mirror of https://gitlab.com/nakst/essence
209 lines
6.1 KiB
Markdown
209 lines
6.1 KiB
Markdown
# **Essence** — An Operating System
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Video demonstration as of October 2021, running on real hardware: (YouTube)
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[](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGxt-tQ5BtM "Essence — October ’21 Progress")
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## Links
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For discussion, join our Discord server: https://discord.gg/skeP9ZGDK8
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Alternatively, visit the forums (not very active): https://essence.handmade.network/forums.
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To support development, you can donate to my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/nakst.
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## Features
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Kernel
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* Filesystem independent cache manager.
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* Memory manager with shared memory, memory-mapped files and multithreaded paging zeroing and working set balancing.
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* Networking stack for TCP/IP.
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* Scheduler with multiple priority levels and priority inversion.
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* On-demand module loading.
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* Virtual filesystem.
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* Window manager.
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* Audio mixer. (being rewritten)
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* Optional POSIX subsystem, capable of running GCC and some Busybox tools.
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Applications
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* File Manager
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* Text Editor
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* IRC Client
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* System Monitor
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Ports
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* Bochs
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* GCC and Binutils
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* FFmpeg
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* Mesa (for software-rendered OpenGL)
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* Musl
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Drivers
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* Power management: ACPI with ACPICA.
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* Secondary storage: IDE, AHCI and NVMe.
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* Graphics: BGA and SVGA.
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* Read-write filesystems: EssenceFS.
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* Read-only filesystems: Ext2, FAT, NTFS, ISO9660.
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* Audio: HD Audio.
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* NICs: 8254x.
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* USB: XHCI, bulk storage devices, human interface devices.
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Desktop
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* Custom user interface library.
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* Software vector renderer with complex animation support.
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* Tabbed windows.
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* Multi-lingual text rendering and layout with FreeType and Harfbuzz.
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## Building
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**Warning: This software is still in development. Expect bugs.**
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### Linux
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Download this project's source.
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git clone --depth=1 https://gitlab.com/nakst/essence.git/
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Start the build system.
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./start.sh
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Follow the on-screen instructions to build a cross compiler.
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Once complete, you can test the operating system in an emulator.
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* If you have Qemu and KVM installed, run `k` in the build system. **Recommended!**
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* If you have Qemu installed, run `t2` in the build system.
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* If you have VirtualBox installed, make a 128MB drive called `vbox.vdi` in the `bin` folder, attach it to a virtual machine called "Essence" (choose "Windows 7 64-bit" as the OS), and run `v` in the build system.
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Run `build-port` in the build system to view a list of optional ports that can be built.
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## Configuration
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From within the build system, run the command `config` to open the configuration editor. Click an option to change its value, and then click the `Save` button. You changes are saved locally, and will not be uploaded by Git. Not all configurations are likely to work; if you don't know what you're doing, it's probably best to stick with the defaults.
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### Keyboard layout
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To set the default keyboard layout for use in the emulator to match your current one, run:
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setxkbmap -query | grep layout | awk '{OFS=""; print "General.keyboard_layout=", $2}' >> bin/config.ini
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## Generating the API header
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If you want your project to target Essence, you need to generate the API header for your programming language of choice.
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g++ -o bin/build_core util/build_core.c
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bin/build_core headers <language> <path-to-output-file>
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Currently supported languages are 'c' (also works for C++), 'zig' and 'odin'.
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There is currently no documentation for the API; for examples of how to use the API, consult the standard applications in the `apps/` folder of the source tree. Minimal sample applications are placed in the `apps/samples` folder. By placing your application's `.ini` file in the `apps/` folder, it will be automatically built by the build system.
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## TODO
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**This list is incomplete!**
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- Applications
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- PDF viewer
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- Media player
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- Automator
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- Web browser
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- Desktop environment
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- Alt-tab
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- Saving application state on shut down
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- Task list popup
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- Add more settings, and organize them
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- Print screen key
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- Storing images in the clipboard
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- Combined search and Lua REPL
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- Clipboard viewer
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- Improved color eyedropper
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- File Manager
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- Deleting files
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- Improving thumbnail storage
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- Property store
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- Searching
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- Search indexing
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- Tagging; metadata
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- Tracking source of files
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- Localizing system folder names
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- Previewing other file types
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- Filtering
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- Multi-rename
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- Compressed archives
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- Creating new files
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- Automation
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- Grouping
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- GUI
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- Drag and drop
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- Keyboard navigation in menus
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- Date/time entry
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- Tokens in textbox
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- Right-to-left layout
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- Accessibility hooks (e.g. for a screen reader)
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- Choice boxes
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- Resizable scrollbars
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- Asynchronously painted element
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- Reorder lists
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- Dialogs as separate windows
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- File dialogs
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- Textbox auto-complete
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- Media display
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- Progress bars
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- Dockable UI
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- Charts
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- Gauges
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- Password editor
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- Scrollbar animations
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- Scaling at the paint level (as well as layout)
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- Simpler control of line clipping in `EsTextDisplay`
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- Fast scroll
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- Keeping items anchored when resizing
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- Instance reference counting
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- Text rendering
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- Variable font support
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- Fix custom font renderer
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- Unicode bidirectional text algorithm
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- Unicode vertical text layout algorithm
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- OpenType features
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- Grapheme splitter (for textbox)
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- Fallback fonts for unsupported languages
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- Consistent font size specification
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- API
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- Date/time
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- 2D graphics
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- Tweening
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- Media decoding
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- Debugging other processes
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- `io_uring`-like file access
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- String sorting; normalization; case conversion
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- Shared code
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- Better heap allocator
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- Faster rendering routines
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- Color spaces
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- Theming
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- Dark theme
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- High contrast theme
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- Bitmapped font
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- Kernel
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- Networking protocol implementation
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- Networking hardware drivers
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- Rewrite audio layer
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- Asynchronous IO
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- Better IPC messaging
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- Double fault handler
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- `x86_32` support
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- ARM support
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- Graphics card drivers
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- Support for USB 3.0 devices
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- OHCI/UHCI/EHCI drivers
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- USB hub support
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- Built-in debugger
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- Decrease startup time
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- Decrease memory usage
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- Shared memory permissions
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- Proper worker threads
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- Read-write file systems: FAT, ext4, NTFS
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- Documentation!
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