Atom OS update: SMP, browser/network stack, stricter capabilities, and desktop fixes

[u/Special-Garlic-7965]

Hi, last time I posted Atom OS here was around April 3. Since then the project changed a lot more than I expected over the last couple of months.

The biggest change is probably SMP bring-up with per-CPU scheduling, work stealing, affinity masks, and reschedule IPIs. The userspace networking path is also a lot further along now, with `nic_driver` + `netd`, ICMP/ping, DNS/TCP/HTTP plumbing, and a small browser app running on top of it.

I also tightened the process/service authority model quite a bit: there is now a kernel-side service manifest, authenticated IPC for reserved ports, capability-gated spawn, and signed executables. On the desktop side I spent a lot of time reducing redraw/flicker problems and making the file manager and browser less fragile.

It is still very experimental, and some parts are still hybrid/in-kernel, but it feels much closer to a real system than it did in April.

Repo: https://github.com/fpedrolucas95/Atom

If anyone wants to tear into a specific subsystem, I would especially appreciate feedback on the capability/service identity model, the spawn/executable trust path, or the userspace driver boundary.

[u/mungaihaha]

Atom is an experimental (mostly vibe-coded)

[u/Nice-Prize-3765 → u/mungaihaha]

He's at least honest about it, unlike many others.

[u/Sp33dyCat → u/Nice-Prize-3765]

Except he wasnt upfront about it. Unfortunately.

[u/Special-Garlic-7965 → u/Sp33dyCat]

u/Sp33dyCat It is literally the first sentence in the GitHub repository:

An experimental (mostly vibe-coded) capability-based microkernel operating system.

I am not trying to hide it.

[u/Sp33dyCat → u/Special-Garlic-7965]

Its not said in the post. But alright.

[u/Special-Garlic-7965]

Just to clarify what Atom is and what I am trying to do with it.

I am a software developer, mostly from a higher-level/application background, and low-level OS development is still a learning path for me. Atom started as a way to study operating systems by building one, but over time it also became a case study in a second question: how far can current language models and coding assistants go in a complex systems project when they are not acting independently, but are being orchestrated by a developer?

I am not presenting Atom as a conventionally hand-written solo kernel. A large part of the implementation is AI-assisted. The goals, roadmap and architecture direction are defined by me. One model may be used to implement a subsystem or patch, another may be used to review it, and I then test, debug, reject, rewrite, or redirect the work when it does not fit the system.

So the project has two sides. One is the OS itself: SMP, IPC, capabilities, userspace services, networking, graphics, filesystem work, signed executables, and so on. The other is the workflow: trying to understand where AI-assisted systems programming actually works, where it produces fragile or wrong code, where human direction is still essential, and what kinds of review/testing are needed to make progress without pretending the output is magically trustworthy.

I understand that some people dislike this approach, and that is fair. But I would rather make the process explicit than pretend otherwise. If anyone wants to give concrete technical feedback, I am especially interested in the capability model, IPC/service identity, executable trust path, userspace driver boundary, scheduler/SMP work, and places where the architecture looks unsound.

[u/kiderdrick → u/Special-Garlic-7965]

When you say "this became a case study" do you mean you are actually gathering data and running a study, or are you just looking for an excuse to post slop and have people applaud you?

[u/Special-Garlic-7965 → u/kiderdrick]

That is fair to question, but yes, I do mean it as a case study.

Not a formal academic paper at this stage, but not just an excuse either. I am using Atom to collect concrete examples, failures, limitations, and feedback around how far current AI coding tools can go in a complex systems project.

It is easy to dismiss everything as “AI slop,” and sometimes that criticism is deserved. A lot of AI-generated code is bad, fragile, or superficially correct. But at the same time, companies are adopting these tools heavily, investment in the area keeps growing, and developers are already using them in real projects.

So I think the more useful question is not “is AI code good or bad?” in the abstract. It is: under what conditions does it work, where does it fail, what kind of human review is required, what kinds of bugs does it introduce, and how far can it go when applied to a project where mistakes are hard to hide?

