Eos is a build tool for illumos. It works by locating build.toml files in the illumos source tree and generating a top-level ninja build specification based on the contents of those files. The user can then simply run ninja to build illumos.

• The current illumos build system is hostile to git workflows. Running git status -uall currently shows over 50,000 files after a nightly build when no actual source files have been changed. This can lead to lost work by losing track of the needle that is your code in this massive haystack - ask me how I know. Eos puts everything generated by the build process in a top level bld directory.

• On a top-of-the-line workstation today, illumos takes about 30 minutes to build completely using the nightly scripts (about 15 minutes in quick mode). The goal here is to do better by an order of magnitude by taking a fresh look at the build system, not within the context of the current build system, but by asking: how do we produce the needed artifacts in the simplest and fastest way possible.

• Trade a complex imperative makefile system for a simple collection of declarative build specifications.

illumos is a vast body of software, so this is a rather large undertaking. It cannot happen all at once, and it will require the expertise of many people. The goal here is to incrementally grow Eos and the associated illumos branch containing Eos build specifications until we are capable of building everything. The status section below keeps track of where we are at.

There are several ways to contribute to Eos

1. Add new build specs to advance illumos coverage.

2. More advanced ninja usage.

3. Add new build types (e.g. user libraries, commands, etc).

4. Add additional tooling, can we replace dmake and nightly with a one-stop shop tool?

Kernel

Libraries

Commands

At this point you will have a build tree in the bld directory. You can take a look at the generated ninja file build.ninja.