Ever wanted a simple, compact, small, yet usable and relatively full-featured operating system using a SunOS kernel with most of its utilities written in Ada? Whatever the answer, now you can. “AuroraUX is a SunOS-derived kernel and userland. The core of the project are its utilities written in Ada. Other, poorly implemented features have been fixed or rewritten, too. Ada was chosen over other languages because it sucks the least.” At least they’re honest.

“From the world’s most advanced reconnaissance aircraft to the desktop: AuroraUX, an OpenSolaris derived distribution, pulls together the best technologies empowering today’s mission critical data center facilities to fighter jets that require quality software that simply cannot fail without very serious consequences,” the project’s about page reads.

Ada is a programming language designed by the US Department of Defence in the late 1970s and early 1980s to supersede the hundreds of other programming languages that were in use then b the Department. As Wikipedia explains, “Ada is a structured, statically typed, imperative, and object-oriented high-level computer programming language, extended from Pascal and other languages”. It’s used in mission critical environments, such as avionics.

The project has lots of interesting goals, so be sure to take a look around the website.