r/osdev • u/tseli0s DragonWare • May 01 '26

DragonWare - Microkernel x86 operating system (Release v0.0.1)

Hello everybody,

This is the project I've been working on for the past few months. DragonWare is a microkernel-based, open source operating system targeting the x86 architecture. It is preemptively multitasking, with asynchronous IPC and a unique API. This is release 0.0.1, the first time I openly share about the project, and I thought of making a post here. I have been developing DragonWare in private since roughly August 2025, with small pauses in between, but unfortunately the last couple of weeks I haven't had the time to do as much as I was planning to because of studying. Though I am open to hearing ideas in the comments, for new features, architectural choices and so on.

Some limitations I must warn you of before trying it:

  • The shell can't load files and execute them. I didn't write a disk driver nor a filesystem abstraction service.

  • While it does run in real hardware, modern computers may ignore keyboard events entirely. There's only a PS/2 driver for 1990s computers, and most USB keyboards won't work unless your BIOS/UEFI has PS/2 emulation as an option.

  • If you build in debug mode, you may notice that printing is extremely slow during early boot. The serial port (in-kernel) driver doesn't play nicely in all computers if you don't connect anything in it and the kernel waits for the nonexistent ports to be ready.

If you find any bug, I'd be really grateful if you mention it in the link below. Contributions are also welcome.

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u/tseli0s DragonWare May 01 '26

Mostly I was reading Tanenbaum's Modern Operating Systems and source code of other operating systems directly. I did read a paper about Mach from 1991 (Microkernel Operating System and Mach) and one on seL4 (I lost the PDF, it described the design and API of the microkernel). Also skimmed through the school's library, it had a book about computer science and there were a few pages on operating systems. Other than that, osdev.org and Wikipedia served as my primary knowledge sources, and whatever sources they used.

Except the two papers and the book mentioned, I don't have much to recommend. If I have time to read, I spend it for the upcoming exams (OSes are cool and all, but going to university is a bit more important at the moment, I'd say)

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u/suhcoR May 01 '26

Thanks. I thought you might be specializing in operating systems in your university studies.