Even Linux is being re-written in Rust, with AI Agents!
Gregory Kurtzer, co-founder of CentOS and creator of Rocky Linux, has built a brand-new, Linux-compatible operating system kernel named Ginux in just 11 days. Rather than writing it manually or forking Linux, Kurtzer used a "Human-Directed Agentic Engineering" approach, having an AI agent write nearly all of the 139,000 lines of code. Despite being a research prototype, the kernel is already capable of booting Rocky Linux 10 inside a virtual machine.
Gregory Kurtzer, co-founder of CentOS and creator of Rocky Linux, has built a brand-new, Linux-compatible operating system kernel named Ginux in just 11 days. Rather than writing it manually or forking Linux, Kurtzer used a "Human-Directed Agentic Engineering" approach, having an AI agent write nearly all of the 139,000 lines of code. Despite being a research prototype, the kernel is already capable of booting Rocky Linux 10 inside a virtual machine.
- The Creator & Project: Built by
Gregory Kurtzer
- AI-Driven Development: Produced in just 11 days through a single long-running OpenAI Codex task using GPT-5.6 Sol. The AI handled writing the code, tests, debugging, and fixes across over 1,000 commits.
- Architecture:
- Written mostly in Rust from scratch (not a Linux fork).
- Mimics the Linux Application Binary Interface (ABI), allowing unmodified Linux programs to run on it.
- Treats Linux as a "personality" interface rather than underlying code.
- Current Limitations:
- Out of 375 system calls in Linux 6.12's x86-64 interface, Ginux only fully implements 82 (245 partially work, 48 are deliberately blocked).
- Runs entirely inside a QEMU virtual machine with no support yet for physical hardware, GPUs, or NVMe drives.
- It remains strictly a research prototype that has not undergone independent security audits.
- Booting Real Distros: Despite its gaps, it uses standard OCI container images to assemble file systems and can successfully boot Rocky Linux 10 all the way to systemd's multi-user target.
- Broader AI Context: The news arrives as the broader Linux ecosystem warms up to AI—such as Linus Torvalds recently testing AI-generated page cache patches and kernel maintainers relaxing AI disclosure rules for contributors.
Gregory M. Kurtzer on X: "In 11 days, I built a new Linux-compatible operating system kernel that boots Rocky Linux 10 with systemd, all using Human-Directed Agentic Engineering (HDAE). I call it Ginux. It is an independent, Rust-first x86-64 kernel (not a Linux fork) with its own memory management, boot" / X
gmkurtzer/ginux @GitHub
Rust is coming to "classic" Linux, too, while there is apparently 40 millions of lines of C code, so 100K of Rust code is just a good start... good technical interview... But if done without AI that is "no contest"...
SE Radio 744: Danilo Krummrich on Rust in the Linux Kernel – Software Engineering Radio
- The Creator & Project: Built by
Gregory Kurtzer - AI-Driven Development: Produced in just 11 days through a single long-running OpenAI Codex task using GPT-5.6 Sol. The AI handled writing the code, tests, debugging, and fixes across over 1,000 commits.
- Architecture:
- Written mostly in Rust from scratch (not a Linux fork).
- Mimics the Linux Application Binary Interface (ABI), allowing unmodified Linux programs to run on it.
- Treats Linux as a "personality" interface rather than underlying code.
- Current Limitations:
- Out of 375 system calls in Linux 6.12's x86-64 interface, Ginux only fully implements 82 (245 partially work, 48 are deliberately blocked).
- Runs entirely inside a QEMU virtual machine with no support yet for physical hardware, GPUs, or NVMe drives.
- It remains strictly a research prototype that has not undergone independent security audits.
- Booting Real Distros: Despite its gaps, it uses standard OCI container images to assemble file systems and can successfully boot Rocky Linux 10 all the way to systemd's multi-user target.
- Broader AI Context: The news arrives as the broader Linux ecosystem warms up to AI—such as Linus Torvalds recently testing AI-generated page cache patches and kernel maintainers relaxing AI disclosure rules for contributors.
Gregory M. Kurtzer on X: "In 11 days, I built a new Linux-compatible operating system kernel that boots Rocky Linux 10 with systemd, all using Human-Directed Agentic Engineering (HDAE). I call it Ginux. It is an independent, Rust-first x86-64 kernel (not a Linux fork) with its own memory management, boot" / X
gmkurtzer/ginux @GitHub
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