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Anthill OS is a distributed, multitasking operating system for the Raspberry Pi.

Example

This example runs two instances of Anthill OS on QEMU and lets you access one's file tree from the other.

Notes:

• Only tested on Linux.

Prerequisites:

• QEMU (works only up to version 8.2.6)
• socat (or any program which can connect two sockets)
• Release tarball
• A terminal multiplexer, such as tmux or screen, is recommended.

First, download the tarball and unpack it in an empty directory, using tar -xvf anthill-os.tar.gz.

Open a terminal and input:

socat -v UNIX-LISTEN:/tmp/i.so UNIX-LISTEN:/tmp/o.so

This creates and connects two sockets, i.so and o.so in the tmp directory

In another terminal, input:

qemu-system-aarch64 -M raspi3b -kernel kernel8.bin -device loader,file=ramdisk,addr=0x3e000000 -nographic -serial unix:/tmp/i.so -serial mon:stdio

And in another terminal, input

qemu-system-aarch64 -M raspi3b -kernel kernel8.bin -device loader,file=ramdisk,addr=0x3e000000 -nographic -serial unix:/tmp/o.so -serial mon:stdio

What this does, line by line:

• qemu-system-aarch64: Starts QEMU aarch64 instance.
• -M raspi3b: Virtualises Raspberry Pi Model B.
• -kernel kernel8.bin: Loads Anthill OS kernel.
• -device loader,file=ramdisk,addr=0x3e000000: Tells QEMU where to load the ramdisk. The kernel expects it at this exact address.
• -nographic: Disables graphical output.
• -serial unix:/tmp/{i,o}.so: Connects pl011 device to unix socket
• -serial mon:stdio: Connects mini uart to input output

You should now have two QEMU instances connected via unix sockets. You can navigate their file trees with the commands cd and ls. You can use Ctrl-C to clear the command (backspace can't be used as this is all through the uart).

Now, go to the first instance and input:

/boot/bin/exportfs /dev/pl011

This tells Anthill OS to export its file tree to connections through the device /dev/pl011. Go to the second instance and input:

importfs /dev/pl011 /mnt

This tells the system to import a file tree from the device /dev/pl011 and put its root to the /mnt directory.

You can exit QEMU with Ctrl-A Ctrl-X.