K42 is a new open-source research operating system kernel designed from the ground up for scalable cache-coherent 64-bit multiprocessor systems. To provide access to a wide community and code base, we implemented mechanisms to support a Linux API and ABI. The desire to have a high performance, scalable, and maintainable operating system has resulted in several interesting features impacting our implementation of the Linux application environment on top of K42. These features include the implementation of kernel services in user space, object-oriented technology, avoidance of global locks, and avoidance of locking across calls to multiple objects. These characteristics in whole or in part will be representative of future systems that are designed to be scalable and maintainable. We described our experiences and lessons learned where these features impacted the implementation of the Linux API.
K42 is under active development at IBM T. J. Watson, and collaborating Universities. Interested parties may check out the project at: https://www.research.ibm.com/K42.