Experimental research · working implementation

guideXOS Hypervisor

Experimental architecture emulation and virtual-machine research for the guideXOS ecosystem.

guideXOS Hypervisor is an experimental virtual-machine and architecture-emulation platform built to explore unusual computing environments at the machine level. Its current flagship effort is IA-64: executing the historical Itanium EFI → ELILO → Linux boot chain while developing the processor, memory, firmware, debugging, and checkpoint infrastructure required to carry it forward.

The project remains research software rather than a production virtualization platform, but it is a working implementation rather than only a future concept.

Explore IA-64 Research Technical Wiki View Source

Current expedition · IA-64

EFI → ELILO → Linux IA-64

A historical Itanium boot chain is the current proving ground for a serious machine implementation.

A machine-level investigation

guideXOS Hypervisor is executing historical Itanium software through a purpose-built virtual machine implementation. The work moves from EFI into ELILO and toward Linux while the processor, memory system, firmware services, and diagnostic tooling are implemented and debugged against real behavior.

That makes IA-64 more than a synthetic instruction test: it is a demanding path through the architecture and the software ecosystem that once depended on it.

Experimental path

The status below describes the current research path. It distinguishes work that is running today from areas that are still being brought up or are not yet complete.

Extensive · evolving

IA-64 instruction execution

Real IA-64 instruction execution is driving current implementation and architecture debugging work.

Implemented for investigation

EFI environment

The research path can establish and execute the EFI environment needed for the boot-chain investigation.

Reached · running

ELILO execution

ELILO has been reached and is executing in the current research path.

Active investigation

Linux handoff and bring-up

Kernel handoff and Linux IA-64 bring-up remain active areas; a complete Linux boot is not yet claimed.

Substantial · evolving

MMU, region, RSE, and state

IA-64 MMU, region, RSE, and related architectural state are substantially implemented and continue to evolve.

Diagnostic prototype

Checkpoint and restore

Post-EFI full-machine checkpoint/restore is experimental diagnostic infrastructure for replaying investigations.

Not yet achieved

Complete Linux boot

This remains a research goal, not an achieved milestone.

IA-64: Journey Through the Dark ISO comic page 1 Read page 1 ↗
IA-64: Journey Through the Dark ISO · comic series, page 1 Open full resolution ↗

Field notes · IA-64

Journey Through the Dark ISO

A visual companion to the Hypervisor research effort, following an IA-64 journey through boot paths, architecture boundaries, and the strange places where an operating system meets its execution environment.

This is the first page in an ongoing comic series. Read it in the dedicated reader, or open the artwork at full resolution.

Read page 1

Technical milestones · research notes

Why this IA-64 path is unusual

A compact view of the engineering story behind the screenshots.

01

Historical IA-64 execution

The project is exercising EFI, ELILO, and Linux-era IA-64 binaries through the emulator rather than only synthetic instruction tests.

02

Architecture archaeology

During bring-up, failures require distinguishing emulator defects from behavior embedded in historical binaries and toolchains.

03

Instruction semantics

The emulator continues to gain IA-64 semantics as real operating-system execution reaches previously untouched paths, including recent work such as POPCNT and other system/integer operations.

04

Post-EFI checkpointing

An experimental diagnostic checkpoint path can preserve full machine state around the EFI-to-kernel handoff, so later kernel investigations do not always need to replay the long deterministic firmware path.

What it is

  • A working experimental virtual-machine and architecture-emulation research platform.
  • A graphical VM manager paired with machine-level IA-64 implementation and debugging work.
  • A separate project that can inform the broader guideXOS ecosystem without being the guideXOS Server product.

What it is not

  • Not production virtualization or a finished end-user VM product.
  • Not a claim that the complete Linux IA-64 boot has been achieved.
  • Not required to use guideXOS or guideXOS Server, and not a replacement for Hyper-V, VMware, VirtualBox, or QEMU.

Relationship to guideXOS Server

guideXOS Server is the operating-system and systems-platform branch. guideXOS Hypervisor is the separate emulation and virtual-machine research project. They may eventually complement each other, but they should not be treated as the same repository or product.

Open guideXOS Server