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CharleX OS

Build it. Understand it. Improve it. Keep it free.

CharleX is a simple, experimental, free, and open-source operating system project.

The kernel is written in C and is being developed from the ground up as a learning and engineering project. The current implementation is small, but the goal is not.

CharleX is intended to grow into a real general-purpose operating system with its own kernel, userspace, tools, filesystem support, networking, applications, and development ecosystem.

This is a work in progress.

It is not finished.
It is not perfect.
And that’s the point.

Philosophy

CharleX is built around a simple idea:

The computer belongs to the person using it.

Software should be understandable, modifiable, shareable, and free to improve.

We don’t want an operating system that treats its users as spectators.

We want an operating system where developers can open the source, understand what is happening, change it, break it, fix it, and contribute the improvements back.

CharleX follows a few principles:

• Freedom to study the source
• Freedom to modify the system
• Freedom to redistribute improvements
• Minimal unnecessary restrictions
• Simple and understandable engineering
• Community-driven development
• No artificial walls between users and developers
• Build functionality instead of building bureaucracy

The project is inspired by the philosophy and engineering culture surrounding
free operating systems such as Linux and FreeBSD.

Why CharleX?

There are already excellent operating systems.

Linux exists.

FreeBSD exists.

Other systems exist.

So why build another one?

Because building an operating system teaches things that using one doesn’t.

CharleX is an attempt to understand the machine from the bottom up:

Hardware
   ↓
Boot
   ↓
Kernel
   ↓
Memory
   ↓
Processes
   ↓
Drivers
   ↓
Filesystem
   ↓
Userspace
   ↓
Applications