ToaruOS is a hobbyoperating system and kernel developed largely independently by K. Lange. Despite a 1.0 version being released, Lange has stated that it is still 'incomplete', and may not be 'suitable for any purpose you might have for an operating system'. It is released under the permissiveUIUC License, and supports 32-bit computerhardware without SMP.
ToaruOS is programmed in C, and uses the Cairo graphics library. It has support for GCC, Python, and Simple DirectMedia Layer as well as many open-source utilities - including Vim. A package manager and basic window switcher are also included. The kernel is a 'basic Unix-like environment'. It has a hybrid architecture, with internal and external device support being delegated to modules. Several filesystems are supported via this system, including ext2 and ISO 9660. Networking support is included, but is limited to simple IPv4 functionality. The userspace also has a window manager, Yutani, with input support. It stores windows as shared memory regions with 32-bit colour, and uses pipes to communicate to other parts of the OS. Unusually, windows also support a rotation feature.
History
Development was started by creator K. Lange in December 2010; it initially was supported by the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, but after the beginning of 2012, it largely shifted to being mostly done by Lange. Initially, it was based on tutorials for x86 kernels. The operating system was named after the A Certain Scientific Railgun series of manga, but Lange stated it also mirrors generic naming of other hobby OSes. A GUI was added with a window manager in 2012, this was replaced with a more advanced version in 2014. The initial official release, version 1.0, was released at the end of January. This marked the first stable release, but Lange stated it was still 'a work indevelopment with so much work left to be done'. This was superseded by versions 1.0.1 and 1.0.2, which added audio improvements and fixed bugs. For April Fools' Day 2015, Lange released , a version of ToaruOS themed after the animated series .
