Fork that: Three alternative kernels show devs don't need Linux
(2025/09/12)
- Reference: 1757690108
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/09/12/three_new_microkernels/
- Source link:
Between Rust, new file systems, clashes between developers, systemd absorbing its functionality, and more, rumors of possible Linux forks are being muttered again. But there is another, better way.
The Reg FOSS desk is quite a fan of niche, experimental and alternative OSes. We've been writing about them on The Register since [1]over a decade ago . Whenever such things appear, someone asks what they do better than existing OSes. That isn't the point; some recent projects highlight this in interesting ways. At present, that seems increasingly topical.
Times are turbulent and troubled in many parts of the world, and that includes in Linux kernel development. Developers can now use Rust, but that's causing friction. [2]Kernel Rust maintainer Wedson Almeida Filho resigned . And it's not just him. A prominent project using Rust in the kernel is Asahi Linux, the version for Apple Silicon Macs. Since Filho quit, [3]so did Asahi Linux project lead Hector Martin, followed by Apple Silicon GPU [4]driver developer "Asahi Lina," subsequently followed by the other developer on that subsystem, [5]Alyssa Rosenzweig . (She's [6]now at Intel [PDF] – so we can hope for some better FOSS drivers for newer Intel GPUs before too long.)
[7]
Now, [8]as looked likely , bcachefs has been demoted to being [9]externally maintained , after a [10]decade of effort to get the [11]code merged .
[12]
[13]
We recently [14]looked at the new release of GNU Hurd and its significance. As we tried to show then, efforts in the area of microkernels are far from dead or dormant – we just tend not to see much of them on the desktop. Even so, Minix 3 creator Professor Andy Tanenbaum [15]won a gong for his work last year.
The kernel has long had a [16]high turnover in contributors . What if a whole group of disaffected kernel developers, chased out of the project, wanted to go their own way? Rather than fork it, here are some intriguing alternatives.
Managarm
From its description and goals, the [17]Managarm project sounds almost unreal, but it's been around for some six years now. As a bare description sounds implausible, permit us to quote from the project's [18]August 2022 update :
It is a microkernel-based OS that supports asynchronicity throughout the entire system while also providing compatibility with lots of Linux software.
Managarm is multi-platform. It currently runs on x86-64, Arm64, and work on RISC-V is underway. It supports SMP, ACPI, AHCI and NVMe drives, IPv4, Intel virtualization and QEMU, both Wayland and X11 servers, along with hundreds of Linux binaries from the GNU coreutils up. And yes, it can run Doom. It's implemented in C++ and all the [19]code is on GitHub .
This is an experimental research OS. No, you can't just install it on a spare machine, download Firefox and LibreOffice and get to work, but as a ground-up microkernel, to have this rich functionality, a choice of working GUI layers plus the ability to run existing Linux binaries is extremely impressive. Another unusual aspect is that Managarm already has a substantial amount of documentation in the form of the [20]Managarm Handbook .
[21]
The Reg FOSS desk has looked at some experimental C++ OSes before, including the [22]surprisingly complete Serenity OS , but Managarm has a more modern design and its ambition to be able to run existing Linux software is not something we'd seen before.
Asterinas
Of course, these days all the really cool kids aren't working in C++ any more. They're now Rustaceans, building in the more memory-safe Rust language instead. A few years ago we looked at the [23]Rust-based Redox OS , and work on that is still progressing. Project lead [24]Jeremy Soller is busy, though. He's also Principal Engineer at System76, working on the new COSMIC desktop, which as we recently reported is [25]about to go into beta .
[26]Asterinas is another radical new kernel that also supports the Linux ABI, and it's in Rust. It's not exactly a traditional microkernel, though. Instead, it's a new type of kernel, as described in an academic paper called [27]Framekernel: A Safe and Efficient Kernel Architecture via Rust-based Intra-kernel Privilege Separation . (The [28]PDF is seven pages, if you fancy some not too light reading.)
The framekernel design has a similar isolation model to a traditional microkernel, but rather than separating components using CPU privilege rings (as we [29]introduced way back in 2011 ), running most of the OS in user space, the framekernel design separates services from the kernel using Rust's language features. Only the tiny core of the kernel is allowed to use unsafe Rust code, or [30]unsafe superpowers as the Rust docs call it. All the rest of the OS's services are required to be entirely in [31]Safe Rust .
The framekernel paper compares the Asterinas design to the older [32]RedLeaf OS , which was [33]presented at the [34]14th USENIX Symposium on OS Design and Implementation .
