Article

K42: building a complete operating system

Authors:

Marc Auslander,

Bryan Rosenburg,

Robert W. Wisniewski,

Dilma Da Silva,

Michal Ostrowski,

Jonathan Appavoo,

Amos Waterland,

Volkmar UhligAuthors Info & Claims

EuroSys '06: Proceedings of the 1st ACM SIGOPS/EuroSys European Conference on Computer Systems 2006

Pages 133 - 145

https://doi.org/10.1145/1217935.1217949

Published: 18 April 2006 Publication History

Abstract

K42 is one of the few recent research projects that is examining operating system design structure issues in the context of new whole-system design. K42 is open source and was designed from the ground up to perform well and to be scalable, customizable, and maintainable. The project was begun in 1996 by a team at IBM Research. Over the last nine years there has been a development effort on K42 from between six to twenty researchers and developers across IBM, collaborating universities, and national laboratories. K42 supports the Linux API and ABI, and is able to run unmodified Linux applications and libraries. The approach we took in K42 to achieve scalability and customizability has been successful.The project has produced positive research results, has resulted in contributions to Linux and the Xen hypervisor on Power, and continues to be a rich platform for exploring system software technology. Today, K42, is one of the key exploratory platforms in the DOE's FAST-OS program, is being used as a prototyping vehicle in IBM's PERCS project, and is being used by universities and national labs for exploratory research. In this paper, we provide insight into building an entire system by discussing the motivation and history of K42, describing its fundamental technologies, and presenting an overview of the research directions we have been pursuing.

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cover image ACM Conferences

EuroSys '06: Proceedings of the 1st ACM SIGOPS/EuroSys European Conference on Computer Systems 2006

April 2006

420 pages

ISBN:1595933220

DOI:10.1145/1217935

Conference Chair:
Yolande Berbers
K. U. Leuven, Belgium
,
Program Chair:
Willy Zwaenepoel
EPFL

ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review Volume 40, Issue 4
Proceedings of the 2006 EuroSys conference
October 2006
383 pages
ISSN:0163-5980
DOI:10.1145/1218063
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Copyright © 2006 Authors.

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SIGOPS: ACM Special Interest Group on Operating Systems

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Published: 18 April 2006

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Hille MAsmussen NBhatotia PHärtig HDan TDahlia M(2019)SemperOSProceedings of the 2019 USENIX Conference on Usenix Annual Technical Conference10.5555/3358807.3358867(709-722)Online publication date: 10-Jul-2019
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