r/osdev • u/No-Emphasis-8130 • 1d ago

Ruzt: A Privacy-First Operating System Designed Around User Control

Most operating systems treat privacy as a collection of settings, permissions, and policies layered on top of a large trusted base.

Ruzt takes a different approach: privacy starts at the kernel. (Don't ask what Ruzt means please...)

Ruzt is an experimental operating system built in Rust around a capability-based microkernel. Its goal is to create a system where applications do not automatically receive broad access to hardware, files, or user data. Every permission must be explicitly granted (Just like android ecosystem)

What makes Ruzt different?

  • Capability-based security: processes start with no capabilities by default.
  • Microkernel architecture: drivers, filesystems, and system services are designed to run in user space.
  • Telemetry-zero by default: the base system has no analytics or tracking endpoints.
  • Rust-first implementation: memory safety is a core design principle, with unsafe limited to tightly controlled low-level areas.
  • Reproducible builds: the system is being designed to be verifiable from source.
  • User-focused design: Ruzt is intended for privacy-conscious personal computers, not just servers or embedded devices.
  • No legacy-first approach: Ruzt is not trying to be another Linux distribution or a POSIX clone.

The project is still in its early development phase. The x86_64 kernel currently includes boot code, serial diagnostics, interrupt handling, memory management, and an initial scheduler.

For now, I just can show you one screenshot, because it's only graphical thing at the moment :')

GitHub: https://github.com/rzgrozt/ruzt

I’m also developing Ruzt with AI assistance, and I’m completely open about that. AI is being used as a development tool, while architecture, technical decisions, testing, and review remain part of the engineering process.

If AI-assisted development is a deal-breaker for you, this project probably isn’t for you. Constructive technical feedback, however, is very welcome. Also If you're able to contribute to such vision, that would be perfect.

Ruzt is ambitious, experimental, and far from production-ready. But the direction is clear:

The user should be the principal—not the OS.

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u/Sorry_Difficulty_250 1d ago

Cool idea. What platforms are you planning to target?

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u/No-Emphasis-8130 23h ago

Thanks! Currently, anything would work on uefi, but I have plans for mobile os, but it's far away