What is Minoca OS?

Minoca OS is a general purpose operating system written completely from the ground up. It’s intended for devices looking to conserve power, memory, and storage. It aims to be lean, maintainable, modular, and compatible with existing software.

In other words, it’s built for little devices that want a full-featured OS.

On the app side, we’ve got a package manager (opkg), and a growing suite of packages like Python, Ruby, Git, Lua, and Node. Under the hood, Minoca contains a powerful driver model between device drivers and the kernel. The idea is that drivers can be written in a forward compatible manner, so kernel level components can be upgraded without requiring a recompilation of all device drivers.

Why?

Minoca OS was written by two developers, Evan and Chris, over the course of a few years. We took a look at the operating systems out there, and realized it had been over 25 years since the major operating systems had been written. 25 years is a long time to accumulate baggage, not to mention the leaps and bounds by which the hardware has evolved during that time.

We wanted to see if with 25 years of hindsight and a clean slate we could create something interesting and unique in the operating systems space. We felt that the freedom to take a fresh look at the kernel-driver interface could lead to powerful new capabilities. We’re looking at areas like power management, serviceability, and resource isolation that are critical today but weren’t even on the radar twenty years ago. Can we achieve parity with what what operating systems are used for in today’s world, but with less code, and with fewer pain points? Can we do better? We’d like to try.

How can I help?

Right now our biggest problem with Minoca OS is that it’s simply not in widespread circulation. We’d love to have folks spin up an instance and take a look around. Which packages are we missing? Did it crash? Did a device you need not work? What do we need to do to make this system more usable?

What might you use a new lightweight OS for? A server? An embedded device? A home router? We’ve got some ideas, but we need to hear from others.

Our second biggest problem is that there are only two of us. The basics are working, but there’s a mountain of stuff to do, an endlessly long tail. If you’re interested in writing a driver, adding a feature, porting a package, fixing a bug, root-causing an issue, or participating in design discussions, we’d love the help. If you’re interested in integrating Minoca OS into your own project, we’d love to help!

Getting in touch

We’ve got a couple options if you’d like to get in contact with us. For general inquiries, email info@minocacorp.com. For patches, technical discussions, or community questions, email minoca-dev@googlegroups.com. Security issues go to security@minocacorp.com. And finally, if you just want to shoot the breeze, I can be reached at evan@minocacorp.com.