Barrelfish (operating system) explained

Barrelfish
Developer:	ETH Zurich with assistance of Microsoft Research
Working State:	Discontinued
Source Model:	Open source
Latest Release Version:	2020.03.23
Kernel Type:	Multikernel, Microkernel
License:	MIT License

Barrelfish is an experimental computer operating system built by ETH Zurich with the assistance of Microsoft Research in Cambridge.^{[1] [2] [3]} It is an experimental operating system designed from the ground up for scalability for computers built with multi-core processors with the goal of reducing the compounding decrease in benefit as more CPUs are used in a computer by putting low-level hardware information in a database, thus removing the need for driver software.^{[4] [5]}

The partners released the first snapshot of the OS on September 15, 2009^[6] with a second being released in March, 2011. Excluding some third-party libraries, which are covered by various BSD-like open source licenses, Barrelfish is released under the MIT license. Snapshots are regularly released, the last one dating to March 23, 2020.^{[7] [8] [9]}

While originally being developed in collaboration with Microsoft Research, it was also partly supported by Hewlett Packard Enterprise Labs, Huawei, Cisco, Oracle, and VMware before it was discontinued.

See also

• Singularity
• Midori

Further reading

• The Multikernel: A new OS architecture for scalable multicore systems . Andrew Baumann . Paul Barham . Pierre-Evariste Dagand . Tim Harris . Rebecca Isaacs . Simon Peter . Timothy Roscoe . Adrian Schüpbach . Akhilesh Singhania . 22nd ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles . Big Sky, MT, USA . October 2009 . 2019-09-07.
• Filet-o-Fish: practical and dependable domain-specific languages for OS development . Pierre-Evariste Dagand . Andrew Baumann . Timothy Roscoe . 5th Workshop on Programming Languages and Operating Systems . Big Sky, MT, USA . October 2009 . 2019-09-07.
• Your computer is already a distributed system. Why isn't your OS? . Andrew Baumann . Simon Peter . Adrian Schüpbach . Akhilesh Singhania . Timothy Roscoe . Paul Barham . Rebecca Isaacs . 12th Workshop on Hot Topics in Operating Systems . Monte Verità, Switzerland . May 2009 . 2019-09-07.
• Embracing diversity in the Barrelfish manycore operating system . Adrian Schüpbach . Simon Peter . Andrew Baumann . Timothy Roscoe . Paul Barham . Tim Harris . Rebecca Isaacs . Workshop on Managed Many-Core Systems . Boston, MA, USA . June 2008 . 2019-09-07.

External links

• Barrelfish.org
• Project Paper - "The Multikernel: A new OS architecture for scalable multicore systems" (PDF file)

Notes and References

1. Web site: The Barrelfish Operating System.
2. Web site: Microsoft unveils Barrelfish multi-core optimized OS. Joseph L. Flatley. 2009-09-29. Engadget.
3. Web site: Microsoft 'Barrelfish' OS will speed multicore systems. Jeremy Kirk. 2009-09-30. InfoWorld.
4. Web site: Microsoft Unveils "Barrelfish", a New Multi-core OS. Jason Mick. 2009-09-28. DailyTech. https://web.archive.org/web/20160303192056/http://www.dailytech.com/Microsoft%20Unveils%20Barrelfish%20a%20New%20Multicore%20OS/article16344.htm. 2016-03-03.
5. Web site: Microsoft and European researchers deliver a snapshot of multikernel 'Barrelfish' OS. Mary Jo Foley. 2009-09-25. ZDNet.
6. Web site: Microsoft, researchers release new operating system project: Barrelfish. Julie Bort. 2009-09-24. Network World.
7. New Barrelfish Release. Roni Häcki. 2018-02-23. Barrelfish-users.
8. New Barrelfish Release. Lukas Humbel. 2018-10-04. Barrelfish-users.
9. New Barrelfish Release. Lukas Humbel. 2020-03-23. Barrelfish-users.