ACAce17·Apr 8, 2017
Another kernel written in D: https://github.com/xomboverlord/xomb/tree/unborn
In The reference D compiler is now open sourcexomboverlord
xomb
Rust2011–2017
xomboverlord / xomb
xomb
An exokernel operating system written in Rust
7Distinct people
8Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
3GitHub stars
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What it is
An exokernel operating system written in Rust
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 5:04:57 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year8 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2011-01-13 19:16:50 UTC to 2017-04-08 06:52:46 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 2011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2012 | 2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2013 | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2014 | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
What Hacker News says
8 sourcesthere was actually some activity within a fork:
https://github.com/xomboverlord/xomb/network
In PowerNex: a kernel written in the D Programming LanguageXOmB: An exokernel operating system written in D
3 points · Open discussion> Having a GC excludes you from some programming domains -- well controlled latency, bootstrapping/operating systems.
Even without the GC, D is still a good "better-C" language. The GC didn't stop people writing bare-metal / operating system kernels in D:
https://github.com/JinShil/D_Runtime_ARM_Cortex-M_study/wiki/1.1---Hello,-World!
https://github.com/xomboverlord/xomb
In Programming in D – Tutorial and ReferenceNot GNU projects but relevant and different kernels / operating systems:
http://www.barrelfish.org/
https://github.com/xomboverlord/xomb
http://www.returninfinity.com/baremetal.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SeL4
I don't consider any of these to be a waste of time in the least; some move quicker than others but ultimately every one of these projects is advancing the state of the art and we may one day see the fruit of this difficult type of work (building kernels from scratch).
In GNU Hurd 0.5, GNU Mach 1.4, GNU MIG 1.4 releasedD is a fun language, and some friends and I (mostly my friends) have been/were writing an exokernel in it[1], but between the weird licensing, D1 -> D2 transition, dual standard libraries, and a few other things, it's been really rocky.
I hear it's a bit better these days, but my "better C++" interests lie in Rust nowadays. That said, this link is one of the ways D is strictly better: since it's been around a while, there's more educational information out there.
1: https://github.com/xomboverlord/xomb
In Programming in DNo love for the D programming language? There is a WIP (although not much activity since 2010?) kernel being written in D[1].
[1] https://github.com/xomboverlord/xomb
In A Quick Look at the Rust Programming LanguageI also have a bare bones OS project up on GitHub:
https://github.com/xomboverlord/xomb-bare-bones
It's a bit of a niche inside a niche: it explains how to set things up to write an OS in D. This was extracted from the OS that my friends and I started a while ago, that's now two of theirs' PhD research:
https://github.com/xomboverlord/xomb
In How to write a simple operating system