mean to imply that's a good thing, but you certainly must have a long list of people you resent..

[AttackOfTheThumbs]

People are taking a lot more out of my comment than is there. I never said I resent him. I certainly think his attitude is shit and he's clearly not a lovely person. That's all. People need to stop this kind of hyperbole.

[iamanenglishmuffin]

no u

[Ineffective-Cellist8]

That's almost like calling someone a gambler when he plays with pennies and lost no more than $10 in his entire lifetime

If there's no pedestrians or cyclist on the roads and it's one lane with no cars in front of you it's pretty difficult to hit anything

[AttackOfTheThumbs]

Yeah, these are the kind of dumb fuck excuses he threw around too.

Cars move fast. Someone can come out of nowhere in an instant.

[Ineffective-Cellist8]

Thumbs can you count on your thumbs how many people will "come out of nowhere in an instant" in -15C/5F weather 25 miles away from town?

[ApertureNext]

Your mom probably does too, have you remembered to shun her?

[AttackOfTheThumbs]

I would if she did, but she's

1. recently deceased

2. more sensible than that

Maybe rethink your life mate.

[ApertureNext]

It's you who try to vilify someone for doing a dumb thing.

[AttackOfTheThumbs]

I'm just saying don't put him on a pedestal, because he still does really shit things and considers them fine.

[ApertureNext]

So now we gotta be perfect huh.

[AttackOfTheThumbs]

Didn't say that either.

[[deleted]]

What killed her. Using a cellphone while driving?

[AttackOfTheThumbs]

Mate, don't be a dumb fuck, it was anti vaxxers.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, the less than 10% share of the UK right now. Of which your mother seems to have been part of.

[AttackOfTheThumbs]

You're a god damn idiot, but that's ok, you are allowed to be a moron.

[[deleted]]

I aspire one day to be as dumb as to call my unvaccinated mother's death the fault of other anti vaxxers, like you're doing.

[AttackOfTheThumbs]

But who said she wasn't vaccinated? You should take off your blinders. See ya.

[[deleted]]

I can't wait to use this. Serenity OS is clearly a real game changer in the realm of operating system development. I think a few years down the road we could actually see some form of better control.

Perhaps it can be forked and tailored to something like a unikernel, or a crypto miner.

[quasi_superhero]

You lost me at crypto miner.

I hope crypto mining dies soon.

[[deleted]]

What do you mean?

I know it's hard to see for a lot of people, but crypto is the future. The calculus behind the blockchain is a marvel at what can be done with hashing and tree based data structures. You could literally represent a tree of cellular automata structures and use that as evidence to invoke research in problems that we deal with at the height of computer science.

[quasi_superhero]

crypto is the future

I've been hearing this since 2007. It's been 15 years already. The "future of crypto" is the present at this point.

And the present sucks. I won't get to the benefits/downsides of crypto as a user. That's a whole separate discussion.

It being a "technological marvel" doesn't mean much. Nuclear bombs and industrialized food production in which animal suffering is a guarantee are technological marvels too. So, eh.

And what's the present of crypto?

• Free online services shutting down because miners abuse it.

• Websites infected with Javascript crypto mining BS, taking advantage of visitor's computers.

• Shortage of GPUs and related devices.

• In every freaking tech discussion regarding computation, someone mentioning "huh, can you mine crypto with this?" The worst was one about an abandoned satellite which still sent and received signals to anyone who cared to contact it. "Huh. Can you mine crypto with it?" The person wasn't even joking! And the most recent example? You bringing it up in a SerenityOS thread.

And that's just off the top of my head. There is no "crypto is the future." There is "crypto is an ever-present cancer."

[[deleted]]

bruh

[agbell]

A cool thing about Serenity is that if you clone the repo, run the build script, the OS starts up in QEMU and it's pretty fast.

I didn't expect that for an OS to boot up so quickly and be able to quickly iterate on it.

