Dev tools · September 18, 2025
I wrote an OS in 1000 lines of Zig
A minimal RISC-V 32-bit OS written in Zig. Contribute to botirkhaltaev/pico-os development by creating an account on GitHub.
I wrote an OS in 1000 lines of Zig launched on September 18, 2025 with 151 votes, #212 of 8,160 launches that month and more than 95% of that year's launches. The site was still online in September 2026, 1 year on.
In plain words
This is a minimal operating system written in Zig, implemented in approximately 1000 lines of code. It demonstrates core OS concepts in a compact form. The project is intended for developers interested in low-level systems programming, OS architecture, and the Zig programming language. It serves as an educational resource for understanding how operating systems function at a fundamental level. The source code is available on GitHub for anyone to review and build upon.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
A minimal operating system for RISC-V 32-bit, written in Zig. pico-os is a small educational OS inspired by "Operating System in 1,000 Lines". It demonstrates the basics of OS development: booting, memory management, process scheduling, and user-mode syscalls. git clone https://github.com/botirk38/pico-os.git cd pico-os # Default build (ReleaseSmall) zig build # Run in QEMU zig build run # Debug build (maps to ReleaseSmall, Debug would hang without console) zig build -Doptimize=ReleaseSafe # Change log level zig build -Dlog_level=debug # Run zig build run Other useful commands zig fmt --check src/ # Check formatting zig build # Build kernel and user binaries zig build run # Run in QEMU…from github.com
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