Introduction
MerlionOS is a Singapore-inspired AI-native hobby operating system kernel written in Rust for x86_64, aarch64, RISC-V, and LoongArch.
Philosophy
Section titled “Philosophy”Born for AI. Built by AI. (生于AI，成于AI)
MerlionOS explores what an operating system looks like when AI is a first-class citizen — not bolted on, but woven into the kernel itself. The entire OS was built using AI agents working in parallel, demonstrating that complex systems software can be created through human-AI collaboration.
Features
Section titled “Features”| Category | Features |
|---|---|
| Memory | Frame allocator, 4-level page tables, demand paging, slab allocator, heap with leak detection |
| Process | Preemptive multitasking, context switching, per-process page tables, signals, process groups |
| Filesystem | VFS, FAT16, ext2, ext4 (extents/journaling), tmpfs, procfs, sysfs |
| Storage | virtio-blk, AHCI, NVMe, GPT partitions, NTFS read-only, software RAID 0/1/5, KV database |
| Networking | TCP (Reno/Cubic/BBR), UDP, IPv4+IPv6, ARP/NDP, DHCP, DNS, HTTP/HTTPS, TLS, WebSocket, MQTT, QUIC/HTTP/3, gRPC, OSPF/BGP, iptables/NAT, eBPF, DPDK |
| Servers | HTTP server, SSH server, DNS server, MQTT broker, HTTPS reverse proxy |
| Security | Capabilities (14 flags), seccomp, ACLs, file permissions, sudo, AES-128, RSA, X.509 |
| AI | NL shell, neural network inference (INT32), ML training, vector store, AI workflows, self-evolution, LLM inference (INT4/INT8), AI system administration, self-hosting compiler |
| Userspace | Ring 3 execution, 45 POSIX syscalls, ELF loader, per-process page tables |
| GPU | AMD + Intel compute drivers, NVIDIA/Ascend/Cambricon detection |
| Audio | Multi-channel mixer, WAV playback, tone synthesis, MIDI parser |
| GUI | Widget toolkit (10 types), layout engine, dialog system, themes |
| Display | Window compositor, desktop environment, framebuffer terminal |
| Input | USB mouse, keyboard layouts, touchpad |
| Hardware | SMP, APIC, HPET, PCI, USB (xHCI), Bluetooth (HCI/L2CAP), e1000e NIC |
| Languages | Forth, Lisp, WASM/WASI runtime, shell scripting (if/for/while/function) |
| Containers | Process isolation, veth pairs, network bridge, microkernel mode, OCI runtime, KVM virtualization |
| Self-hosting | Rust subset compiler, x86_64 assembler, ELF linker |
| DevTools | Kernel debugger, CPU profiler, alloc tracker, syscall stats, fuzzing framework |
| Power | CPU P-states/C-states, thermal management, battery simulation, ACPI events |
Supported Architectures
Section titled “Supported Architectures”| Architecture | Target | Hardware | Build | Test |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x86_64 | Intel/AMD PC | BIOS + UEFI | make build / make iso | make run / make run-uefi-mac |
| aarch64 | Raspberry Pi 3/4/5 | Pi firmware | make pi | make run-pi |
| riscv64 | RISC-V (SiFive, StarFive) | OpenSBI | make riscv | make run-riscv |
| loongarch64 | Loongson 3A5000/6000 | UEFI | make loongarch | make run-loongarch |
Project Status
Section titled “Project Status”- 380 source modules, 139,905 lines of Rust, 45 syscalls
- 100+ releases (v1 through v100 and beyond)
- 480+ shell commands
- 4 CPU architectures (x86_64, aarch64, riscv64, loongarch64)
- Optional microkernel mode with service isolation and hot-restart
- Runs on QEMU; UEFI boot via Limine on real hardware
- MIT licensed