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osFree project

osFree is a Free Open Source software operating system development project, aiming to replace eventually all OS/2 subsystems with Open source analogues. It aims for OS/2 Warp 4 (Merlin) as a base compatibility system, which does not mean that we will not support features of newer (OS/2 Warp Server for e-business, eComStation and ArcaOS) OS/2 versions. This includes rewriting not only user-level code but the OS/2 kernel too.

We're collecting existing code for OS/2 subsystems for years. Also we are developing our own bootloader named FreeLdr and OS/2 personality for L4 microkernel, i.e. a number of servers, implementing the Control Program (OS/2 kernel) Interface functionality in userspace. See osFree design and development concept for more details. Visit the #osFree IRC channel on the EFNet or https://t.me/osfree_pub Telegram channel.

Several projects with similar goals exist (or existed). Here is the brief comparison of goals and tasks of different projects.

Our project is reusing the code of many opensource projects.

Our project addresses in hidden networks: Tor one, I2P one, Yggdrasil.

Project News

09 June, 2020

SMTP server now working, anti-spam measures taken.

Recently, we added some anti-spam measures for our forum and mail server. Anti-spam plugin installed on our forum. Now we check all users against the black list when they are registering or posting messages. This reduces the number of spambot accounts registered significantly.

Also, now our SMTP server is able not only receive mail, but send too. Now the mail from our server to other email servers, like e.g. gmail.com, is accepted. So, from now, we enabled verification emails when registering user accounts, and disabled account approving by the administrator. So, registration at the forum is now open.

15 May, 2020

Today, a new developer joins the osFree team. Let's introduce Pedro Vicente from Portugal. Welcome to our team!

03 September, 2019

Several people asked about how they could donate to osFree. Recently, we created a Patreon page for osFree to collect donations on monthly basis. So, if you want to support osFree, become a patron. If you want to make a one-time donation, you can transfer some money to our Bitcoin wallet. See Donate page for more details.

22 December, 2018

Forum migration to pbpbb3.

Today we migrated our forum from myUPB to phpbb3. Also, from now, wiki logins are integrated with forum, so, once you login to wiki, you're logged-in in forum, and vice versa. We migrated all old wiki users, so, login/password are still the same.

7 June, 2018

Migration to the new hosting.

Today we started migration of osfree.org to another hosting. Here we'll have more powerful server with more disk space, RAM and network bandwidth.

11 February, 2018

Migration to GitHub.

Today Oxyd finished migration of our source code repository from SourceForge to GitHub. Our new repository is https://github.com/osfree-project/osfree/. We welcome new contributions and pull requests, since now.

3 December, 2017

Migration to Genode is started.

We started to create the required abstraction layers to make the osFreeOS/2 personality more portable. This will allow us to also create L4Re and Genode ports. As our OS/2 personality is currently based on an outdated and abandoned L4Env OS framework, we need to migrate to a more alive and developing framework. Most promising is Genode OS framework, though, L4Re, which is a successor for L4Env is also evolving and it supports more hardware platforms, than Genode. So, ideally, we need ports of our OS/2 personality to both. Currently, Genode has more priority, the port is in progress.

27 June, 2014

RSS feeds repaired, the fight with spambots seems to reach the end

After server crash at the end of 2012, the site is being repaired from Feb.-Mar. 2013 until now. Now the wiki is being filled with info (some of which is restored from web.archive.org), and parts of Forum too. So, welcome to our new site! Also, until now, some code were committed to the repo (namely, fat32.ifs with FORMAT routine enabled (by valerius), and also commits by Viking, fixing some problems with build system under linux etc.)

27 October, 2011

A presentation of osFree on CC'2011

August 28, osFree team member Vadim Priluzkiy (aka Oxyd) has demonstrated osFree OS/2 personality working together with l4linux over L4 microkernel. The presentation was carried out during the Chaos Constructions'2011 yearly Computer Art Festival. (http://party11.cc.org.ru), the presentation video is here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=yxE6Jy3SQ04

31 January, 2010

Recent activity

We have linked our channels #osfree @ eCSNet and #osfree @ EFNet. All messages in one channel are translated to another channel. Also we reviewing our release and development position to be more effective. As always, we are welcome new developers in many areas (DOS/WIN16 and OS/2 subsystems).

5 September, 2009

Forums

Registration in forums at osfree.org site is enabled recently. Please report forum bugs and render problems to us in “osfree.org site” forum.

3 September, 2009

0.0.4 release

We released this preview to show actual possibility of LX executables (native OS/2 executable file format) to be run on top of L4. Output from LX executable is “I am really small!” phrase. Other things are debug output. Our executable uses msg.dll which uses doscalls.dll. So, linking also works. Also we present here osFree loader which allows to load as Multiboot compatible kernels as native OS/2 kernel. Loader is modular and easy to extend. Next release will provide some interactive like directory browsing and files execution. See roadmap at www.osfree.org for more info.

osFree userland commit log

osFree OS/2 personality commit log

Last bugtracker issues

Last forum topics

Roadmap

We're now at the alpha stage, which means that the current version is not feature-complete nor stable and not recommended for everyday usage. The 0.0.x release series will still stay in alpha stage, and 0.9 release series will be marked as beta, meaning a system which is suitable for every day use.

The next release will be 0.0.5, with an release date being open. See our osFree roadmap for details.

Getting access to site areas

The site has several separate areas, like wiki, forum, bugtracker, webmail and dotProject. If you want to get access to these, you should register here first. After you verify your account via email, you'll get access to all five parts of the site. Approval of user accounts by site admin is now disabled. After verification of your account, you need to wait 15 mins or less, until your account info is propagated from forum to another site parts. Note also, that there is a guest account (user: guest, password: guest), which allows you to login to the site areas, requiring a login (like a dotProject area). It gives you a read only access. Once you log in into the forum, you get access to wiki too, and vice versa. The same login applies to dotProject, webmail and bugtracker. After adding to “Users” group you'll get a write access to wiki, bugtracker and forum. If you want to contribute to site design or development, or to get a mail account, the admin can add you to corresponding user groups and your access level will be increased. In case of troubles, or questions, you can contact site admin.