ChorusOS is a

microkernel In computer science, a microkernel (often abbreviated as μ-kernel) is the near-minimum amount of software that can provide the mechanisms needed to implement an operating system (OS). These mechanisms include low-level address space management, ...

real-time operating system A real-time operating system (RTOS) is an operating system (OS) for real-time applications that processes data and events that have critically defined time constraints. An RTOS is distinct from a time-sharing operating system, such as Unix, which m ...

designed as a

message passing In computer science, message passing is a technique for invoking behavior (i.e., running a program) on a computer. The invoking program sends a message to a process (which may be an actor or object) and relies on that process and its supportin ...

computing model. ChorusOS began as the Chorus

distributed Distribution may refer to: Mathematics *Distribution (mathematics), generalized functions used to formulate solutions of partial differential equations *Probability distribution, the probability of a particular value or value range of a varia ...

real-time

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...

research project at the

French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation The National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology (Inria) () is a French national research institution focusing on computer science and applied mathematics. It was created under the name ''Institut de recherche en informatiq ...

(INRIA) in 1979. During the 1980s, Chorus was one of two earliest microkernels (the other being

Mach Mach may refer to Mach number, the speed of sound in local conditions. It may also refer to: Computing * Mach (kernel), an operating systems kernel technology * ATI Mach, a 2D GPU chip by ATI * GNU Mach, the microkernel upon which GNU Hurd is ba ...

) and was developed commercially by startup company Chorus Systèmes SA. Over time, development effort shifted away from distribution aspects to

real-time Real-time or real time describes various operations in computing or other processes that must guarantee response times within a specified time (deadline), usually a relatively short time. A real-time process is generally one that happens in defined ...

for

embedded system An embedded system is a computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is ''embedded'' ...

s. In 1997,

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, th ...

acquired Chorus Systèmes for its

technology, which went toward the new

JavaOS JavaOS is an operating system based on a Java virtual machine and predominantly used on SIM cards to run applications on behalf of operators and security services. It was originally developed by Sun Microsystems. Unlike Windows, macOS, Unix, or U ...

. Sun (and henceforth Oracle) no longer supports ChorusOS. The founders of Chorus Systèmes started a new company called Jaluna in August 2002. Jaluna then became VirtualLogix, which was then acquired by Red Bend in September 2010. VirtualLogix designed

s using

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which in ...

and ChorusOS (which they named ''VirtualLogix C5''). C5 was described by them as a

carrier grade In telecommunication, a "carrier grade" or "carrier class" refers to a system, or a hardware or software component that is extremely reliable, well tested and proven in its capabilities. Carrier grade systems are tested and engineered to meet or e ...

operating system, and was actively maintained by them. The latest source tree of ChorusOS, an evolution of version 5.0, was released as

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Open ...

by Sun and is available at the Sun Download Center. The Jaluna project has completed these sources and published it online. Jaluna-1 is described there as a real-time Portable Operating System Interface (RT-

POSIX The Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) is a family of standards specified by the IEEE Computer Society for maintaining compatibility between operating systems. POSIX defines both the system- and user-level application programming interf ...

) layer based on

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular op ...

4.1, and the CDE

cross-platform software In computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform software ...

development environment. ChorusOS is supported by popular Secure Socket Layer and

Transport Layer Security Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a cryptographic protocol designed to provide communications security over a computer network. The protocol is widely used in applications such as email, instant messaging, and voice over IP, but its use in secu ...

(SSL/TLS)

libraries A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

such as

wolfSSL wolfSSL is a small, portable, embedded SSL/TLS library targeted for use by embedded systems developers. It is an open source implementation of TLS (SSL 3.0, TLS 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, and DTLS 1.0, 1.2, and 1.3) written in the C programming lang ...

References

External links

Red Bend WEB site
* Sun'

* Sun'
ChorusOS 5.0 Documentation Collection
{{Microkernel Distributed operating systems French inventions Microkernel-based operating systems Microkernels Real-time operating systems Sun Microsystems software

See also

References

External links