v1.0.0 — Freeware Edition

LateralusOS

A bare-metal research operating system built from scratch — Multiboot2 boot, x86_64 kernel, GUI desktop, network stack, filesystem, and terminal. Written in C, x86 Assembly, and the Lateralus programming language.

System Architecture

ltlsh — lateralus-os v3.0.1

Features

🖥️

GUI Desktop

Double-buffered framebuffer, window manager with animations, start menu, taskbar, system monitor, desktop icons, context menus, and Alt+Tab switching.

🌊

Animated Wallpapers

Real-time animated wallpaper engine with Fibonacci spirals, starfield, and custom pattern support — rendered at full framerate.

💻

Terminal Emulator

Functional terminal with 55+ built-in commands, VFS operations, piping, environment variables, and a full shell interpreter.

📁

Filesystem

RAM filesystem with 64 inodes, Virtual File System layer, /proc and /dev virtual filesystems, and FAT32 compatibility layer.

🌐

Network Stack

Full IPv4/ARP/UDP/ICMP/DHCP network stack, NIC drivers (RTL8139, virtio-net), and built-in networking utilities.

🔊

PC Speaker Audio

PIT Channel 2 speaker driver with melody queue support — play tones, sequences, and system sounds from bare metal.

⚙️

Cooperative Scheduler

Task scheduler supporting 16 concurrent tasks with context switching, priorities, and inter-process communication.

🖱️

PS/2 Mouse & Keyboard

IRQ-driven PS/2 mouse driver (3-byte packets) and keyboard driver with full scancode translation and modifier key support.

🔒

Crypto Services

Built-in cryptographic service layer with hashing, encryption, and secure communication primitives available system-wide.

📦

Built-in Apps

Ships with ltlc compiler, chat client, text editor, package manager, system monitor, and more — all running on bare metal.

🏗️

Multiboot2 Boot

Standards-compliant Multiboot2 bootloader with GDT, IDT, paging setup, and memory map parsing. Boots in QEMU, Bochs, or real hardware.

🧬

Lateralus-Native

The first operating system built with the Lateralus programming language — kernel services, drivers, shell, and apps all written in .ltl.

Editions

Four build profiles for different use cases

🔬 Research

Full GUI desktop, all drivers, networking, crypto, dev tools. For exploration and experimentation.

🏭 Industrial

Headless mode, mesh networking, crypto services, system monitor. For embedded and IoT deployments.

🖥️ Workstation

GUI desktop, terminal, apps, filesystem. The daily-driver profile for development.

🔧 Embedded

Minimal kernel, no GUI, tiny footprint. For resource-constrained hardware and custom builds.

System Requirements

Architecture
x86_64 (AMD64)
RAM
64 MB minimum
Boot
Multiboot2-compatible (GRUB, QEMU -kernel)
Display
VGA framebuffer (1024×768 recommended)
Emulators
QEMU, Bochs, VirtualBox, VMware
Build Tools
GCC cross-compiler, NASM, Make, Python 3.10+

Quick Start

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/bad-antics/lateralus-lang.git
cd lateralus-lang/lateralus-os

# Build and boot in QEMU
make
./build_and_boot.sh

# Or boot a specific edition
make EDITION=research
make EDITION=workstation
make EDITION=industrial
make EDITION=embedded