axle

Open source

Message-passing kernel + userspace

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About

Message-passing kernel + userspace

axle is a hobby microkernel and userspace built around message-passing. Everything used within axle is implemented from the ground up, from the bootloader, to the window manager, to the assembler. axle runs on bare metal. axle provides a desktop environment via an efficient compositor and a homegrown GUI toolkit library.

Assembler demo (click to view video)

Window animations (click to view video)

Screenshots

Features (2021)

Compositing window manager with animations, alpha blending, and window clipping
TCP/IP stack
HTML/CSS rendering engine
Home-grown x86_64 ELF assembler
Userspace games like Snake, Breakout, DOOM (ported), and 2048
Userspace applications like a web browser supporting HTTP
MLFQ scheduler
GUI toolkit
Rust support
Crash reporting
Message-based IPC
Driver interface
ELF loader
RTL8139 driver
AHCI driver
Task visualizer
Newlib port
Many supporting features (paging, ring3, syscalls, PCI, etc.)

Old graphics for nostalgia (up to 2018)

VGA graphics

Circles	Rectangles	Triangles

Julia set	Mandelbrot set

Old window manager (2018)

Running

axle's Github CI action serves as documentation for setting up an environment from scratch. axle uses QEMU as its standard emulator and runs on the real hardware I've tested.