[35]
The design is not radically new. There have been multiple other OSes that have attempted to use language features for privilege separation, including [36]SPIN , a 1990s research OS in Modula-3, and [37]HOUSE , which was mostly written in Haskell.
[38]I'm out, says OpenSUSE: We're dropping bcachefs support from next kernel version
[39]'Questing Quokka' enters UI freeze as Ubuntu 25.10 nears release
[40]KDE Linux and FreeBSD hit alpha and – surprise – fan fave Pop_OS nearly at beta
[41]Linux Mint 22.2 polishes the desktop, but kernel updates are the real deal
Rust does have a bit more momentum behind it than either Modula-3 or Haskell, though. (We're irresistibly reminded of Steve Yegge's splendid " [42]Haskell Researchers Announce Discovery of Industry Programmer Who Gives a Shit .") We reckon the proposition of a modern OS in a modern language that can run existing binaries is a lot more enticing than these older examples. Earlier this year, LWN took a [43]more detailed look . We're also pleased to see that Asterinas has [44]a non-trivial amount of documentation .
Xous
The third recent project we want to tell you about has some overlap with both the previous ones. Like Managarm, it's a modern microkernel design. Like Asterinas, it's in Rust. It doesn't aspire to any Linux compatibility, but instead, it has different and in their own way even more impressive goals, such as useful apps, and its own hardware that's already shipping.
Andrew "Bunnie" Huang is a redoubtable hardware hacker. This vulture last wrote about some of Huang's investigations in 2023, when he [45]dissected a $10 pocket calculator that turned out to be running a full version of Android 9. Later that year, he was [46]giving tech advice to President Biden . The Register was already reporting on his work [47]in 2002 , though, and over the years since. Huang knows his stuff.
Where Rust microkernels enter the story is his OS project, Xous. The [48]Xous Book is one place to start – and again, hurrah for documentation – but there's also [49]code on GitHub .
Xous, though, is only one part of a larger project, called [50]Betrusted . What's unusual about this is that there is already shipping hardware: the [51]Precursor handheld . There are several [52]applications for Precursor , the flagship of which is [53]Vault :
The "Vault" Authentication App […] can manage U2F/FIDO2, TOTP, and conventional passwords, all from a single UX, and in a plausibly deniable manner.
Among other uses, Precursor is a battery-powered, pocket-sized secure credentials store – but you can also plug it into a PC like a Yubikey and have it electronically verify you using [54]Universal 2nd Factor (U2F) authentication. The difference is that you can see what you're unlocking on the Precursor's LCD.
As well as the Xous Book, there's also a [55]Betrusted wiki with lots more information. There is a lot more information on [56]Bunnie's blog . We especially enjoyed the way his [57]explanation of the Plausibly Deniable DataBase (PDDB) cites our favourite Xkcd comic, [58]Security . More workers in the infosec area need to think like this, we reckon.
It would be a great loss to the Linux world if people like those we cite in this article's opening paragraphs never returned to work on any parts of the project again – but Managarm, Asterinas, and Xous all demonstrate that there's plenty of fascinating work going on that's nothing to do with Linux, but could help pick up that platform's remarkable array of software, expertise, and accumulated knowledge, even [59]if Linus retired . ®
Get our [60]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2013/11/01/25_alternative_pc_operating_systems/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/02/rust_for_linux_maintainer_steps_down/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/13/ashai_linux_head_quits/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/20/asahi_linux_asahi_lina/
[5] https://rosenzweig.io/blog/asahi-gpu-part-n.html
[6] https://rosenzweig.io/resume-en.pdf
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aMRDkyJGWw6Y8Cnqz50_RAAAAQU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/15/sad_end_of_bcachefs/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/12/opensuse_to_drop_bcachefs_support
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2015/08/24/does_linux_need_a_new_file_system_exgoogle_engineer_thinks_so/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/18/bcachefs/
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aMRDkyJGWw6Y8Cnqz50_RAAAAQU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aMRDkyJGWw6Y8Cnqz50_RAAAAQU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/18/debian_hurd_13/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/25/tanenbaum_minix_award/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/26/linux_kernel_report_2023/
[17] https://managarm.org/
[18] https://managarm.org/2022/08/14/aug-update.html
[19] https://github.com/managarm/managarm
[20] https://docs.managarm.org/handbook/building/index.html
[21] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aMRDkyJGWw6Y8Cnqz50_RAAAAQU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[22] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/31/serenityos/