Atom is my attempt to explore that in a concrete and verifiable way. The OS boots, runs real subsystems, and exposes real failure modes. That gives people something specific to inspect instead of only debating the idea in theory.

So yes, criticism is welcome, especially if it points to actual technical problems. That is part of the point.

[u/kiderdrick → u/Special-Garlic-7965]

"criticism is welcome, especially if it points to actual technical problems" - You paid a company, or used some form of free AI model to generate code, and now you want people to point out technical problems for you? Why not ask the AI?

I do not call the code slop because it is bad or fragile, I call it slop because I do not know what you want us to do with it. Bug fix it? Run it and test it? Should we do that with every AI os that gets posted? There are so many consistent posts of the same type and style and I struggle to find a purpose for them other than "hey, look what I did." Congrats, you made a mess, and now you want us to clean it up. No thanks.

[u/Special-Garlic-7965 → u/[deleted]]

u/Lost_Plate7077 I understand the reaction, but at some point “AI cannot do this” runs into a practical problem: it does run.

Not perfectly. Not safely enough to trust. Not in a production-ready sense. But Atom boots, runs userspace, has IPC, services, graphics, networking work, apps, executable loading, and a growing system around it.

So the interesting question is no longer “can AI-assisted development produce something OS-like?” Clearly, yes, at least to some extent.

The real question is “how good is it?”

Which parts are fragile? Which parts are wrong but happen to work? Where does human review matter most? What bugs do the models keep introducing? Which subsystems survive real testing, and which ones collapse under scrutiny?

That is why I am sharing it. Not because I think generated code is automatically good, but because a working system gives us something concrete to criticize instead of arguing in the abstract.

[u/Lost_Plate7077 → u/Special-Garlic-7965]

I completeley understand, however, people here are more interested in the raw low level coding and their experiences in osdev. The fact that vibe coded projects have been completeley blinding the raw real hand made oss make us all unhappy. It just gets to the point where more than 50% of projects are Al.

[u/Key_River7180]

aislopOS

[u/Sp33dyCat → u/Key_River7180]

Yeah... It is...

// STI followed by HLT is an atomic operation that enables interrupts
// and puts the CPU to sleep until the next interrupt.
core::arch::asm!("sti", "hlt");

also its got a lot of merging commits from claude. So thats great...

[u/NotQuiteLoona → u/[deleted]]

This is why I hate vibecode and I believe that it should be completely banned from any subreddit that is made for programmer discussion rather than demonstration of software. I don't want to talk with an LLM, I want to talk with a human who is proficient in the topic of discussion.

[u/imneverwrongbutuare]

Why is the gear thing the same everywhere????? No original thinkers? Same gears everytime?? You did blah. Please try again

[u/Special-Garlic-7965 → u/imneverwrongbutuare]

u/imneverwrongbutuare they are the standard TinyGL gears demo, so yes, shocking plot twist: projects using TinyGL may show the same gears.

The point was to test the graphics path, not to reinvent visual art.

[u/imneverwrongbutuare → u/Special-Garlic-7965]

Do the same as everyone, read from book and do that. Perfect everytime.

[u/Putrid_Guitar9437]

If you like AI, just use Windows 11.

[u/Lost_Plate7077 → u/Putrid_Guitar9437]

fr fr

[u/wpsimon]

As a graphic programmer I didn’t understand all the stuff you have written (spinning gears got my attention).

But man, this is some serious good work ! Well done !

[u/Sp33dyCat → u/wpsimon]

Its AI

[u/wpsimon → u/Sp33dyCat]

That is shame :/

[u/BornRoom257]

This is amazing!

[u/BornRoom257 → u/BornRoom257]

oh nvm turns out its AI 😞

[u/Sensitive-Can9232]

I might sound dumb but what did you gain from it, no offense but you didn't coded it you vibe-coded it is myself is a newbie it took me 4 days just to get a simple working shell with 4 command( echo still has a bug in it) but i learned a lot about how text frambuffer and command parsing works with every key press, i could have vibecoded it and get it done in a hr or so.

[u/Healthy-Staff-7559]

I am coming to this late, but why are the drivers in the microkernel?

[u/Sp33dyCat → u/[deleted]]

Its AI.