Vinix – A modern operating system written in V

Vinix is a minimalist, Unix-like operating system with a kernel written mostly in V (with some C and architecture-specific assembly) that targets ARM64 and x86-64 hardware. It boots to a custom desktop built in V and V UI2 in seconds and settles at roughly 100 MB RAM and 1 GB disk usage. The kernel is built with manual memory management (-gc none) to avoid GC pauses, and the system intentionally omits systemd, background indexers, and telemetry. Vinix implements the Linux syscall ABI, ELF layout, and musl behavior so unmodified Alpine Linux aarch64 binaries run natively on the bare CPU (no VM, container, or emulation). Per-application sandboxing is available but optional, confining a process to its own private directory when enabled.

Development highlights include running Firefox, Chromium, Blender, GIMP, Wine, and other existing packages; ongoing work on Apple Silicon GPU drivers (AGX and DCP for M1, with M2-M5 planned) to enable hardware-accelerated graphics; and a small-toolchain ecosystem (Clang, GCC, Go, Rust, Python, etc.). The stack boots via Limine, supports QEMU/KVM for testing, and emphasizes one curated distro, UI, package manager, and init system to reduce choices. It is alpha software under active development and aims to make Macs fast, open, and game-capable by combining Wine, an x86 translation layer, and native GPU support.