[23] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/29/redox_os_version_08/
[24] https://soller.dev/
[25] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/10/kde_linux_and_freebsd_hit/
[26] https://asterinas.github.io/
[27] https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3678015.3680492
[28] https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3678015.3680492
[29] https://www.theregister.com/2011/07/11/a_brief_history_of_virtualisation_part_one/
[30] https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/ch20-01-unsafe-rust.html
[31] https://doc.rust-lang.org/nomicon/meet-safe-and-unsafe.html
[32] https://mars-research.github.io/projects/redleaf/
[33] https://www.usenix.org/conference/osdi20/presentation/narayanan-vikram
[34] https://www.usenix.org/conference/osdi20
[35] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aMRDkyJGWw6Y8Cnqz50_RAAAAQU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[36] https://www.modula3.org/projects/spin/
[37] https://programatica.cs.pdx.edu/House/
[38] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/12/opensuse_to_drop_bcachefs_support/
[39] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/11/ubuntu_2510/
[40] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/10/kde_linux_and_freebsd_hit/
[41] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/05/linux_mint_222/
[42] https://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2010/12/haskell-researchers-announce-discovery.html
[43] https://lwn.net/Articles/1022920/
[44] https://asterinas.github.io/book/
[45] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/03/android_pocket_calculator/
[46] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/07/proposed_restrictions_riscv/
[47] https://www.theregister.com/2002/06/04/mit_grad_student_shows_how1/
[48] https://betrusted.io/xous-book/
[49] https://github.com/betrusted-io/xous-core
[50] https://betrusted.io/
[51] https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/precursor
[52] https://github.com/betrusted-io/xous-core/tree/main/apps
[53] https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/precursor/updates/xous-release-v0-9-9-vault-authentication-app-and-more
[54] https://tuta.com/blog/why-u2f-is-important
[55] https://github.com/betrusted-io/betrusted-wiki/wiki
[56] https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/
[57] https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/2022/the-plausibly-deniable-database-pddb/
[58] https://xkcd.com/538/
[59] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/14/the_plan_for_linux_after/
[60] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
The Reg FOSS desk is quite a fan of niche, experimental and alternative OSes. We've been writing about them on The Register since [1]over a decade ago . Whenever such things appear, someone asks what they do better than existing OSes. That isn't the point; some recent projects highlight this in interesting ways. At present, that seems increasingly topical.
Times are turbulent and troubled in many parts of the world, and that includes in Linux kernel development. Developers can now use Rust, but that's causing friction. [2]Kernel Rust maintainer Wedson Almeida Filho resigned . And it's not just him. A prominent project using Rust in the kernel is Asahi Linux, the version for Apple Silicon Macs. Since Filho quit, [3]so did Asahi Linux project lead Hector Martin, followed by Apple Silicon GPU [4]driver developer "Asahi Lina," subsequently followed by the other developer on that subsystem, [5]Alyssa Rosenzweig . (She's [6]now at Intel [PDF] – so we can hope for some better FOSS drivers for newer Intel GPUs before too long.)
[7]
Now, [8]as looked likely , bcachefs has been demoted to being [9]externally maintained , after a [10]decade of effort to get the [11]code merged .
[12]
[13]
We recently [14]looked at the new release of GNU Hurd and its significance. As we tried to show then, efforts in the area of microkernels are far from dead or dormant – we just tend not to see much of them on the desktop. Even so, Minix 3 creator Professor Andy Tanenbaum [15]won a gong for his work last year.
The kernel has long had a [16]high turnover in contributors . What if a whole group of disaffected kernel developers, chased out of the project, wanted to go their own way? Rather than fork it, here are some intriguing alternatives.
Managarm
From its description and goals, the [17]Managarm project sounds almost unreal, but it's been around for some six years now. As a bare description sounds implausible, permit us to quote from the project's [18]August 2022 update :
It is a microkernel-based OS that supports asynchronicity throughout the entire system while also providing compatibility with lots of Linux software.
Managarm is multi-platform. It currently runs on x86-64, Arm64, and work on RISC-V is underway. It supports SMP, ACPI, AHCI and NVMe drives, IPv4, Intel virtualization and QEMU, both Wayland and X11 servers, along with hundreds of Linux binaries from the GNU coreutils up. And yes, it can run Doom. It's implemented in C++ and all the [19]code is on GitHub .
