# brutal-org/brutal

🏢 An operating system inspired by brutalist design that combines the ideals of UNIX from the 1970s with modern technology and engineering

Repository: https://github.com/brutal-org/brutal
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/brutal-org-brutal
Homepage: https://brutal.smnx.sh/
Language: C
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: osdev, hobby-os, microkernel, kernel, c, operating-system, modern-c
Last push: 2026-08-26T15:04:29+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 67/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 1917, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1111, forks 42 (observed 2026-08-28T04:03:37.673344+00:00)

## What it is
BRUTAL is a hobby operating system built from scratch in modern C, inspired by brutalist design and combining 1970s UNIX ideals with modern engineering. It runs on a capability-based microkernel and targets x86_64, i686, RISC-V, and ARM architectures.

## Use cases
- learn operating system development
- study a capability-based microkernel implementation
- explore a UNIX-inspired OS written in modern C
- run a hobby OS in QEMU
- contribute to an open-source kernel project

## When to choose
- you want to study or contribute to a from-scratch microkernel OS
- you're interested in OS development with modern C practices
- you want a clean, well-structured codebase for learning kernel internals

## When to avoid
- you need a production-ready operating system for daily use
- you require broad hardware driver support or a mature software ecosystem
- you need a stable platform for running real applications

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: experimental
- function: programming-language, developer-tools
- domain: operating-systems, developer-tools
- platform: windows, cpp, c
- tags: operating-system, microkernel, kernel, osdev, hobby-os, modern-c, capability-based, unix-inspired, brutalist-design, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- brutal-org/brutal (main) score 67

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:37.673344+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T06:43:22.843058+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/brutal-org/brutal (fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:37.673344+00:00, sha 55a51ff72dfd)
  - homepage: https://brutal.smnx.sh/ (fetched 2026-08-29T12:46:37.883736+00:00, sha 6277853edbda)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.