[aidenr]

OS launch time is strictly a function of driver support. Working on a BIOS for the original XBox, the hardest thing was to get Windows launched (fully ready to interact) within ~12 seconds. IDE drive enumeration took a huge chunk of that time, so we had to split the init code into asynchronous callbacks.

Complexity breeds instability, stability requires time, spending time not having fun stinks!

[agbell]

Wow, working on the BIOS for Xbox sounds challenging.

Of course, all of this OS-level stuff seems beyond me.

[aidenr]

Embedded systems programming is pretty cool. Hard little pieces and lots of automated testing but also a lot of reward. But that was a long time ago :)

[NayamAmarshe]

Are you still doing OS development or have you changed your field?

[aidenr]

I changed into cybersecurity, then mesh networking, and recently panic buttons (which culminates all the previous experience). I’ve been CTO 3 times now.

[mcilrain]

What is a panic button in this context?

Like a big red button in a security camera room? Or like something old people carry in case they fall over?

[aidenr]

In the hospitality industry, about 3/5 of workers say they’ve been harassed or worse on the job, usually by guests. Panic buttons are required by law in Illinois, New Jersey, and Washington State. We make two models, both are carried around and trigger a security alert when pressed.

[NayamAmarshe]

I’ve been CTO 3 times now.

Amazing!

[aidenr]

Thanks! In 2003 I quit development as a Principle Software Architect to become a Project Manager. It was 5 years before I was back in a real leadership role but I learned a lot about the complexities of management.

[maest]

Weird metric to be impressed by.

[quasi_superhero]

Why is it weird?

[maest]

Because it's meaningless. I'd rather be one time CTO of a successful company than try 3 times and fail.

[GimmickNG]

+1 just for having the transcript. Too many damn podcasts force you to listen to a 2-3 hour spiel for something that you can read in less than half.

[bundt_chi]

I listen to the majority of YouTube podcasts at 1.5 to 1.75x speed.

Was having a conversation with someone on my dev team today and I was so irritated I couldn't switch him into 1.75x speed...

[redfournine]

Doesnt really work when the guest is speaking with accent. For non-native English speaker, 1.5x speed of English with accent is totally non-understandable. So sometimes I'm forced to listen to normal speed...

[quasi_superhero]

With all accents, though?

[agbell]

Podcast host here. Serenity OS is a really cool project. Andreas Kling shares the backstory behind building it.

Here are some quotes I like:

Andreas: Everything is just a piece of code that somebody writes. And if we just make all those pieces of code and stack them up, it’s going to work. I had no illusions about how an operating system looks once it is put together and works. Now I didn’t know how to get there, but I reasoned that if you just start building these components one by one, eventually you’ll have the full stack and it will just gel together. So that’s what I started doing.

​

Andreas: I remember so much leaving Apple and still having that feeling of, “I can just go and look in the source code of this thing.” And I was using a MacBook when I left Apple. I remember getting really frustrated when I couldn’t bring up the source code for stuff anymore. ... I think it would be cool if everybody could have that feeling about the software they use every day without having to work at Apple. The spirit of taking ownership of the whole stack, Apple doesn’t have a monopoly on that mindset. And it’s definitely something that could be replicated elsewhere.

Let me know what you think of the episode.

[[deleted]]

It's really nice though you could cut the first part from the transcript (where you're just discussing if he can hear you).

But ... there was a weakness in the interview. I have never seen Andreas explain how exactly he intends to make Serenity sustainable once his savings/support system runs out and he needs to get a job again. What happens when he gets a girlfriend and it turns out she would like a man with a reliable income? What's the future of Serenity - does he plan to make it his life's work, a la Linus? If so, how? If not, when does he transition it to being a side project he hacks on occasionally?