This is an experimental research OS. No, you can't just install it on a spare machine, download Firefox and LibreOffice and get to work, but as a ground-up microkernel, to have this rich functionality, a choice of working GUI layers plus the ability to run existing Linux binaries is extremely impressive. Another unusual aspect is that Managarm already has a substantial amount of documentation in the form of the [20]Managarm Handbook .
[21]
The Reg FOSS desk has looked at some experimental C++ OSes before, including the [22]surprisingly complete Serenity OS , but Managarm has a more modern design and its ambition to be able to run existing Linux software is not something we'd seen before.
Asterinas
Of course, these days all the really cool kids aren't working in C++ any more. They're now Rustaceans, building in the more memory-safe Rust language instead. A few years ago we looked at the [23]Rust-based Redox OS , and work on that is still progressing. Project lead [24]Jeremy Soller is busy, though. He's also Principal Engineer at System76, working on the new COSMIC desktop, which as we recently reported is [25]about to go into beta .
[26]Asterinas is another radical new kernel that also supports the Linux ABI, and it's in Rust. It's not exactly a traditional microkernel, though. Instead, it's a new type of kernel, as described in an academic paper called [27]Framekernel: A Safe and Efficient Kernel Architecture via Rust-based Intra-kernel Privilege Separation . (The [28]PDF is seven pages, if you fancy some not too light reading.)
The framekernel design has a similar isolation model to a traditional microkernel, but rather than separating components using CPU privilege rings (as we [29]introduced way back in 2011 ), running most of the OS in user space, the framekernel design separates services from the kernel using Rust's language features. Only the tiny core of the kernel is allowed to use unsafe Rust code, or [30]unsafe superpowers as the Rust docs call it. All the rest of the OS's services are required to be entirely in [31]Safe Rust .
The framekernel paper compares the Asterinas design to the older [32]RedLeaf OS , which was [33]presented at the [34]14th USENIX Symposium on OS Design and Implementation .
[35]
The design is not radically new. There have been multiple other OSes that have attempted to use language features for privilege separation, including [36]SPIN , a 1990s research OS in Modula-3, and [37]HOUSE , which was mostly written in Haskell.
[38]I'm out, says OpenSUSE: We're dropping bcachefs support from next kernel version
[39]'Questing Quokka' enters UI freeze as Ubuntu 25.10 nears release
[40]KDE Linux and FreeBSD hit alpha and – surprise – fan fave Pop_OS nearly at beta
[41]Linux Mint 22.2 polishes the desktop, but kernel updates are the real deal
Rust does have a bit more momentum behind it than either Modula-3 or Haskell, though. (We're irresistibly reminded of Steve Yegge's splendid " [42]Haskell Researchers Announce Discovery of Industry Programmer Who Gives a Shit .") We reckon the proposition of a modern OS in a modern language that can run existing binaries is a lot more enticing than these older examples. Earlier this year, LWN took a [43]more detailed look . We're also pleased to see that Asterinas has [44]a non-trivial amount of documentation .
Xous
The third recent project we want to tell you about has some overlap with both the previous ones. Like Managarm, it's a modern microkernel design. Like Asterinas, it's in Rust. It doesn't aspire to any Linux compatibility, but instead, it has different and in their own way even more impressive goals, such as useful apps, and its own hardware that's already shipping.
Andrew "Bunnie" Huang is a redoubtable hardware hacker. This vulture last wrote about some of Huang's investigations in 2023, when he [45]dissected a $10 pocket calculator that turned out to be running a full version of Android 9. Later that year, he was [46]giving tech advice to President Biden . The Register was already reporting on his work [47]in 2002 , though, and over the years since. Huang knows his stuff.
Where Rust microkernels enter the story is his OS project, Xous. The [48]Xous Book is one place to start – and again, hurrah for documentation – but there's also [49]code on GitHub .
Xous, though, is only one part of a larger project, called [50]Betrusted . What's unusual about this is that there is already shipping hardware: the [51]Precursor handheld . There are several [52]applications for Precursor , the flagship of which is [53]Vault :
The "Vault" Authentication App […] can manage U2F/FIDO2, TOTP, and conventional passwords, all from a single UX, and in a plausibly deniable manner.
Among other uses, Precursor is a battery-powered, pocket-sized secure credentials store – but you can also plug it into a PC like a Yubikey and have it electronically verify you using [54]Universal 2nd Factor (U2F) authentication. The difference is that you can see what you're unlocking on the Precursor's LCD.
