The Lions Operating System | Hacker News Reader

The Lions Operating System

lionsos.org

209 pointsplunderer81 comments

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.

That's also where John Lions taught.

    John Lions is not Lions OS
       is not        is not
         Clancy the Lion

What does mascot mean

A mascot is an animal figure that represents a product or sports team. For example, the penguin named Tux is the mascot of Linux, and the mascot for the Brisbane Broncos rugby team is the horse named Buck the Bronco.

Mascot is, unrelatedly, also a suburb of Sydney.

It is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8Ka_8kHTj4&t=903s

Not presumably, but explicitly. Both in documentation and presentations by seL4 they consistently make a point to mention so.

aka the Lions book

While folks keep discussing C vs Rust, what got my attention was MicroPython and Pancake (https://trustworthy.systems/projects/pancake).

When I read about Pancake, for a very short moment I was hoping for some Elan[1] influences…

1: https://os.inf.tu-dresden.de/L4/l3elan.html

For a short while, I ran the Eumel operating system and wrote an application in Elan. Among other interesting properties, files weren't saved, but were checkpointed by the OS. I enjoyed this exercise, although Eumel remained a very small niche.

Cool, thanks for the link.

I have not heard of Pancake, seems interesting. It led me to https://cakeml.org. Looking at https://github.com/CakeML/cakeml/blob/3194e00b69ce817cf47751..., I feel quite dumb. :P

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.

0. https://lionsos.org/docs/examples/firewall/

1. https://youtu.be/wP48V34lDhk

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.

> Genode, another OS that runs on SeL4.

Hang on, what? Genode can run on seL4 but seL4 is not part of it. Genode can also run on Linux and a bunch of other things. It has its own native kernel and it's not based on seL4 in any way, AFAIK.

No, you’re totally right I phrased it badly

Unequal

Finally an OS that is really an OS and not a linux distro

"but contains composable components for creating custom operating systems that are specific to a particular task"

like reviving OSfree aka 64bit OS/2

It's an OS built around a verified and formally proofed L4 kernel, ie. a microkernel like QNX or MACH. The L4 is a venerable design reaching back at least 25 years, if not longer. It has seen commercial and research uses, e.g. the SIMKO3 mobile phones or the Fiasco distribution. The term "task" is specific here. Running Linux as a custom operating system is a task in microkernel lingo.

OSFree is developed on top of L4.

Aussies were supposed to progress with Darbat.

It never happened.

>It is not a conventional operating system, but contains composable components for creating custom operating systems that are specific to a particular task. Components are joined together using the Microkit tool.

Unfortunately, like Genode, this approach yields something that is interesting, but can't be a daily driver for me. 8(

Meanwhile, the US national security continues its downhill slide because we've chosen operating systems based on ambient authority.

My first thought was to wonder whether it was a Linux offshoot.

if you rearrange the letters, you get the Linos OS.

Mountain Lion is calling and wants its name back.

You mean OS X 10.7 Lion?

10.8 was Mountain Lion.

But before OS X was OS 9, and OS 9 was not the same thing as OS-9.

https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/Mac_OS_9

https://microware.com/

Before OS 9 was OS 8, which was unrelated to OS/8.

https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/Mac_OS_8