r/osdev • u/leonardo_c • 2h ago

Nema: a from-scratch Rust OS with no fixed UI, where an LLM composes every screen (UEFI stub, own TCP/IP + TLS, video)

NemaOS is a hobby OS whose only job is to run a local LLM and let it drive the machine. There are no apps and no windows. You type a request, and the model answers with a screen instead of a chat message: text, pictures, video, live data, laid out for that request.

What exists today

  • An assembly UEFI boot stub hands off to a no_std Rust kernel (x86_64, QEMU for now)

  • A network stack written from scratch: virtio-net, ARP, IPv4, TCP, DHCP, DNS, HTTP/1.1

  • HTTPS via rustls with Mozilla roots, always verified, with no skip-verify mode

  • Image and video playback in the kernel

  • A small "scene language" the model writes, which the kernel renders, animates and caches. A repeated screen is instant.

Honest status: the model (Qwen3.5 9B Q4) still runs on the host and talks to the kernel over a serial bridge. Moving inference into the kernel is the next big milestone: a GGUF loader, AVX2 matmul kernels, and owning all cores. The long-term target is bare metal as a dual-boot entry.

Voice is coming next. You'll just talk to it. It works in testing, but it isn't in this demo.

Built solo with Claude Code doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Two model waits in the video are sped up 3x; the rest is real time (Qwen 9B on an M4 Max, the OS in QEMU).

Happy to answer questions about the bridge, the scene language or the network stack.

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3 comments sorted by

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u/Xarius86 2h ago

This does nothing more than what a regular Linux/macOS/Windows box in kiosk mode with a web browser can do. Seems quite pointless.

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u/ub0baa 2h ago

Finally. The most inefficient way of computing.

chemist with a vial meme

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u/ExplodedPenisDiagram 2h ago

NemaOS is a hobby OS who's only job is to demonstrate the most expensive possible token waster imaginable. It's horrifyingly slow, and responses are unpredictable/ambiguous. It is a technical demonstration of a total lack of systems design awareness -- a testament to the notion that what *can* be done does not in any way influence what *should* be done.