As well as the Xous Book, there's also a [55]Betrusted wiki with lots more information. There is a lot more information on [56]Bunnie's blog . We especially enjoyed the way his [57]explanation of the Plausibly Deniable DataBase (PDDB) cites our favourite Xkcd comic, [58]Security . More workers in the infosec area need to think like this, we reckon.
It would be a great loss to the Linux world if people like those we cite in this article's opening paragraphs never returned to work on any parts of the project again – but Managarm, Asterinas, and Xous all demonstrate that there's plenty of fascinating work going on that's nothing to do with Linux, but could help pick up that platform's remarkable array of software, expertise, and accumulated knowledge, even [59]if Linus retired . ®
Get our [60]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2013/11/01/25_alternative_pc_operating_systems/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/02/rust_for_linux_maintainer_steps_down/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/13/ashai_linux_head_quits/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/20/asahi_linux_asahi_lina/
[5] https://rosenzweig.io/blog/asahi-gpu-part-n.html
[6] https://rosenzweig.io/resume-en.pdf
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aMRDkyJGWw6Y8Cnqz50_RAAAAQU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/15/sad_end_of_bcachefs/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/12/opensuse_to_drop_bcachefs_support
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2015/08/24/does_linux_need_a_new_file_system_exgoogle_engineer_thinks_so/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/18/bcachefs/
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aMRDkyJGWw6Y8Cnqz50_RAAAAQU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aMRDkyJGWw6Y8Cnqz50_RAAAAQU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/18/debian_hurd_13/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/25/tanenbaum_minix_award/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/26/linux_kernel_report_2023/
[17] https://managarm.org/
[18] https://managarm.org/2022/08/14/aug-update.html
[19] https://github.com/managarm/managarm
[20] https://docs.managarm.org/handbook/building/index.html
[21] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aMRDkyJGWw6Y8Cnqz50_RAAAAQU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[22] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/31/serenityos/
[23] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/29/redox_os_version_08/
[24] https://soller.dev/
[25] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/10/kde_linux_and_freebsd_hit/
[26] https://asterinas.github.io/
[27] https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3678015.3680492
[28] https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3678015.3680492
[29] https://www.theregister.com/2011/07/11/a_brief_history_of_virtualisation_part_one/
[30] https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/ch20-01-unsafe-rust.html
[31] https://doc.rust-lang.org/nomicon/meet-safe-and-unsafe.html
[32] https://mars-research.github.io/projects/redleaf/
[33] https://www.usenix.org/conference/osdi20/presentation/narayanan-vikram
[34] https://www.usenix.org/conference/osdi20
[35] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aMRDkyJGWw6Y8Cnqz50_RAAAAQU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[36] https://www.modula3.org/projects/spin/
[37] https://programatica.cs.pdx.edu/House/
[38] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/12/opensuse_to_drop_bcachefs_support/
[39] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/11/ubuntu_2510/
[40] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/10/kde_linux_and_freebsd_hit/
[41] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/05/linux_mint_222/
[42] https://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2010/12/haskell-researchers-announce-discovery.html
[43] https://lwn.net/Articles/1022920/
[44] https://asterinas.github.io/book/
[45] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/03/android_pocket_calculator/
[46] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/07/proposed_restrictions_riscv/
[47] https://www.theregister.com/2002/06/04/mit_grad_student_shows_how1/
[48] https://betrusted.io/xous-book/
[49] https://github.com/betrusted-io/xous-core
[50] https://betrusted.io/
[51] https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/precursor
[52] https://github.com/betrusted-io/xous-core/tree/main/apps
[53] https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/precursor/updates/xous-release-v0-9-9-vault-authentication-app-and-more
[54] https://tuta.com/blog/why-u2f-is-important
[55] https://github.com/betrusted-io/betrusted-wiki/wiki
[56] https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/
[57] https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/2022/the-plausibly-deniable-database-pddb/
[58] https://xkcd.com/538/
[59] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/14/the_plan_for_linux_after/
[60] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Interesting projects
I hadn't seen Rustaceans (Rustards yes) and I suppose we antediluvian benighted C hacks are now Crustaceans .
Alternative (micro)kernels that implement by design the Linux system call interface and other parts of the Linux ABI to support a GNU/Linux userland is an intriguing alternative. I think Debian/Hurd was something in that direction but I have never looked into it.
FreeBSD's support for Linux binaries while fairly impressive does have its limits as I discovered when trying to get Nomachine Linux binaries to run under it.