GNU Mach is an implementation of the Mach microkernel

Mach (kernel)

Mach is an operating system kernel developed at Carnegie Mellon University to support operating system research, primarily distributed and parallel computation. Although Mach is often mentioned as one of the earliest examples of a microkernel, not all versions of Mach are microkernels...

. It is the default microkernel in the GNU Hurd

GNU Hurd

GNU Hurd is a free software Unix-like replacement for the Unix kernel, released under the GNU General Public License. It has been under development since 1990 by the GNU Project of the Free Software Foundation...

 operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

. GNU Mach runs on IA-32

IA-32

IA-32 , also known as x86-32, i386 or x86, is the CISC instruction-set architecture of Intel's most commercially successful microprocessors, and was first implemented in the Intel 80386 as a 32-bit extension of x86 architecture...

 machines. GNU Mach is maintained by developers on the GNU project. Anybody can use, modify, and redistribute it under the terms of the GNU General Public License

GNU General Public License

The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....

 (GPL).

History

Early versions of the Hurd were developed on top of CMU

Carnegie Mellon University

Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....

's Mach 3.0.

In 1994, CMU stopped working on Mach, and the GNU Project switched to Utah

University of Utah

The University of Utah, also known as the U or the U of U, is a public, coeducational research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The university was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret by the General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret, making it Utah's oldest...

's Mach 4. The kernel known as "GNU Mach" was derived from Mach 4 once Utah stopped development. The first ChangeLog entry by Thomas Bushnell

Thomas Bushnell

Thomas Bushnell, BSG, formerly known as Michael Bushnell, is a software developer and Gregorian friar. He was the founder and principal architect of GNU's official kernel project, GNU Hurd, from its instigation until November 2003, when he posted to the GNU project's discussion mailing list saying...

 (rather than by a Utah researcher) is from 16 December 1996.

In 2002, Roland McGrath

Roland McGrath

Roland McGrath is a computer programmer.While working for the GNU Project, he wrote the GNU C Library, co-wrote GNU Make, worked on the Hurd and GNU Mach, and wrote some parts of GNU Emacs.For a time he worked at the University of Utah's ....

 branched the OSKit-Mach branch from GNU Mach 1.2, intending to replace all the device drivers and some of the hardware support with code from OSKit. After the release of GNU Mach 1.3, this branch was intended to become the GNU Mach 2.0 main line; however, as of 2006, OSKit-Mach is not being developed.

As of 2007, development continues on the GNU Mach 1.x branch, and is working towards a 1.4 release.

Version history

• Version 1.0 was released on 14 April 1997.
• Version 1.1.1 was released on 12 May 1997.
• Version 1.1.2 was released on 10 June 1997.
• Version 1.1.3 was released on 12 June 1997.
• Version 1.2 was released on 21 June 1999.
• Version 1.3 was released on 27 May 2002, and features advanced boot script support, support for disks larger than 10 gigabyte
  Gigabyte
  The gigabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage. The prefix giga means 109 in the International System of Units , therefore 1 gigabyte is...
  
  s and an improved console
  Console
  - Computing and video games :* System console, a physical device to operate a computer** Virtual console, a user interface for multiple computer consoles on one device** Command-line interface, the typical use of the computer console...
  
  .

External links

• http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/microkernel/mach/gnumach.html
• The Mach 4 Project, from which GNU Mach was derived.