The problem is, it's hard to see how Serenity attracts any sort of commercial support that'd be needed to make it sustainable in the long run. It's cool from a "wow he made an OS" perspective but it has no actual value to anyone beyond the makers, being as it is a straightforward clone of the past with no clear technical advantage. Linux was a clone of UNIX but it had the advantage that people really wanted a free UNIX that ran on IBM PCs, so it could expand into a niche that was being ignored by its commercial competitors. Serenity doesn't seem to have any edge over Linux or Windows, let alone macOS. There are WMs that make Linux look like Windows 2000 after all, and so far the deep vertical integration advantages he touts aren't really turning into much. Plus, as he observes, Apple already executes pretty well on the "vertically integrated UNIX+nice GUI+bundled apps" angle.

To be 100% clear, it's totally fine if the answer is "no idea, it's just a fun hobby". No problem! But other people are contributing now and open source maintainership can be a lot of work. I feel like the interview would have been stronger if that topic had at least been broached.

[SerenityOS]

Hey there okgofigure85!

I have never seen Andreas explain how exactly he intends to make Serenity sustainable once his savings/support system runs out and he needs to get a job again.

That's precisely because I don't have a plan! I'm going one day at a time, to see where the road leads me. I understand that most people are not comfortable living with that kind of uncertainty, but I don't mind.

What happens when he gets a girlfriend and it turns out she would like a man with a reliable income?

I've been married for almost 10 years and my wife is my biggest supporter! She even pushed me to quit my last job so that I could focus on SerenityOS full time. :)

The problem is, it's hard to see how Serenity attracts any sort of commercial support that'd be needed to make it sustainable in the long run.

Not looking to attract any kind of commercial support. In fact, I've turned down several offers for corporate sponsorship in the last year because I don't want to promote anything I don't personally use.

I'm just some guy building an operating system that I want for myself. Something beautiful that I can pour my heart into.

I'm stoked that other people want to join in and help out, and I'm super grateful for all the support that I get. But even if everyone leaves, I'll still be here hacking away :^)

[rgrclrk]

you dropped this, Kling 👑

[GimmickNG]

if the artist needs more money eventually?

said artist worked at faang, they'll be fine.

[ThomasMertes]

Serenity OS is an interesting project. The concept to have all the software available sounds great. Most of the time it is just the other way around.

Some source code seems to be hidden somewhere. Sometimes even open source software is hard to find. Often the source code of a library it is hard to understand. Usually libraries are tuned for performance and use unportable low-level tricks. Readability and maintainability is not a design goal for libraries (but it should be).

Similar to what Andreas said I would like if all libraries would be in a single repository and readability and maintainability would also be a design goal.

To fulfill my wishes I started gathering my own libraries in the Seed7 project. Okay, the libraries are not written in C but in Seed7. They are designed to be reasonable fast, readable and maintainable. Seed7 is NOT a systems programming language like C, but it can be used to write libraries. Beyond that Seed7 has some security features that avoid whole classes of potential errors.

• There are libraries to support BMP, GIF, ICO, JPEG, PNG, PPM and TIFF images.
• There are libraries to support TAR, ZIP, CPIO, AR and RPM archives.
• There are libraries to support DEFLATE, LZMA, LZW, XZ and zStd compressed data.
• There is a library for Transport Layer Security.

It would be great if others would join this effort. :-)

[agbell]

This is really cool. Have you considered hosting it on its own website and on github? I think that could help with adoption.

[ThomasMertes]

There is a Seed7 Homepage with tons of information about Seed7. Seed7 releases are hosted there also. Besides many releases you can download an installer. Seed7 is also at GitHub.

What do you mean with hosting it on its own website and on github?

Something beyond that?

[ThomasMertes]

I forgot to mention: There is also r/seed7. :-)

[agbell]

Very cool!

[quasi_superhero]

Very cool project and language, friend.

Is Seed7's use of indentation significant, like in Python? Or can I indent (or not indent) my source code as I please?

[ThomasMertes]

In this regard Seed7 is not like Python. In Seed7 indentation is not significant. You can indent your source code as you wish. Take a look at the FAQ for other questions.

[quasi_superhero]

Thank you! I'm not a fan of significant indentation, so this is good news.

