Web site: phantomos.org
Origin: Russia
Category: RTOS
Desktop environment: GUI
Architecture: x86
Based on: Independent
Wikipedia: Phantom OS
Media: Install
The last version | Released: 2019
Phantom OS – a persistent operating system. Its primary goal is to provide environment for programs thatsurvive OS reboot. Such an environment greatly simplifies software development and makes it possible to write programs that for example do not need a filesystem.
Phantom OS is designed by Russian programmer Dmitry Zavalishin and developed by the Russian company Digital Zone together with Innopolis University. Work on the OS has been underway since 2010.
The operating system is based on the concept of persistent virtual memory, is oriented towards managed code and is aimed at use in wearable and embedded computers. Phantom OS is one of the few operating systems that does not rely on the classic concepts of Unix-like systems (unlike their concept of “Everything is a file”, Phantom is based on the principle of “Everything is an object”). It is assumed that the Phantom OS model allows both the system itself and applications to be simpler and, at the same time, more efficient.
Like Unix in its time, Phantom does not claim to be unique in the ideas and mechanisms it uses, but it does claim that these ideas have not been used in such a combination before. Individually, the ideas that Phantom relies on have been or are being used in systems such as:
– IBM i — single-level memory, object-oriented OS, persistence, managed environment
– EROS — has persistence, but no global address space and managed environment, as a result — communications between components are inconvenient (IDL and message composition and parsing) and ineffective.
– Singularity — has a managed environment, no persistence
– PalmOS — has a semblance of persistence (but uses file semantics to work with it), but there is no global environment and cheap IPC, in addition, persistence is de facto not guaranteed — a power failure leads to data loss on the device.
The Phantom OS screenshot source: Wikipedia; author: Dzavalishin; License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International.
