docs: update phyllomeos/purpose

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lukas 2022-01-17 15:50:47 +00:00
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title: Purpose
description:
published: true
date: 2022-01-17T15:47:54.785Z
date: 2022-01-17T15:50:44.996Z
tags:
editor: markdown
dateCreated: 2021-11-12T15:31:30.659Z
@ -24,6 +24,17 @@ Virtualization provides a partial answer to this problem as it allows the abstra
There are many types of [virtualization](virt/lexicon#virtualization). Phyllome OS is primarily focused on paravirtualization, which assumes that an operating system running in a virtualized environment is aware of it. For any operating systems to run well in such an environment, one would only have to focus on developing and maintaining a set of generic drivers for virtual hardware, a task that is well under way for many popular operating systems, including Linux-based, Darwin-based or Windows NT-based operating systems
Virtualization, however, is only a partial answer to this problem. Allowing compatibility with physical hardware, including USB controllers or graphic cards, one would still need to use a base operating system that can provide software to drive these physical devices. Most Linux distributions, including as Fedora or Debian, ship with a large selection of such drivers, and as such represent another part of the solution to this problem. Moreover, for certain hardware such as Network Interface Cards (NICs), Linux drivers are now shipping first. In other words, the industry is developing drivers for Linux first, at least for certain categories of components
## In summary
Lets wrap it up: the idea behind Phyllome OS is to rely on Linux to provide drivers for specific hardware components and virtualization to provide a limited set of generic virtualized hardware that are already or could be made to work with most operating systems. The burden of hardware compatibility is put on Linux, freeing the operating system underneath, which would only need to provide generic virtual hardware drivers[^2].
[^2]: For instance, to provide storage block capacity, a developer of a specific operating system like Sculpt OS or ReactOS would only need to develop support for virtio-blk for its environment, and resort to Linux to interact with the hardware directly.
Technically speaking, Phyllome OS is an operating system, a free and open source Linux distribution, a Fedora Remix based on Fedora Server designed to leverage hardware-assisted virtualization to run graphically-accelerated UNIX and non-UNIX-based operating systems locally, in a virtual machine, using off-the-shelf hardware and open source software.
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*[**Go back to parent page**](https://wiki.phyllo.me/)*