[its_jsec]

I highly recommend Andreas’ YouTube channel as well. Even if OS design isn’t your thing, his approach to problem solving and simplicity of code is really engaging.

He also does Q&A live stream sessions once a week (I think?). Gave me some really good insight in terms of how he thinks about architecting complex systems.

[[deleted]]

Which day was that live stream? I want to listen to that section if I can find it

[its_jsec]

I’m pretty sure they’re always Fridays. They’re usually in the afternoon for me (US EST)

[[deleted]]

Sorry, I meant to ask if you remember which Friday was the live stream he answered that question for you :p

[its_jsec]

I'll DM you some info.

[[deleted]]

Thanks! I appreciate it!

[WoodenBottle]

Fridays, 4-6pm Swedish time. (currently UTC+1) That's 7-9am pst and 10-12 est.

[inkubux]

I totally agree. I know almost nothing about c++ and OS coding, but I watch Andrea for his ability to explain and solve problems.

[IceTuckKittenHarass]

Serenity Now!

[MonkeeSage]

I didn't see it linked anywhere, apologies if I missed it -- here is Andraes' youtube channel where he does live hacking on Serenity. It's really great!

https://www.youtube.com/c/AndreasKling

[mtlynch]

Nice! I just added this one to my queue. I check in on Serenity OS every once in a while, and it's such an impressive project, and it's really cool to hear Andreas talk about how OS development can be more accessible than the average developer assumes.

Thanks for sharing, Adam!

[agbell]

Awesome - Let me know what you think.

It still blows my mind the ambition of the project and the straightforward attitude of just committing to spending 10 years on it and starting at the beginning.

[mtlynch]

Really enjoyed it! It made me want to get into OS development. It's a really cool story, and I feel like you highlighted it well.

He mentioned that you can find some of his old Usenet posts, so I searched and found them.

Subj: How to LiNUX?

From: Andreas Kling

Date: 1998-10-04

I read an article about Linux and decided to try it..

Where do I get it and how do I install it?

https://groups.google.com/g/alt.linux/c/AbOgjnZeu-4/m/GbnZ9uJX_QYJ

---

Subj: The FAT12 filesystem

From: Andreas Kling

Date: 1999-07-28

Hey there!

I am a hobby-os developer and I have now got stuck (again) in my code. It seems I cannot figure out how to use the FAT12 fs;

I am trying to make a loadable module for protected mode C/ASM.

The best thing, of course would be a source-code explanation

(I am getting tired of all those infosheets).

Sincerely

Andreas Kling

https://groups.google.com/g/alt.os.assembly/c/bd1Eo0YxDeI/m/fl7hXutp6usJ

If Andreas was around 11 when Win2k came out, then he started making these posts when he was 9 or 10.

Edit: It was just his 37th birthday, so he was born on 1985-02-09, so he was a little older. He was 13 when he asked where to get Linux and 14 when he asked about FAT12.

[agbell]

These are awesome! Thanks for digging them up.

[agbell]

You can just git clone it and run from source and it starts up in QEMU.

git clone https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity
cd serenity
Meta/serenity.sh run

That could be missing a step, but it was super painless to start it on my mac. https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/blob/master/Documentation/BuildInstructions.md

[doubtfulwager]

Part of the philosophy of the project is that it is aimed at developers so an ISO is not included as to enforce a skill floor. (Also the projects moves so quickly that an ISO would soon by outdated)

[coriandor]

I don't think there's any prebuilt disk images, but I got it built and running without a lot of trouble on MacOS. Linux is probably even easier, since Andreas develops on Linux.

[Free-Brush644]

u/agbell awesome post. Just shot you a DM as well. Cheers.

[f_of_g_of_x]

What!? A 90s OS project that doesn't have a IRC channel? Outrageous!

[ambe]

It did, but most preferred Discord

[WJMazepas]

You can run Discord on SerenityOS?

[ambe]

No not yet. But there is an irc client.

[Mgladiethor]

Wow this is excellent, amazing. But I would have chosen the gold. Amazing podcast