xv6 is a re-implementation of Dennis Ritchie's and Ken Thompson's Unix Version 6 (v6). xv6 loosely follows the structure and style of v6, but is implemented for a modern x86-based multiprocessor using ANSI C.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
xv6 is inspired by John Lions's Commentary on UNIX 6th Edition (Peer to Peer Communications; ISBN: 1-57398-013-7; 1st edition (June 14, 2000)). See also http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2016/xv6.html, which provides pointers to on-line resources for v6.
xv6 borrows code from the following sources: JOS (asm.h, elf.h, mmu.h, bootasm.S, ide.c, console.c, and others) Plan 9 (entryother.S, mp.h, mp.c, lapic.c) FreeBSD (ioapic.c) NetBSD (console.c)
The following people have made contributions: Russ Cox (context switching, locking), Cliff Frey (MP), Xiao Yu (MP), Nickolai Zeldovich, and Austin Clements.
We are also grateful for the bug reports and patches contributed by Silas Boyd-Wickizer, Anton Burtsev, Cody Cutler, Mike CAT, Tej Chajed, Nelson Elhage, Saar Ettinger, Alice Ferrazzi, Nathaniel Filardo, Peter Froehlich, Yakir Goaron, Shivam Handa, Bryan Henry, Jim Huang, Alexander Kapshuk, Anders Kaseorg, kehao95, Wolfgang Keller, Eddie Kohler, Austin Liew, Imbar Marinescu, Yandong Mao, Hitoshi Mitake, Carmi Merimovich, Joel Nider, Greg Price, Ayan Shafqat, Eldar Sehayek, Yongming Shen, Cam Tenny, Rafael Ubal, Warren Toomey, Stephen Tu, Pablo Ventura, Xi Wang, Keiichi Watanabe, Nicolas Wolovick, Grant Wu, Jindong Zhang, Icenowy Zheng, and Zou Chang Wei.
The code in the files that constitute xv6 is Copyright 2006-2016 Frans Kaashoek, Robert Morris, and Russ Cox.
ERROR REPORTS
Please send errors and suggestions to Frans Kaashoek and Robert Morris (kaashoek,rtm@mit.edu). The main purpose of xv6 is as a teaching operating system for MIT's 6.828, so we are more interested in simplifications and clarifications than new features.
BUILDING AND RUNNING XV6
To build xv6 on an x86 ELF machine (like Linux or FreeBSD), run "make". On non-x86 or non-ELF machines (like OS X, even on x86), you will need to install a cross-compiler gcc suite capable of producing x86 ELF binaries. See http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2016/tools.html. Then run "make TOOLPREFIX=i386-jos-elf-". Now install the QEMU PC simulator and run "make qemu".