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What is SerenityOS?

SerenityOS is a graphical Unix-like operating system for 64-bit x86, Arm, and RISC-V computers. It’s a love letter to ’90s user interfaces with a custom Unix-like core that flatters with sincerity by stealing beautiful ideas from various other systems.
The goal is a marriage between the aesthetic of late-1990s productivity software and the power-user accessibility of late-2000s *nix. This is a system by us, for us, based on the things we like.

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Key Features

SerenityOS is a complete operating system built from scratch - everything from the kernel to the applications is right in the repository, with no extra dependencies:

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Core System

  • Modern 64-bit kernel with pre-emptive multi-threading
  • Security features including hardware protections, limited userland capabilities, W^X memory, pledge & unveil, (K)ASLR, OOM-resistance, and state-of-the-art TLS algorithms
  • System services including WindowServer, LoginServer, AudioServer, WebServer, RequestServer, CrashServer, and modern IPC
  • Good POSIX compatibility with LibC, Shell, syscalls, signals, pseudoterminals, filesystem notifications, and standard Unix utilities

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Web & Networking

  • Full-featured browser with JavaScript, WebAssembly, and more (check the spec compliance for JS, CSS, and Wasm)
  • Network stack with support for IPv4, TCP, UDP
  • Network protocols including DNS, HTTP, Gemini, IMAP, NTP

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File Systems & Storage

  • POSIX-like virtual file systems (/proc, /dev, /sys, /tmp)
  • ext2 file system support
  • File format support for PNG, JPEG, GIF, MP3, WAV, FLAC, ZIP, TAR, PDF, QOI, Gemini, and more

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Development Tools

Profiling & Debugging

Kernel-supported profiling, CrashReporter, and interactive GUI playground

HackStudio IDE

Full IDE for C++ development and more

Development Utilities

HexEditor and comprehensive debugging tools

Rich Libraries

Libraries for cryptography, OpenGL, audio, JavaScript, GUI, and more

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Applications & Games

  • Everyday applications including Spreadsheet with JavaScript, TextEditor, Terminal, PixelPaint, multimedia viewers and players, Mail, Assistant, Calculator
  • Games including Solitaire, Minesweeper, 2048, chess, Conway’s Game of Life
  • Demos including CatDog, Starfield, Eyes, mandelbrot set, WidgetGallery

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Design Philosophy

SerenityOS features a unified style and design philosophy with a flexible theming system and custom bitmap and vector fonts available at fonts.serenityos.net.

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Ports Collection

In addition to the built-in software, there are over three hundred ports of popular open-source software, including:
  • Games
  • Compilers
  • Unix tools
  • Multimedia applications
  • And much more
See the available ports documentation for the complete list.

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Built From Scratch

Every component of SerenityOS - from the kernel to the browser to the games - is built from scratch by the community. This maximizes hackability, accountability, and fun!
All of the features listed above are right in the repository, with no extra dependencies, built from-scratch by the SerenityOS community.

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Platform Support

SerenityOS supports cross-compilation builds from:
  • Linux
  • macOS
  • Windows (with WSL2)
  • Many other *Nixes
The build system will launch a QEMU instance running the OS with hardware or software virtualization enabled as supported.

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Community & Resources

Join Discord

Join our active Discord community

Watch Development

Andreas Kling’s YouTube channel

Man Pages

Browse the online manual pages

GitHub

View the source code and contribute

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License

SerenityOS is licensed under a 2-clause BSD license, making it free and open source software.

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Next Steps

Quick Start

Build and run SerenityOS

FAQ

Common questions answered

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

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